Maintaining Your Program During School Disruptions

As a performing arts educator, one of your skills – possibly strengths – is your ability to look and plan long term. Being able to select a program of music that will challenge your students, provide material for you to reinforce ideas and teach new ones, and can be performed successfully several months down the road requires such skills.

While the goal is long term, the work, however, is not. Each rehearsal needs to move your group forward, albeit often just a little, while providing a learning experience for each ensemble member. A successful holiday concert in December is made possible by the small improvements made in September.

Every teacher dislikes disruptions to class, whether they are small ones like fire drills, medium ones like losing a class period for an assembly or pep rally, or the long ones where a traumatic event at the school or community postpones classes for a week or more. Every educator has learned how to adjust lesson plans to sustain their students’ learning through such disruptions.

Most classes do not rely upon 100-perent attendance to be successful daily or weekly, or by unit, chapter or test. Musical ensembles, however, rely on regular attendance. Due to the participatory nature of those groups, the learning and the preparation required for successful concerts can be disrupted by the absence of just a single member. And as a multi-grade level class, having all of the juniors on a field trip or freshmen taking a state exam, creates havoc for the music educator when it does little or nothing for their colleagues in other disciplines.

Dealing with the short-term disruptions that include all of the ensemble members requires the arts educator to keep long-term goals in mind and not get tied down to the minutiae of what should have been accomplished today. A missed rehearsal does upset the progress being made and causes some specific learning to be delayed; however, that learning can be combined in another rehearsal’s plan or taught without the usual follow-up reinforcement.

The music theory or history or appreciation or musical skills knowledge represented in each programmed selection can still be gained within that long-term goal. By focusing on having the ensemble performance-ready by the concert, all of the other aspects within the music in their folders can be brought to the students’ attention and understanding.

The most challenging class disruptions are when key members of the group (or entire grade levels) are missing from one or more rehearsals. Not having your lead trumpet, your strongest clarinetist or your only percussionist limits the performance capabilities of those in attendance. Use those disruptions as opportunities to develop others in your group, either for this performance or for years in the future. Have each member of a section take turns covering the lead part or solo; have other instruments read the part (give your bari sax player a chance to lead the section); see if there are cues for that important line in other parts. If you cannot find ways to cover for the missing personnel, consider working on other sections of the piece or further developing the foundation under that solo. Take the time to relate the melody to the harmony being played by others so they can improve the musical support they offer.

Disruptions that take out key personnel that cannot be substituted for are chances to reinforce other aspects of your music for the students on the second and third parts. Warm up using scales that relate to the key signatures in the program that younger students might find more difficult. Use rhythm exercises to develop more confidence in beat subdivision or counter lines within the piece. Find ways to make the music come alive for those whose part is more stagnant by relating those parts of each other, to the mood of the piece, or to the phrasing of the melody or the rhythm provided by the percussion. Every musical line has a purpose and not having the melody allows those playing supporting roles to find theirs in each section of each piece.

The critical disruptions to the ensemble’s long-term performance goals are those that have the students, some or all, out of school for extended periods of time. While some of those disruptions are ones that you can foresee (snowstorms) and have students bring their instruments and music folders home, most sneak up on you without any real warning or time to prepare.

To engage your students while they (and likely you) are at home takes a bit of technology, a bit of upfront planning and a bit of creativity. Thanks to the pandemic, we all know multiple ways to connect, share and teach online, including ways to send information, documents or recordings. Take advantage of your favorite platform to reach out to your students right at the start of the disruptions, knowing they will be able to keep up.

The upfront planning may include having some rhythm and melodic exercises scanned and stored online ready for distribution. It may also include providing each student with an at-home simple instrument that they can use for practicing all year such as kazoos, recorders (flutaphones) and hand percussion. And it may involve making sure that every student has a metronome and tuning app on their phone. Of course, if they have their instruments at home (and their music), you can assign sections of your pieces to work on or send them etudes, etc. Ask them to record themselves using a metronome (multiple apps available) and then review their work, sending back compliments, comments and critiques to each student. If you find one outstanding recording of a particular section, share it with the section or the entire ensemble.

If you get caught with students at home for an extended period of time without any instruments at hand, there are still several musical things they can participate in. Have them work on rhythms using clapping or tapping, assign recordings of your pieces for them to view and review, share your recorded presentations on music appreciation, history or theory (keep them short) with short quizzes at the end, or have everyone join you in an online game with a musical theme (Kahoots works great and lets you create your own content for free). And offer them the chance to record their efforts for you or their section or their ensemble. Keep it fun, keep it musical, keep it working toward your long-term goal of being able to perform the program successfully in concert.

No educator looks forward to disruptions in their classes, even though an occasional snow day does have a charm in itself – performing arts educators included. There is both an advantage and an additional challenge to teaching performing arts through the wide variety of potential disruptions. And the performing arts educator has an advantage over many of their colleagues in that each class has a long-term goal right from the start, one that cannot be derailed by these schedule issues with proper planning.

With a bit of effort using their natural creativity and flexibility, the performing arts educator can continue to support their students working toward the next concert despite missing individuals, missing class time and missing weeks of school.