Reply To: Addressing Different Entry Points into an Orchestral Lesson

[nafmeadmin]

A way that getting the students up to speed could be made a lot easier if you can assign your best players of the instruments the new students choose to help the new students in their learning process. Through this “study buddy” system, you can assign materials from essential elements at an expedited rate, because the study-buddy will be able to help them learn more quickly. If you allow the new students to work together with their study-buddies for 10-15 minutes outside of the ensemble during some of your earlier rehearsals, and then have them join with the group the rest of the time, you may find that they will fairly quickly catch up with the group. This allows you to not waste precious rehearsal time with the majority of the group, while your best players can catch themselves and the new students up at the same time, and eventually, they will (hopefully) not need to be taught separately from the ensemble for too long.