I have been thinking alot this week about the Regelski article and how it proposed that large ensembles should not be the pinnacle of music experiences in elementary, middle, and high school. I am trying to decide where I stand on this issue. On the one hand I feel like the works and the music you can create in a large ensemble is so significant, but you may not be able to give the attention to detail that you could in smaller ensembles. I guess I feel that there should be so amount of moderation on this issue. Perhaps there could be a large ensemble half of the week or cycle, and small ensembles the other half.
posted by Caroline @ 8:01 PM
5 Comments:
I have to agree with you. Both large and small ensembles have their downfalls and their benifits. Perhaps having small ensembles throughout the year, but also a big ensemble that meets once a week or twice a week. This would give them special attention, and the chanceto make beautiful music and have the experience of a large ensemble.
Look at Schola Cantorum this past year, that is exactly what they did. They were able to split up and work on pieces in smaller ensembles, as well as working on a few larger works once the choir came together. I agree with Caroline that both of these should be taking place. I feel the only thing that complicates this is that when you are broken off into these smaller ensembles, it is more difficult to moderate the progress of the students if there are a bunch of groups. We are all students, we know how easy it is not to do what the teacher told us to do in a small group and just talk instead. I think that it would definitely have to be the 'right' program to have this be effective. Maybe even doing this kind of a thing with the honors choir at your school, so during rehearsal there is a greater chance that these students, who are there by choice, will really work on their smaller ensemble pieces. Its really like working in a string or brass quintet, I know that the experiences I have had with smaller chamber music settings with the strings has greatly improved my musicianship. These kinds of smaller ensembles would be extremely beneficial to the students.
I do think that both small and large ensembles have benefits, but it is definitely much harder to teach musical concepts and to monitor an individual student's progress in a large ensemble. It is not always possible to have small ensembles in some situations, but I think that they are very important. Many students get lost in large ensembles and it becomes extremely difficult for the music teacher to evaluate the musical capabilities of each student. More specialized attention in smaller ensembles allows the teacher to focus on the student's strengths and weaknesses and help the student achieve things that would not be possible in a large ensemble setting.
I agree that smaller ensembles allow us to give more individualized attention to the students. Working in the smaller groups allows us to fix the mistakes and mis-tunings that would otherwise be swallowed up within the larger ensembles. I know of some schools in which the large ensemble is split into multiple groups, each of which has it's own choral rehearsal during the day. This temporary splitting up of an otherwise unwieldy group allows for both the individual attention of the smaller ensembles along with the ability to provide both a social outlet and the ability to work on larger pieces of music.
I think thats why things like sectionals are so important, though I know that they aren't always entirely possible. It give you time as the instructor to give the individual attention that your students wouldn't get during a large rehearsal. I think that both are very important however, students have to learn to work with large and small numbers of people in their every day life, so fostering that skill in a creative and a fun way it makes it easier for socialized learning to take place.
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