Building bridges, enhancing skills and generating excitement, the inaugural Sixth Grade Strings session lured 30 young musicians to spend last Saturday morning in a classroom.
Held Saturday at the Traverse City Central High School orchestra room, the first ever strings workshop was geared to the 200-250 novice musicians in the Traverse City Area Public Schools who took up the violin, viola or cello this fall.
Instead of being one of a handful on the instrument at their school, the gathering allowed them to meet others just starting — musicians they will play with in future years if all goes well. The East side and West side students will each perform together again next month during their respective holiday concerts.
"The program is to help students become familiar with playing in a large group, get to knew each other and to get familiar with new teachers,” said Karen Morrell, a strings teacher in the district, of the Sixth Grade Strings workshop. "It's to raise their comfort level.”
In addition to Morrell, district string teachers Ellen Boyer, Liz Bert and Allison Brzezinski were on had to teach, play music with and inspire the students. Working at first in groups by instrument, after a break the students reassembled into a larger ensemble to play together. They worked on songs from the beginning book they all follow at their individual schools.
For a student like Hayley Padden, a sixth grade cellist from Eastern Elementary School, the class was worth the missed Saturday morning down time because she learned a lot.
"I practice on my own because I just want to be able to play good,” said Padden, who has practiced until her fingers blistered. "Sometimes it's harder when you're in a group because when you lose your place everybody keeps playing.”
Parents were also part of the Sixth Grade Strings event as their support is crucial to a beginning musician. Novice string players must learn to coordinate fine muscle movements and the left and right hands and they can initially produce strange sounds on their instruments during home rehearsals. Parents could attend a separate session and then were welcome to listen to the ensemble as the children played together.
Jim Padden appreciated the work ethic of the students who played with his daughter, Hayley.
"It's good to see where everyone's at and everybody seems to be working hard,” he said. "I was impressed.”
Watching students playing short tunes even though they all started from scratch at the beginning of the year is always a marvel to Morrell, who praises the foundation work laid in younger grades. In those early years, students learn beat, rhythm, movement, ear training and other general music skills that transfer over to an instrument.
"The general music teachers have a lot to do with the preparation for getting them ready to play an instrument,” Morrell said. "Plus just getting them excited about being in music.”