Impact of small-group instruction in music

The following are my comments at the public hearing on budget reductions on Thursday, February 10.

I would like to speak about the proposed cuts to music throughout the elementary and middle school levels.

At the middle level, the music staff knows that when 5th-grade students sign up for our classes they will have a good foundation in basic musical concepts due to the hard work and comprehensive curriculum of our elementary general music and string staff, and the interest of the students who enjoy those programs. By reducing the number of minutes for art, music, and PE at the elementary level, and eliminating 4th-grade strings, the district is cutting the curriculum of those programs. Future students beginning 6th-grade will no longer enter middle school with the same musical skills that our current students have.

Then there are staffing reductions in the middle school music performance classes that would limit staffing to one teacher each for band, choir and orchestra. If the proposed cuts were in place this year, the one GDS band teacher would have 215 students. The one choir teacher would have 205 students, and the one orchestra teacher would have 143 students. (These numbers do not take into consideration the 6th-grade music students at Winnequah.)

While it may be true that one band, choir, or orchestra teacher can handle teaching the large-group classes for all three grades, what will suffer dramatically are student’s opportunities to receive small-group instruction which we call GIGs and some other schools call lessons. Large-group rehearsals and small-group instruction serve two different functions. Large-group rehearsals are the means by which public performances are prepared, while small-group lessons make it possible for students to develop their basic performance skills and enable them to become independent learners and life-long participants in music after their school years. Instruction on proper embouchure, breath support, articulation, tone quality for both vocal and instrumental students, and finger and vocal technique for each student cannot be addressed in depth in large-group rehearsals which often contain 50 or more students. Rehearsals are intended to teach skills that affect the whole group, like balance and blend between voices or instruments, phrasing, entrances, and dynamics. Small-group instruction is also the time when advanced music students can be given additional challenges, and when students who struggle can receive the assistance they need to be successful.

The 2009 Wisconsin Deptartment of Public Instruction's guide, Planning Curriculum in Music, recommends that for a quality music program, students enrolled in choral or instrumental classes should receive at least 30 minutes of small-group instruction weekly in addition to large-group rehearsals. This recommendation is for both middle school and high school music programs. Our district already does not allow for this kind of instruction at the high school. The small-group instruction that our middle school music students receive needs to set the foundation for the rest of their experience participating in music in our district. The things that our district values that happen at the high school: not only band, choir and orchestra classes, but marching band, jazz band, pep band, show choir, and the musical all depend on our students arriving in high school knowing the basic skills of playing their instrument or using their voice effectively. Without the foundation of quality instruction at the elementary and middle level, these programs and activities will not continue to achieve the level of excellence that our community has come to appreciate and expect.

I would like to conclude by reading this brief excerpt from DPI’s Planning Curriculum in Music. “The matter of lessons extends into the realm of ethics. Students in performing groups work hard to perform well in order to represent their school and community at concerts, contests, games, and community events – all on their free time. In doing this, they serve their school and community well. However, if they are not afforded substantive individual or small-group lessons that will enable them to be lifelong participants in music beyond school when there may be no large ensemble or conductor, the school and community does not serve them well but is instead using them for non-student centered ends.”

Thank you for listening.