How to Make Instrument Selection Easy and Organized for Your Beginning Band and Orchestra Students
August 11, 2022
Early Ensembles by Taylor Weimer
Instrument tryouts and selections are the most important first step with our beginning instrumentalists. In these auditions, we can determine which instrument is best for each student, how each student will acquire their instrument, and (perhaps most importantly) we can build our instrumentation correctly.
Selecting the Right Fit
It is vital that we help guide students toward the right fit for them when they are selecting their instrument for concert band or orchestra.
In string orchestra, this can be as simple as sizing. Have your student reach their arm around the scroll of the violin or viola to see if they can wrap their hand around it. This will indicate whether or not that student needs a 1/2, 3/4 or full size. If the student is on the taller side with larger hands, a cello or double bass could be the right fit as well. Check that they can comfortably reach the tape with the proper left hand fingers. This is a personal preference, but I do not have my students use the bow when trying out orchestra instruments. We will be learning pizzicato for the first few weeks, and bows aren’t necessary quite yet. Also, staying away from bows during the tryout phase can avoid comments from parents like “Oh boy, we’re going to have to listen to that all day?” (Yes I have some parents say things like this…)
In concert band, it is necessary to check if the student’s ability gravitates more toward brass, woodwind or percussion. You can use this opportunity to teach them how to “buzz” into a mouthpiece. If the student can “buzz”, then simply determine which size mouthpiece is right for them, and then guide them toward the right “fit”. For trombone, I always check to see if the student can reach 6th position. For trumpet, make sure they can at least reach a concert F; a beginning tubist should be able to play the Bb below the staff, and a beginning French horn player should have a natural ability to hear some of the partials.
At first, woodwinds are all about the right embouchure of course. Some students simply can’t get a sound out of a clarinet or a flute, and that is okay! For reed instruments, this is an opportunity to teach them the proper embouchure (curl the bottom lip over the bottom teeth, put the top teeth down on the mouthpiece, don’t bite down, and blow steady air to make the reed vibrate). I like to talk to my students about how you can get a sound out of a blade of grass by blowing on it to make it vibrate. A reed is the same idea! When trying out flute, I ask them if they have ever blown into a glass bottle to achieve a pitch. I tell them the flute should feel the same! Have them start with the head joint, and plug the end with their right palm just to see if they can get the right sound.
Finally, percussion students should have some piano background. I test them on a keyboard instrument like a glockenspiel (without labeled notes) first to see if they can navigate it. Then, I check their ability to keep a consistent rhythm/pulse with a snare drum or a concert tom. Percussion is hard because every kid wants to do it! It is important to set boundaries here, and have some requirements (like piano experience), to weed out a few.
During the tryout phase, I do my best to treat this opportunity as a “mini lesson”. In fact, you are teaching during tryouts. It is an opportunity to start the students off right, and give them the very first fundamental concepts they need for the instrument they select. You will be thankful later on for the time you invest here.
When going through this process, I use a Google Form! Through a Google Form, I can keep track of the rating for each instrument on a scale of 1-5, write additional comments, and have all of that information saved. Here are a couple of examples:
Acquiring the Instrument
After the final selection, be sure to determine how the student’s family will acquire the instrument. This can be as simple as asking them if they already own the instrument (this is unlikely, but sometimes it happens), if they intend to rent from the local music store, or if they need to rent a school-owned instrument. This is a small, but crucial step. This is your chance to steer families away from buying that $20 purple trumpet they found on Amazon. I know you know what I’m talking about! It is also a chance for you to keep records of how each of your students acquired their instrument. This helps to save time with repairs and general record-keeping later on. Again, I strongly believe that Google Forms are the way to go here! Here is an example:
Building Instrumentation
This is the big one, and the main reason we want to invest some extra time in this process. As we all know, building the best possible instrumentation can make such a huge difference in our ensembles. Having a strong cello and double bass section can make all the difference in an orchestra. In concert band, we want to construct the right proportions of woodwinds, high brass, low brass and percussion. This is very tough to do, especially when you have kids and parents talking your ear off during tryouts! Again, I propose that Google Forms are the answer! Did you know that Google Forms generate circle graphs for you based on responses? You can see the percentage of every instrument in your ensemble! This is a highly effective tool for building instrumentation. Here are some examples from my Google Forms:
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