Faced with dwindling numbers in student orchestras, Tempe strings teachers are recruiting young players to keep their programs alive.
Faced with dwindling numbers in student orchestras, Tempe strings teachers are recruiting young players to keep their programs alive.
SLIDESHOW: See more photos of the students practicing
Music teachers say fewer kids are picking up the violin or viola in high school because middle schools have decreased time for music electives, and because students in the Kyrene Elementary School District can't take string classes until sixth grade.
"(Recruiting) is the most important thing that we have to do right now, and next year, it's the biggest goal we have," said Alex Dudley, orchestra director at Corona del Sol High School in the Tempe Union High School District. "The numbers have been down at our feeder schools in Kyrene, so ours are, as well. And in order for music programs to stay alive, we have to keep these numbers up. We have to."
Dudley said he wants to eventually see some 120 students in the school's orchestra program - more than double the 49 he now teaches. But next year, preliminary numbers show he will have eight fewer students.
Starting this school year, to combat the shrinking numbers, three of his students went to the feeder schools in the Kyrene district to play music with the students there, and to promote orchestra involvement. Next year, he wants to step that program up a notch, he said.
Starting to play music at an early age "always helps," said Margaret Schmidt, a professor of music education who is involved in the project. "It's a muscular skill, like any sport. Starting earlier gives you more experience, it really helps you build that coordination."
Kyrene is the only school district in the East Valley that doesn't offer orchestra during the school day until the sixth grade.
And the Tempe Elementary School District recently cut its fourth-grade strings program, too, meaning kids there will get their first taste of stringed instruments in fifth-grade.
Ellen McCurdy, a longtime orchestra teacher at Tempe's Marcos de Niza High School said she knows first-hand the impact it has when students start later.
"In my orchestra classes there are students from Tempe (Elementary) and Kyrene, and there's just an incredible difference in the playing ability and the drive to do so," she said.
She gets far fewer students from the Kyrene district, too, she said. While she welcomes the attention to orchestra programs, McCurdy said what schools really need in order to strengthen their programs are classes during the school day - not after school - and classes for children at a younger age.
"To be in a university city, one of the largest universities in the United States, we should have a top-notch orchestra program in our schools. It's mind-boggling," she said.
"When changes were made to the middle school model we saw the numbers in orchestra really drop, so we'd been looking for something to address that," said Kyrene governing board member Rich Zawtocki. "We've been pushing the idea to come up with a program for the youngest kids, so when they get to the middle school, they'd already be interested in it and there would be a reason to choose it."
Partnering with Arizona State University, the Kyrene district has implemented the Strings Project this year.
The group is part of a national organization called the National String Project Consortium, a coalition of String Project sites based at colleges and universities across the United States which tries to increase the number of children playing stringed instruments, and addresses a nationwide shortage of string teachers.
ASU students work with Kyrene music teachers to offer after-school strings courses at Aprende and Kyrene middle schools twice a week for students going into fourth through sixth grades. The cost to families is just $130 - significantly cheaper than private lessons.
In addition, the Tempe Union district plans to give both elementary and middle school students in Kyrene more chances to see high school orchestras perform, and to even play with them, to pique the student's interest.
Plans are under way to distribute contact information for middle school students to high school orchestra teachers so they can call them and recruit.
Gabrielle Geenen, 12, is excited about her newly learned violin skills at the ASU Strings Project at Aprende Middle School. By teaching them skills, as well as sharing music from classics to a song from the popular cartoon "SpongeBob SquarePants," teacher Sara Witbeck hopes that these young students will keep their enthusiasm for music and stay in orchestras through high school.
Gabrielle said she wants to continue taking classes next year in middle school - if she can fit it in her class schedule.
"I've wanted to play violin since I was 5 years old," she said, "and when we saw this, I wanted to do it."
