Plan-A-Project Project (Overview)

Welcome to the String Orchestra Form & Analysis Project website. The goal of this project is two-fold: first, to address the curricular goals and provide a way to teach musical form, with an introduction to rudimentary analysis, for the young orchestra student, and secondly, to generate an ever expanding reference library for the study and preparation of the string orchestra repertoire.

Project Overview
Project Submission Form
Project Index of Analyzed Works

The curricular goals addressed are Goal I: Perceiving, Performing and Responding: Aesthetics, Core Objective A [The student will identify elements and characteristics of musical sound as they are used in a variety of genres and styles.], Core Objective B [The student will recognize and analyze the skills needed in the performance of music.]; and Goal II: Historical, Cultural, and Social Contexts, Core Objectives A, B, C, and especially D [The student will identify and classify significant styles and genres in music history.]. Goals and supporting Core Objectives are drawn from the Howard County Public Schools Essential Instrumental Music Curriculum.

The idea of compiling a reference library detailing music form, style, performance consideration and program material is not new. The excellent Teaching Music Through Performance in Orchestra Series is the school orchestra conductor's Bible. But the use of the book is targeted primarily towards the conductor. It is the aim of the project that not only will the final project be useful and worthwhile for the conductor when researching a piece of music, but that the collaborative nature of the project will provide orchestra students from all over to gain experience and first-hand knowledge from the process of analyzing and codifying the formal elements of the music they are performing. It is my belief that this is a truly unique venture, with no similar online collaboration in relation to string orchestra repertoire.

The basic idea is that directors will instruct students to complete the Submission Form (online, or via the downloadable paper forms) to analyze and deconstruct the music form of music that they are currently working on in their rehearsals. With guidance from their director, the students should be able to research the composer, historical period, performance concerns and formal musical structure and complete the Submission Form. Once submitted, the contents of the form are emailed to the Project Coordinator, who checks the submission for authenticity, and then creates a new page for that piece - incorporating the information supplied and crediting the students/class/ensemble who did the research. Over time, the Project should be become a valuable online resource to directors in preparing and selecting repertoire, as well as an excellent learning tool for students who helped create it.

Once ready to "go live," the project could be announced in local music educator journals, such as the "Maryland Music Educator." Locally, a brief overview and links can be emailed to Mary Ellen Cohn (Executive Director, Maryland Music Educators Association), with a request that it be forwarded along to Supervisors and Instructional Facilitators of Music throughout Maryland. After a year working with local colleagues in Maryland on the development of a substantial list of works, the project could be made available and known to a larger, national, audience through journals with a larger scope, such as "Teaching Music," "The Instrumentalist," or the "Music Educators Journal."

I would anticipate that a number of directors would see oversights and missteps that I can not have anticipated, and I would fully expect a dialog with colleagues regarding this project, corrections and/or suggestions to the supporting pages, as well as corrections to other students' submissions would be come a regular occurrence. Currently, by having all submissions emailed to one person, there is away to prevent abuse and/or misuse, but I wonder if a wiki-format might be more time efficient in the future, especially if the project were to be readily accepted.

Comments, concerns and compliments are welcomed. Please email Project Coordinator, Patrick Walls, at patrick_walls@hcpss.org.