Starting a band in your school (Part one)

You’ve got twelve recorders, four guitars, one trumpet with a sticky valve, and an enthusiastic student who doesn’t play an instrument. And senior leadership wants a Christmas concert in six weeks. Sounds like a nightmare? Worry not! With a little arranging know how, even the most challenging circumstances can be turned into a rewarding musical experience.

Why start a band in my school?

Having a school band gives students a creative outlet and creates an intrinsic motivation to study music. If you want a successful music department and great outcomes for your students, you need to let them perform live and make it an exciting and collaborative adventure. After all, you wouldn’t make people do football coaching and never let them play a match, would you?

Another great reason to start a band is it can increase the school’s profile within the local community. Having the band perform to others and parents gives your students a fantastic opportunity to build leadership, team work, celebrate their hard work and success and to help parents understand that being part of a band makes a whole that is greater than the sum of its parts. In fact, band rehearsals and concerts often become a student’s highlight of the week and drive attendance, well being and academic attainment up across the board –  what’s not to love?

Finally my last reason is that actually music can become a safe and warm space for children to really excel. In my experience sometimes students play in my band and other teachers are surprised that a student who is normally finding learning very challenging, is suddenly playing the drums with incredible accuracy, has exceptional concentration and uses their minds in a creative problem solving way which makes them a huge asset to the band in a new way.

Where do I find these musicians among my students?

There’s a whole host of clues on what makes a great student musician – and many of them don’t actually play an instrument yet. Young Sounds have a fantastic resource here on what you can use to find students with huge musical potential, but essentially you’re looking for:

· Do they stop talking and light up with concentration when music is playing in class?

· Do they tap in time to things, or beat out rhythms as a way of keeping their concentration or connecting to the world of sounds around them?

· Are they curious about how things work, especially how different instruments work and how they can be exploited to make a bigger, more surprising range of sounds?

Ok so I’ve found my musicians, how do I entice them to the first rehearsal?

Quietly and specifically approach them and say ‘will you be my bassist in the band?’ or ‘you’ve got a really cool set of rhythms there, how about coming along on Tuesday for a jam with some other students to play some music games?’. One teacher I observed once asked all his students to close their eyes and stand in a circle. Then he’d go round and tap each one on the shoulder. At the end of the session he’d say that anyone who’d had a tap on the shoulder, is a really great singer, and has a special invitation to choir that lunch time. Essentially make a student feel seen and heard, start that musical respect and connection!

I really am pushed for time in my role, are there any existing arrangements I can just pick up and go? Free resources please???

I have started several bands at school in my previous role as head of music in a secondary school, and also founded and run successfully the Newbury Let’s Play Band, Furze Platt Let’s Play Band and also the Windsor Let’s Play Band. These started with a handful of musicians and then grew to 15-30 members and perform concerts three times a year. These students then have a progression into the next level band up in the music hub, but it’s that grass roots ensemble playing that you yourself can create in your own school easily.

Free resources

Music for Youth collaborated with Sarah Watts to create a whole suite of free resources – click here for an overview of how they’re accessed, called ‘Jigsaw Jam’ The work is, as the composer says, “a fun piece to celebrate the first achievements of learning an instrument”. Here is a link to their performance in action on YouTube.

Instrumental resources for the above pieces available here to download and print for free: https://www.mfy.org.uk/educational-resources/instrumental/

BBC Ten Pieces – https://www.bbc.co.uk/teach/ten-pieces BBC Ten Pieces opens up the world of classical music to 7-14 year olds. Explore the exciting films, lesson plans and instrumental arrangements.

Aurora Orchestra Resources https://auroraclassroom.co.uk/our-resources/

Paid resources – really great value resources that are differentiated and you can use time and time again, coming with backing tracks at varied speeds:

Sarah Watts 5 note Philharmonic – piano part or backing tracks, works for strings/woodwind and brass easily – why not get this out of the Berkshire Music Trust library at a minimal hire fee? Contact library@berksmusictrust.org.uk and we would be happy to help!

You could apply to our library at Berkshire Music Trust here and have a browse and then for a small fee you could hire a score that might work for your ensemble

Sarah Watts Band in a Book and Christmas Band in a Book

Laura Bridger

School Development Manager for Reading, Windsor and Maidenhead – Berkshire Music Trust