10 Motivational Strategies for Beginners

What does it take to be the Beginner
Band Champion? Many hours
of practice!

Motivation can be an elusive goal, and beginners will need plenty as they start on the long road to becoming literate, musical artists. We're just over a quarter of the way through the school year, and although the honeymoon has worn off, our students this year are more motivated than they were in the first few weeks! My friend and I are both new to this school system, and we hope to build a dynastic program here. We know that starts with our first class of beginners, so we've pulled out all the stops we can think of, and it seems to really be paying off for our students. I don't know how they're doing compared to other similar sized schools, but neither of us have seen anything like this kind of excitement for band and commitment to practicing in our previous efforts. Did I mention that all 6th graders here are required to be in band? Here are some of the extra, fun things we're doing to create a band class that the kids hopefully look forward to, and also to motivate them to practice outside of class!

Play Music as They Enter the Band Hall

I like this for a couple of reasons. The educational reason is that it lets them hear professional bands so they have something to model. Unfortunately I haven't trained the kids to enter the room quietly, so while some listen, others don't. But that's okay. The main reason I like it is it sets the tone that this is a music class, and that music is fun. Anything that makes music fun is a win considering that during class we're going to work and be engaged non-stop, and some of them leave chop dead and brain dead (can you hear me chuckling?). Seriously - beginning band is grueling! So for me, this is a double win. 

I usually play tracks off of the accompaniment CD, starting right around the line(s) we're working on. Actually, more often I play recordings of low grade band music. I burned the tracks onto my school computer from the Teaching Music Through Performance - Beginning Band volumes 1 and 2, so they're also being exposed to the repertoire they'll be playing in the coming years.

Rewards for In Class Work

The more, the better. Some of our rewards include:

Positive Letters Home - This is a template letter where we can check the good things they're doing, sign and date it, and have them take it home to show their parents. We haven't used these in a while, but we tried really hard to give at least two per class during the first two weeks, and were able to give one to almost every kid. This set the tone for really hard work, as they were really excited to be awarded one of these.

Stickers - I've heard it said many times, beginners will do almost anything for a sticker. Some do a system where for every five stickers they get a candy bar or something along those lines. I know Cindy Bulloch mentioned something like that in a clinic once. I just hand them out when a student answers a question correctly, or occasionally when they demonstrate something really well. This is my first year using them, so I'm no pro, but anything that equals a pat on the back is good.

Rewards for Practicing

I don't require practice logs, but I can proudly say that over half of our 60+ beginners (remember, they're all required to be there) practice on average a few hours each week outside of class. I know this because most of them do so in the band hall under my supervision. We use a system for 20% of the grade in which they are required to pass off lines out of their book each week, and their grade depends on the number of lines they pass off. The following rewards are based around this system:

Extra Try Coupons - For every 30 minutes they practice, they get a coupon to use in class. During in-class pass off rounds, each student only gets one shot. If they make more than one mistake, they're done! That is, unless they have an extra try coupon. This buys them one more chance. We only let them use one per pass off round. 

Pass Off Sheet - Our district provides everything for the students, which includes their books. The downside to this is we didn't want to initial in their book when a line was passed off. Instead I created a small packet (about three pages) listing all of the lines they had to pass off over the entire year with a place for our initials and the date. It may sound cheesy, but I think this helps motivate some of them. They can see their progress, compare it with their friends, and every chapter (or Opus) is separated with a colored line, which gives them a goal to work towards when they officially hit the next level. This is also where we put their stickers.

Practice Parties! - This isn't really a reward. It's really just a new name for practicing in the band hall after school. The first one blew me away with nearly thirty students, and afterwards the attendance slowly declined. That is, until I opened up the band hall for practicing during our built in tutorials period. That's when things really blew up. Every day except for pep rally days and music memory practice (both of which will eventually end), the band hall is flooded with over 30 beginners spanning our three classes, all hoping to pass off lines and enjoying the chance to socialize while doing it. Some of the band members come in as well, but not many. At least not this year. There are other students who wait until after school to practice and pass off lines. There are also a hand full that show up to both, in which case they will have played/practiced for roughly two and a half hours throughout the day. Those kids have now earned a special distinction...

Championship Belts - We ordered toy wrestling belts (mostly the WWE belts) and just recently awarded them to the students in each class who have passed off the most lines. We have a Woodwind Champion, Low Brass Champion, High Brass Champion, and Percussion Champion. One of these has the special distinction of being the World Heavyweight Champion (overall best beginner, who gets an additional belt). We also decided to get the Tag Team Championship Belts to encourage students to practice duets and pass those off as well, as they're not on the individual pass off sheet. We record the duet attempts and show the championship duets to all of the classes. Thanks to a helpful principal, these kids are allowed to wear their championship belt(s) all day before returning it to band hall at the end of the day. We just awarded these, and when we unveiled them the kids went nuts. The game is on! I can only imagine how our World Champion feels, as he gets to sport three belts throughout the day (including his Tag Team Championship belt). 

Beginner Band Dojo - In the spirit of this, and also of Recorder Karate, we're about to roll out a belt system. I haven't decided if we'll take the time to make ribbons to put on the instruments, but we will have colored posters on the wall for each belt, and each kid will have their name on the appropriate poster once they've reached one of the milestones in the book. The Sight Before Sound page earned them a white belt, and so on until they have passed off the final line in the book, which earned them a black belt. Some people use belts for scales, so I'll have to come up with something else for that as well. I'm thinking of military rank, one for each of the scales. What do you think?

Spring Festival

I wrote an earlier article about motivating students through long term goals, which included a note on festivals and "high profile performances". We're putting that in action in a couple of ways. The most important of which involves taking our beginners to what is basically a small time, non-UIL festival hosted by another school. The one we're going to, like many in our neck of the woods, offers a band contest for a rating including both concert and sight reading, but it also offers a solo and ensemble contest. I took my beginners to one of these last year and it was a huge success, but we expect that will pale in comparison to this year. 

One of my larger goals for beginning band is to prepare them and set the expectations for everything we want them to do each year they're in band. Since this includes solo and ensemble, we're going to have all of them prepare a solo and an ensemble in addition to our band repertoire. To facilitate this we will probably be all playing the same easy solo, and then break out into sections and coach/monitor for the ensemble pieces. From there we can break them into separate ensembles closer to the date if needed (for example, trumpets, flutes and clarinets can each make two ensembles, but we'll prepare both in one big group first). Not every student will be able to play the solo well enough for the contest, but we expect most of them will. Besides, the judging is really easy. It gives them the feeling of playing under pressure in solo, chamber and band settings where the outcome will probably result in a 1st Division (or a 2 if they're just bad). This gives them an immense sense of accomplishment and helps build up their confidence for the challenges of next year, when the real contests and auditions begin.

Beginning Band Concerto Competition 

All soloists who make a 1st Division will audition to perform with band accompaniment at the end of the year concert. Whatever the solo is, I take the piano part and arrange it for the beginner band, dumbing it down as much as possible so it comes together as easily as possible. The applause those kids will get is unreal. Last year when I had a 5th grade heterogeneous class, I didn't make the band parts easy enough. Even though the band sounded pretty bad on that one, the soloist did an awesome job and the ovation he earned was one of the best of the night. Imagine how that must have felt! 

I feel a little bad for my long windedness. Like I said, we wanted to pull out all the stops for these kids. So far they are really motivated for band, thank goodness, and we hope that this helps establish a culture of enthusiasm, hard work and achievement that will eventually permeate through the entire middle school program, then filter into the high school. If so, it will be well worth the time and money spent.

What kinds of things do you do to help motivate your beginners, or students in general? Please share in the comment section! I'm still searching for new ideas, and it would benefit anyone else who happens upon this post as well! Thank you for reading, and until next time, take care!

Musically yours,

Mr. Cooper