Videoconferencing with Composers

Recently my students had the opportunity to video conference with two major composers in the world of string education, Michael Hopkins and Bob Phillips. The composers were
professional contacts who I had met previously through various professional development opportunities, including ASTA conferences. Because my students were performing pieces by composers whom I knew personally, I thought it might be kind of neat to email them and
see if they would be willing to meet my students and listen to their piece being performed.

What a thrill it was for my students to be able to play for the actual composer! Via email I arranged a date and time to connect with Mr. Phillips and Dr. Hopkins using the popular Skype protocol. After tuning and a few warm ups, we were ready to connect. The first conference was with my  cadet orchestra, the intermediate middle school ensemble consisting of mostly seventh graders. This orchestra was working on “Rockin’ Up the Housetop,” a rock-style holiday arrangement of “Up on the Housetop,” created by Bob Phillips.  Phillips is a 30+ year veteran of string teaching and had a tremendous orchestra program in Saline, Michigan.  Currently he is in charge of string music for Alfred Publishing.

Phillips works wonderfully with all levels of students. He provided feedback that students could understand and comments were stated in a manner that increased the student’s attention. On the very next day after the videoconference I noticed a great deal of enthusiasm and a deeper appreciation for musical elements within the piece.  Throughout the videoconference  we worked a great deal on musical style.  Because the piece was to be played in a Rock ‘N Roll style, there were some techniques unfamiliar to the students.  One of these was the “Rock Spiccato,” a rough spiccato bow stroke played at the frog.

The Concert Orchestra, my middle school’s most advanced orchestra, had a videoconference with Michael Hopkins.  Hopkins is now the assistant professor of music education at the University of Michigan.  He is well-known for his string arrangements, compositions, and his incredible website, the String Pedagogy Notebook.

The piece we were working on was entitled “Aurora Borealis,” a new release by Hopkins.  This piece offers many opportunities for students to play musically and utilize a variety of bowing techniques.  Working with Dr. Hopkins was fantastic! He provided us with some background information about the piece including his influences and inspiration.  The students were fascinated to hear this information from the actual composer.

We performed the piece for Dr. Hopkins and he provided a great deal of feedback that was extremely helpful in our preparations.  The first thing Dr. Hopkins noticed was that our tempo was a bit slow for his liking.  When we took his advice and slightly increased our tempo, it made a tremendous impact on the overall feel of the piece and the way we interpreted the melodies and harmonies.  The slight tempo increase really provided a lift!

Next, we worked on dynamics and Dr. Hopkins pointed out some areas that we could have made more contrast, etc.  We finished our conference with another mini performance and the final results were quite remarkable. There was a sense of energy present that was missing earlier in the rehearsal, in addition the students payed more attention to detail.

With middle school students, their attention and focus plays a major role in the quality of a performance .  Technology afforded students an opportunity that would otherwise have been impossible!  Conferencing with the composer helped students really get into the music on a higher level.  It is my hope that I will be able to set up similar video conferences in the future.

Video clips of our conferences will come soon.