Rescoring and Pacing a Badly Balanced Middle School Band
At the start of second semester, a combined seventh- and eighth-grade band of 62 students has this instrumentation: 19 clarinets, 11 flutes, 8 alto saxophones, 6 trumpets, 4 trombones, 1 horn, 1 euphonium, 1 tuba, and 11 percussionists. The ensemble performs at a district festival in six weeks and must play two selections from a required list. One selected work calls for four horns, two bassoons, and a string bass, all marked "essential" in the score's program notes. Rehearsals are 45 minutes, three days a week; the auditorium is available only on Fridays. The principal has asked that every student perform. The director has a small budget for one guest clinician and access to a music library with alternate editions. Two trumpet players read well and have strong low registers. The director must decide how to distribute parts, what to cut or rescore, and how to sequence six weeks.
1. What are your first three decisions about instrumentation and scoring, and what reasoning supports each?
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Decision 0: check the rules. Because the program notes call horn and bassoon "essential," call the festival chair before rescoring. Some festivals judge fidelity to the score; if rescoring is barred, choose a different listed work rather than gamble.
Decision 1: cover horns 1–2 with the two strong trumpet players. Horn in F sounds a perfect fifth below written, so they must read a fifth higher than they hear. Their low register makes horn 1 feasible; horn 2 sits lower, so test range before committing. Cue horns 3–4 into trombone 2 and euphonium.
Decision 2: cue bassoons into tenor sax and euphonium, and give the string bass line to tuba. This preserves the bass line's function even though the color changes.
Decision 3: thin the clarinet section. Nineteen clarinets against four trombones is a balance problem, not a volume problem. Split into three part-groups with rotation, reduce doublings at tuttis, and reseat so the clarinets do not cover the brass. Balance is managed by numbers and dynamic plan, not by asking students to play louder.
2. Build a six-week rehearsal plan using the 45-minute blocks and the Friday auditorium access.
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Week 1: Tone, balance, and reading fundamentals; slow read-throughs of both works; identify the three hardest eight-bar passages and post them.
Week 2: Alternating sectionals (woodwinds one day, brass the next) plus individual pass-offs on exposed lines; metronome work at about 60 percent of performance tempo.
Week 3: Full ensemble on transitions and the hard passages; the guest clinician takes one session on the two most exposed spots.
Week 4: Recorded run-throughs; fix balance in the actual concert seating; begin timing with a stopwatch.
Week 5: Friday auditorium rehearsal for acoustics, staging, and timing; second full run-through with peer critique.
Week 6: Dress rehearsal and a "recovery" rehearsal-practice restarting from three marked spots so a memory slip does not derail the performance.
Because Fridays are the only stage days, they are for run-throughs and staging, never note-learning. Backward design from the festival date keeps the short blocks purposeful.
3. How do you respond to the principal's request that every student perform when percussion has more players than parts?
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Treat the request as a constraint and solve it musically rather than administratively. Eleven percussionists cannot all play the printed parts, but they can play real parts: rotate timpani, mallets, bass drum, and auxiliary instruments such as triangle, suspended cymbal, and tambourine, and write out or assign actual lines rather than "count rests." Post the rotation chart two weeks ahead so everyone prepares. If one work truly cannot absorb all players, add a short combined finale or an auxiliary piece where the extra players are essential.
Then document the plan in writing to the principal, citing the festival's instrumentation rules and the rotation schedule. That keeps the decision transparent and protects the director if a parent or administrator later asks why a student is not on stage for a particular work. The point is that inclusion is a scheduling and notation problem, not a reason to lower the ensemble's standard.