The first recruitment step for us is to send Larry around. Larry is a retired music teacher who we lovingly refer to as "Papa Smurf." I'm not sure why because he's not blue nor does he wear an abnormal amount of blue clothing at once nor does he wear the color blue abnormally frequently. And he's not bald (I don't think? Was Papa Smurf even bald?) but I guess I don't really know what other qualities Papa Smurf had, so maybe Larry is very much a Papa Smurf. Anyway, Larry travels around to each of the five elementary schools that feed our middle school and administers a basic music test. I'm pretty sure it's the same one I took when I was a ten-year-old. They have to say which pitch is higher/lower, match rhythms by ear, etc... A perfect score is 100, a high score is any wear between 70 and 100, a good score is anything above 60. Larry then collects the scores, collects comments about each student from both their classroom and elementary general music teacher, and gives them to the music department. The Papa Smurf goes home and takes a nap in his blue sheets or something, I don't know, his job is over.
From there, the music department divvies up the data and enters it into a spread sheet. We put the student's name, their grade on each section of the test (pitch, rhythm, and melodic I think), their overall grade out of 100, and then we put an "X" for every negative comment from a teacher. If a teacher says something like "No way, total buffoon!" or "This kid will suck the life right out of you" we put "XXX". (Just kidding, teachers never say anything like that, we think all our students are precious and are "just going through a phase". Or they're autistic. Or need heavy ADHD meds.)
After our data is compiled, we go through the lists and pick out who we want. I just pick kids who got a 60 or higher on their overall music test score. If they have only one "X", I usually still take them, if they have 2 "XX" I drop them unless they have like an 80 or 90, which is just unheard of. When we decide who we want, we get a print-out of their addresses on labels and we send them a post card. My post card was exceptionally awesome and goofy, if I do say so myself. It said something to the effect of "So you're kind of a smarty pants, huh? We're looking for your kind in orchestra! Check us out when you come visit- you will be wowed by the 8th grade orchestra's awesome mad skillz. That could be you!" Then I had some pictures and included what orchestra instruments looked like (no guitars, sorry) and then closed with something about our orchestra family. My honor's orchestra kids helped me create it and they said it wasn't bad, which is high praise from them, so I feel good about it. The band had something lame with Uncle Sam "We Want YOU" pointing and yelling at them in postcard form. I told them it was lame. They will still get twice the number of kids to sign up for band than I do though, so I need all the trash-talking help I can get. The choir does things a little differently in that they look at the pitch score only. Sometimes they're post card is the only one that gets sent to a kid. But choir usually gets the lowest kids in general. I know, I taught choir. It's a different world: a lot more drama, a lot more flair, but potentially a lot more fun. So we stuff the envelopes with our post cards, slap an address label on them, and mail them away.
Throughout February we put on five different performances for each elementary school 6th grade class that comes to visit and tour the building. They arrive in the morning, about 15-20 minutes after the bell rings. The band is playing when they enter. Then the band directors say something about their program, then they play a song while they're sitting and listening- it's usually something flashy with lots of drums and loud noises. The entrance music is often something recognizable from a movie or T.V. or a pop song from the radio. (We teachers have a good chuckle about the fact that the only time they will ever play such horrid music is for this very concert.) Then the curtain closes and the band leaves the stage while the orchestra enters from the other side. We have to be completely silent because while we are entering, the choir is singing in front of the curtain. They usually have the show choir do something recognizable This year is was Adele's Rolling in the Deep. The orchestra kids mouthed the words and danced in their seats to that stupid song all the way down to the fifth concert. Then the choir exits and we open the curtains the orchestra plays.
The first thing that everyone noticed about the orchestra is that I made them wear their uniforms. All the other groups just wore their school clothes. The orchestra looked a lot more clean and put together, which will appeal to some and not to others. I don't care, I liked it and that's how it's going to be. We're the orchestra and we're classy, got it? We opened with The Lion Sleeps Tonight which, I realize, is not exactly an up-and-coming tune. However, we incorporated some shtick and it ended up being pretty fun in the end. We bobbed back and forth in the "A weem a wup, A weem a wup" part, which is all pizzicato, and I would turn around and try to get the 6th graders to sway, and none of them would sway, and so I'd say, "Come on now, stop acting like you're too cool to sway!" then they would smile and reluctantly sway, then I'd turn back around and all the orchestra kids would be grinning because they feel like dorks swaying back and forth but they actually love it. The shtick got old by the fifth concert, let me tell ya. After that song I'd introduce the next song and make a joke about it being on Sponge Bob (it's actually "What Do You Do With A Drunken Sailor" but the title on our music is "Variations on a Well-Known Sea Chanty") and we played a couple flashy parts of that which involve a bunch of different bow and plucking techniques so the kids can see how string instruments can sound.
After the Sea Chanty we play our finale, Fiddles on Fire, which is fast and loud. We broke out the electric instruments for this one and my 8th graders who wanted to play on the electrics had to memorize the whole song and audition. While the electric solo players are walking over to the amp, I introduce the different instruments (violins, hold them up, ooooo, violas, hold them up, they're like fat violins haha, cellos-lift them up as a joke- they ate like 2 violins, haha, basses, ya, rock on cool yadda yadda yadda) then I have any 8th grader who went to this particular elementary school stand up and we applaud them, then I quickly explain that string instruments go out of tune rather easily because they're made of wood and wood expands and contracts with the weather, so please be patient and give me a minute to tune the electric instruments. This tuning wasn't originally planned because I have to keep my portion to about 7 minutes, but at the first concert I had to cut the song off after about 5 bars because the electrics had gone so badly out of tune between when I'd tuned them at 8:15 and when we performed an hour later. They're not of the greatest quality, but they're flashy so we like them. Other than the tuning glitch, the only other problem was my "tech crew", consisting of a bass player and a cellist who I could afford not to play part of the first song while they plugged everything in, plugged both ends of one cord into the amp leaving one electric violin unplugged. Luckily I realized what happened pretty quickly and we recovered, but I made sure they didn't do that again.
So after all the groups perform, the counselors give them little slips of paper with "Band" "Orchestra" "Choir" "None" written on them and the 6th graders have to list their first and second choices. Then the counselors give us a list of the students who chose our group. Then after that they come to instrument tryout night and get fitted for an instrument and we give them information about the summer program, and we hope they remember to show up and rent an instrument! And that's recruitment. We get that list of our 6th graders very soon. My excitement is mounting...I hope I get some dorky goobers!
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