Rehearsal Suggestions
When rehearsing your strolling strings group, have students
- Memorize the music before adding strolling motions.
- Practice their strolling motions by walking through the show without playing their instruments.
- Face each other in lines. This helps students check their bowing, fingering, and strolling movements.
- Practice in front of a mirror if possible.
- Exaggerate facial expressions.
- Practice strolling entrances, exits, and any choreographed formations.
Planning Movements Tips
- Students’ movements should be natural, relaxed, and unhurried.
- When teaching the movements to your group, provide a diagram for the students to follow and be sure that every stroller knows when and where to move.
- Some formations that work well are circles, triangles, straight lines, and V shapes.
- Encourage all musicians to stroll throughout the entire audience and cover all parts of your performance space.
- Start with performances that incorporate small movements, then add more complex motions as students become more comfortable.
Resources:
Getting Started with Strolling Strings, by Robert Gillespie, Beth Gilbert, and Mary Lou Jones. © 1995 MENC.
-- Nicole Springer. March 17, 2009. © MENC: The National Association for Music Education.