I can reflect back to my college days on this topic. I never made the top band at college until my junior year, and I remember times thinking "What's the use?". Luckily, I hung in there, and you want those students to do that, too. Often, of course, you will have those students who are, sorry to say, just lazy,and are perfectly happy being in the "lower" group until they earn their fine arts credit. But, then there are the ones who love their instrument or love singing, and are heartbroken at not making the cut. For these kids, more opportunities are better.

Many times, these kids don't make the desired group just because they don't know how to handle an audition. They might work and work and work on the prepared pieces, but fall apart with the scales and sight-reading. In rehearsals, this is something that should be strongly emphasized, and not "just 'cause I say so!". Make the correlation between knowing scales well and becoming better sight-readers (such as, often pieces will have scales or scale fragments in them.) Take a few minutes each class session to work on these audition tidbits and help them build their confidence.

Also, if you don't use these guys, they're going to think "What's the use?" and not rehearse as well as they should, putting them even farther behind their musical goals. Giving these kids performance opportunities is just as important, if not more sometimes, than using the top group all the time. Of course, as much as possible, you want to use your top groups in demonstrations to show proper playing technique and what can be accomplished. But, why not some of these suggestions?......

If there is a way of getting them there, use these students as "teachers" for elementary music classes. Whenever possible, elementary music teachers would love to have a high school student come in and demonstrate instruments. The effect is so much better if the little ones can see a real "live" instrument as opposed to listening to a recording and seeing a cardboard image. Plus, this is early recruitment for your program! And, if you teach vocal music, why not have one of the better of your almost-there students demonstrate vocal technique and singing? If you have one that might not be quite strong enough for your group, but knows the basics, what a morale builder! And you know, those little kids just adore high school students.

If it works in the school schedule, arrange for some of these kids to entertain at nursing homes, senior citizen centers, and preschools. Again, these people will enjoy the performance, and it gives your students more experience in playing in front of an audience, but in a non-threatening situation.

Don't discourage these students from participating in music festivals, especially in ensembles. If these are the "lazy" folks that won't show up for rehearsals, that's one matter. But, if these are students that really want to make it, the more exposure, the better. As an additional help, they will be receiving the judge's comments to aid them.

Strongly encourage private lessons. If your "second-string" kids won't feel insulted, you might even recruit kids from your top group to help out, especially in cases such as seniors helping freshman. It will give your older kids experience in working with other people, and your learners someone to emulate.

Some ideas on handling this situation from Ginny Dobbs:

Contributions or ideas for this section can be submitted here. Update.............

Some ideas on handling this situation from Ginny Dobbs:

I just teach part time now that I'm retired. When I had a middle school and 6 classes every day, all of the students performed. The advanced ones in a select group and the others in a 'cadet' -- intermediate group. The 8th Grade advanced class as well as the 6th and 7th grade classes performed as a group alone. The audition group met after school. The intermediate students from the 6th & 7th grades played in the one group. Just picking music was interesting, and sometimes a lot of re-writing. Keeping the ones who were not part of the audition group: continued to work with them on technique, scales, etc. and let them know their time will come if they are persistant. I did have on several occasions children that were withdrawn from the program because they did not make the top group. Their parents said if they weren't good enough for the top, then why bother! That attitude always mystified me. Also the awards program was geared more toward academic achievement. Awards were given for XXXX number of scales with three scales for the beginners. If I had students who didn't meet those requirements then I made up one so they would receive a certificate of some kind on the final concert. LOL I am a big believer in scales and emphasized that from the first, so a lot of awards went to scales. I final went to something I called "Power Scales"--- all 12 scales/arpeggios in a cycle in 2 minutes or less, 1 mistake or none. You'd be surprised how quick it catches on.

Thanks, Ginny, for your contribution. Your students were lucky.