Encourage Summer Practice with Instrumental Play-Alongs

The spring concert season has ended and all the performance programs are completed for another school year. Summer is just around the corner—time for vacations, summer camps, and freedom to enjoy family and friends. However, music directors and studio instructors are asking, “Will my students even practice during the summer? And if so, what will they play? What will motivate their practice and playing time?

While there are many factors to keep students playing, particularly beginners motivated to practice even during the school year, it’s especially challenging during the long summer break when there’s no immediate need to prepare for a concert, solo, and/or ensemble festival. One suggestion is to read through supplementary material. A key question to consider is, what material would motivate playing and practice? Here are a few tips and music suggestions to aid the process in preparing for practice success.

Make Practice Fun

Select music that will be fun to play for your students. Play-along books are great motivating tools. They often contain content from some of the latest songs by current artists and themes from current TV shows and popular movies. If included, the play-along accompaniment tracks give the student a sense of playing with a band, or sometimes a full orchestra depending on the genre of music. Alfred Music has created a vast library of play-along books in various music categories including pop, classic rock, movie, video game, traditional hymns, Christian rock, holiday, classical themes, and jazz. Depending on your student’s interest, there are plenty of good choices. See a complete list of play-alongs , below are suggested options:

• Ultimate Movie Instrumental Solos—Level 2–3
• Ultimate Pop & Rock Instrumental Solos —Level 2–3
• Top Hits from TV, Movies & Musicals Instrumental Solos—Level 2–3
• Harry Potter Instrumental Solos—Level 2–3
• Star Wars Instrumental Solos (Movies I-VI)—Level 2–3
• Easy Christmas Instrumental Solos—Level 1
• Easy Rock Instrumental Solos—Level 1
• Easy Instrumental Solos for Special Occasions & Celebrations—Level 1
• Easy Classical Themes—Level 1

Keep it Educational

Just because the music is fun to play doesn’t mean it can’t also include pertinent educational concepts. For instance, is the level of the arrangements appropriate for my students? Are keys suited for their instruments, whether winds or strings? Are dynamics, articulations, and phrase marks included? What instruments are included? Is there a piano accompaniment? Is there any way to adjust the track speed so that the student can practice slower if needed?

• Grade Levels: Alfred has developed two separate series—a Level 2–3 series and a Level 1 series. Each is graded accordingly with specific keys appropriate for wind instruments, and keys appropriate for string instruments. The levels follow guidelines set forth in most popular and respected band and string methods.
• Instruments: There are seven wind instrument books, including Flute, Clarinet, Alto Sax, Tenor Sax, Trumpet, Horn in F and Trombone. String books included Violin, Viola and Cello.
• Edited Parts: All the parts are carefully edited, with appropriate phrase and articulation markings, dynamics, bowings, etc.
• Enhanced CD: The CD includes two tracks for each song—a play-along track, and a demonstration track featuring a live instrumental performance—this provides a great example on how to play the piece; piano accompaniment pdf files—this provides another option for performance; TNT2 software—this provides the ability the change the speed of the recordings—so the student can slow down the track for practice, then speed it back up for performance.

Alfred has recently released a Level 1 series titled “Easy Classical Themes.” In addition to the elements listed above, it also includes a history page for each song that features a brief synopsis about the composer, as well as insight and context for the music. This is a great way to introduce beginning students to classical repertoire. Here’s a sample:

Encourage Ensembles

Summer is a great time to encourage your students to create a mini (2 or more) ensemble. Playing together with friends is a wonderful way to share music, have fun, and build community. For the beginning students in particular, it reinforces the skill of playing together with another instrument or group of instruments. It also encourages listening to one another. A little extra practice in this area will help everyone’s performance skills for the future school year.

The format of Alfred’s Instrumental Solo play-along series is especially designed to encourage students to engage in ensemble playing. All the wind arrangements are fully compatible with each other, meaning they can be played as solos or ensembles. The arrangements in the string series, though in different keys than the winds, are compatible with each other as well. This also applies to both the Level 1 and Level 2–3 series.

Practicing can sometimes be very boring, and unenjoyable for a young student. Though not always easy, it’s necessary! But as musicians and teachers, above all, we want to share our love of playing and performing. So why not give your students a chance to play a few songs they like, while also preparing their skills for the future?

How do you encourage summer practice for your students? Let us know in the comments below!