Free Resource: 8-Measure Pieces... now for Orchestra!

Free Resource: Four 8-Measure Pieces for Orchestra

Welcome to Free Resource Friday... the first Friday of every month, we'll give you something to help make your life a little easier teaching young instrumental ensembles!

Last week we posted "Four 8-Measure Pieces for Band." We had a great response from band teachers who were looking for engaging materials to use with their students in that time between their last concert and the end of the school year. 

We had some orchestra teachers ask if we would adapt these pieces for their ensembles. You can download these files below! We did swap out one piece ("Ending Credits") for a new one that was better suited for strings ("Not so Big Jig"). If you decide to use these resources, we have some suggestions below:

1. This is great sight-reading practice. Talk about time signatures, key signatures, notes and rhythms. Each of these four pieces is an opportunity to start from scratch, so you can develop strategies for how to read each piece successfully.

2. Something I love doing is teaching conducting to students. These pieces include time signatures in 2/4, 4/4 and 6/8, allowing you to teach various meter patterns. I know students will love conducting (or being conducted by) their peers!

3. I encourage you to tackle the big ideas in each "movement." For example, "Tag, You're It" has a lot of dynamic changes. The articulation is important, as the low voices match the upper voices in the responses. "Swing It" could be your orchestra's first introduction to swung rhythms. There's a lot to unpack in each of these!

I hope this helps you get to the end of the year just a little bit easier. Have a great concert season and final push to June!

Download: Score and Parts

Download: Digital File (need help importing the file into your favorite notation software?)

Some versions of Sibelius require this file in order to open.

Hey, did you know all of our scores for sale come with a Digital file, back page warmups, chord parts, and more? Hope you'll check us out!

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