• Participation in an Orchestra class teaches students so much more than just music.  The FCMS Orchestra program strives to instill and grow these skills to help each student mature and grow into their best selves.

    A Few Points about String Playing:

    1. All children are capable of learning to play a stringed instrument, regardless of talent, giftedness, or musical background.  String classes have been successfully taught to diverse populations and in diverse settings.
    2. Unlike most other musical instruments, stringed instruments come in a variety of sizes so that children as young as three years old can begin instruction.
    3. Orchestra music, which is considered one of Western culture’s greatest treasures, cannot be performed without stringed instruments.
    4. Contemporary music increasingly relies on strings.  Some of the popular musical genres that feature stringed instruments include jazz, country, pop, mariachi and Tejano.  Other world cultures also use stringed instruments in their music making.
    5. Lifelong opportunities to perform on a stringed instrument abound.  According to the American Symphony Orchestra League, opportunities exist for adult musicians in more than 1500 orchestras in the United States.  Greats in all fields have played stringed instruments for lifelong fulfillment, counting among their number Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin and Albert Einstein.
    6. Playing a stringed instrument enhances the enjoyment of music and leads to a lifelong appreciation of music.  An estimated 32 million people currently attend concerts each year in the United States.
    7. Colleges and universities often need string players for their orchestras and may offer scholarships to qualified students regardless of their intended academic major.
    8. Opportunities also abound for undergraduate string education and performance majors.  Today more than 8,000 string teaching positions exist in the public schools alone.
    9. Playing a stringed instrument enhances a child’s quality of life.  It provides creative, emotional, and social opportunities and can also lead to improvements in academic performance in other areas beyond music.

    Twelve Important Skills Your Child Learns by Studying Music.

    1. Self Confidence – Being able to go from learning notes and rhythms to producing meaningful music instills in your child a sense of accomplishment and self-confidence.
    2. Coordination – Hand, eye, body, posture, thought, and body control, all working together are the ingredients for playing a musical instrument.  These coordination skills transfer to other aspects of life.
    3. Teamwork – Every child wants to be part of a group.  Music allows everyone to belong by being an important part of a team.
    4. Comprehension – Learning to perceive and derive meaning from musical sounds sharpens your child’s ability to comprehend abstractions.
    5. Problem Solving – Learning the basics of musical language and interpreting a work through performance teaches your child the ability to understand a problem and reach an appropriate solution.
    6. Discipline – Learning all of the basics of music and applying them correctly to a work take perception and discipline.
    7. Arts Appreciation – The words beauty, calm, serene, and exciting come to life with each musical experience.  These feelings help every child appreciate all forms of the Arts.
    8. Reasoning Logically – When your child learns to analyze a musical work from all perspectives or to improvise within certain musical style, both inductive and deductive reasoning grow stronger.
    9. Communicating – Music offers the ability to cultivate our feelings and thoughts through nonverbal means, and to respond to these nonverbal thoughts in others.