The Fredösphere

The public school system in Saline, Michigan has an unusually healthy music program.  All middle school kids must choose orchestra, band, or a choir and theater class.  In high school, these classes become optional, yet 40 percent stick with it, which is quite a bit more than is typical.

How do they do it?  (It must be something in the water -- get it? -- it's Saline, yuk yuk!)  They have teachers who know how to motivative, like Ben Culver, who directs the orchestra for the upper middle school grades.  Ben believes in disguised repitition; he uses rhythm tracks from a midi keyboard to accompany scales. 

Ben also directs the Saline Fiddlers, a very active group independent of the school, which I have blogged with extravagant admiration here and here.  A typical month for the Fiddlers includes six performances, which is an astonishingly busy schedule for teenagers with lots of extracurricular options.  Ben says his goal is to make each Saline Fiddlers' rehearsal the best part of the day.  I suspect many 5th graders pick up the violin with the dream of playing for the Fiddlers some day; this makes Saline's school orchestras as popular as its marching bands.  Ben keeps parents heavily involved in the group, and his helped by a staff of four administrators, two assistant directors, and a choreographer.

Ben's work is that of maintenance; keeping a good thing going.  Here's the question that fascinates me:  how do you get something like this started?  Ben credits a former superintendent of schools, the "visionary" Ellen Ewing, who believed in arts participation and its link to improved academic performance.  This was no naive "Mozart Effect" theory; she knew sports have a similar effect, and promoted them too.  Ewing was also a gifted consensus-builder and leader.

Ben also gives great credit to Bob Phillips, the founder of the Saline Fiddlers.  Phillips is an energetic musician with unusual personal appeal.  "When he walked into a room, he could convince each person he was their best friend."  Ah yes, that handy skill; I wish one of you knuckleheads would teach me how to do that.