How Do You Scaffold a Song for a Beginning Ensemble?

Many beginning ensemble pieces in the repertoire will assign one or two strings to a part. For instance, part one may be on E and B strings, part 2 on B and G strings and part 3 may get down to the D string. The best way to make sure that students are comfortable in all ranges is to teach everyone all parts.

Playing simple ensembles is also a good way to introduce notes in chords by having students analyze how their parts stack vertically to form a chord. This can precede chord playing from standard notation.