September 26, 2007
September 26, 2007
Carefully adjusting their violins, cellos and basses, with the bows
ready to glide across the strings, students at St. Rita School in Alexandria
listen attentively to the conductor.
Two students hold basses taller than them, and most of the violinists
have large yellow sponges between their chins and their violins for extra
padding.
“You’ve got to love your bass,” said John Barger, music teacher
and director of the elementary school’s strings program, as he coaxed
a student to stand closer to her bass. “You’ve got to really love
it,” he said, while holding his own large bass.
As Barger walked around to each of the students to check their finger
placement on the strings and make sure they were in proper form, he encouraged
the aspiring musicians.
“You’re doing a good job. Don’t get discouraged,” he
told one of his cellists seated on a chair while propping up her cello.
The strings curriculum is a new addition to the school’s music
program, Barger said. His idea for the program stemmed from his own passion
for the bass.
“I wanted to be able to share that with the school,” he said.
In addition to his own enjoyment of stringed instruments, he noted that
studies have proven that students who learn to play string instruments
at a young age do better academically and have better motor coordination.
“It’s easier for students who are younger to progress,” said
Barger, who teaches two separate strings sessions.
Music students in general score better on tests, said Barger, who served
as a musician in the U.S. Army for three years. “It’s an
important part of the curriculum,” he said.
After hearing his proposal for the program last spring, Principal Pat
Schlickenmaier agreed to the program, which now enrolls 26 students from
third- to eighth-grade.
It may be the “one opportunity that they are going to have to pick
up an instrument like this,” said Barger, who is a professional
bass player with the Fairfax Symphony Orchestra and the National Guard
Band.
Barger said St. Rita School is the only school in the diocese with a
strings program, which focuses solely on violins, violas, cellos and
basses.
Barger, who is starting his second year at the school, said he was grateful
to the principal and the faculty for allowing him to implement the program
during the school day. Barger’s goal this year is to have the students
play in the school’s Christmas and spring concerts this year.
The students gently packed up their instruments in their cases at the
end of class. They would be back later in the day to take them home.
As they scurried out of the music room, Barger called out to them, “Practice
hard.”
Henrietta Gomes can be reached at hgomes@catholicherald.com