Repertoire in the High

School Orchestra

Mia Kruse
MUS 722
Northern State University, MME
Repertoire in the High School
Orchestra
Increasing Motivation and Meeting
Psychological Needs Through
Repertoire
1. Intro
Why?

➔ How did I get here?

➔ How do I keep students

engaged?

➔ How do I keep students

interested and wanting more?
2. Intro
➔ How do I create moments of
deeper meaning in a musical
context?.

➔ How to increase effective

motivation?

➔ How do I effectively teach skills

while engaging students?
How?
Repertoire
● Can choice of repertoire increase motivation by increasing
competence, relatedness, and autonomy?
● What genres of music do students relate to that best meets their
needs in an orchestra class?
● What level of difficulty provides students with a sense of
competence?
● What teaching practices in choice of repertoire provide students
with a sense of autonomy?
What does the literature
say?
● Books:
○ Teaching Music through Performance in Orchestra
● Blogs
● Articles
● Research?
What does the literature
say?
● Self Determination Theory: Motivation
○ Motivation in Learning Music Questionnaire (Comeau, Huta, & Swirp, 2019)
■ Positive correlation between intrinsic motivation and positive outcomes.
What does the literature
say?
● Basic Psychological Needs Theory (Evans and Liu, 2019)
○ Psychological Needs Satisfaction and Intrinsic Motivation
○ Competency, Relatedness, Autonomy ⇒ positive self esteem, increased quality
practice, greater intentions to continue.
What does the literature
say?
● Repertoire Selection relating to motivation: Case study by (Rotjan, 2017)

○ Rotjan conducts an in-depth qualitative case study on six orchestra

teachers and their process for selecting repertoire.
METHODOLOGY
-Mixed Method
● Quantitative Survey Instruments

● Qualitative Interviews -Google Form

-Interviews with three
students.
Quantitative
Survey
● 79 participants
● 121 students invited to
participate
● Participants have been in the Participants
program for a minimum of 2 -27% grades 9-12
years. -27% 8th grade
● Voluntary
-25% 7th grade
-21% 6th grade
-68% female
-28% male
Quantitative
Survey
● 10 questions Questionnaire
-6 questions relate to
Psychological Needs
satisfaction
- 4 questions relate to
Psychological Needs
frustration
 Qualitative
-Interviews with three high school
students.

-Nine prescribed questions.

Participants
-Further discussion and conversation.
1. Senior, female, cellist,
principal member -Audio recording.
2. Junior, female, bass,
co-principal member
3. Sophomore, male,
violist, principal
member.
-
Results

➔ Tables

➔ Data

➔ Interviews
Psychological Needs Satisfaction
 Table 1A

This piece was my favorite because:

1. I recognized it from a popular source such as the radio.

2. It was a classical piece that I recognized
3. It was easy to play.
4. It was challenging.
5. I felt I became a better player and improved my skills by playing this piece.
6. It made me want to practice more because I felt like I was improving.

● Table 1A provides each statement students

were asked to rate.
Table 1B
Question 1 2 3 4 5 6

1 25.3 7.6 30.4 17.7 11.4 7.6

2 17.7 10.1 26.6 13.9 24.1 7.6

3 10.1 25.3 16.5 16.5 22.8 8.9

4 11.4 6.3 15.2 22.8 25.3 19

5 1.3 0 13.9 17.7 38 29.1

6 2.6 3.8 14.1 24.4 29.5 25.6

Note: Table 1B shows student responses to each question in percentages. The ratings are as follows:

1- Strongly Disagree, 2- Somewhat Disagree, 3- Neither Agree or Disagree, 4- Somewhat Agree, 5-

Agree, 6- Strongly Agree.

Psychological Needs Frustration
Table 2A
This piece was my least favorite because:

1. It was too easy.

2. It was too difficult to play.

3. I didn’t recognize it from a popular source like the radio.

4. I didn’t feel like I learned anything new.

Note: Table 2A provides each statement that students were asked to rate.
Qualitative Results:
Interviews
Table 3

Interview
Questions

1 Describe how you feel when you get a new piece of music in orchestra.

2 Describe how you feel when you feel like the new piece is too easy.

3 Are you motivated to look for ways to make it more musical if the basic notes and rhythms are easy?

4 Describe how you feel when the piece is too difficult.

5 Are you motivated to go home to practice it and gain mastery over the difficult passages?

6 Are you motivated to practice less when the piece feels difficult?

7 How have certain pieces helped you relate to other ensemble members, if at all?

8 What are some of your favorite orchestra pieces?

9 What are some orchestra pieces that you wish you could play?
“Leroy”
- Leroy’s Profile
- Leroy’s Responses
- Problematic as a violist because viola parts are
typically monotonous.
- Expressed frustration with other sections.
- Chose very slow pieces as his favorite pieces
due to their construction, story-line, and how
his part related to the other parts.
.
“Leila”
- Leila’s Profile
- Leila’s Responses
- She noted that when the music looks less interesting then she
feels less motivated.
- Identified popular music as boring.
- Identified a feeling of competetion with her coprincipal as
motivation.
- Cited knowing the teacher’s excitement and history of the piece for
creating motivation
- Expressed frustration with other sections.
.
“Hyacinth Bucket”
- Hyacinth’s Profile
- Hyacinth’s Responses
- Also expressed frustration with other sections.
.
Discussion
Competence
“ feeling effective in one’s
actions and pursuits.”
- Evans and Liu (2019)
Quotes for illustration purposes only
Relatedness Autonomy
‘’Need to feel close and Leads to increased
connect to others- a sense persistence, higher quality
of belongingness, without engagement, willingness to
which people feel isolated work, better learning
and lonely,.” outcomes, and better
performance.
-Evans and Liu (2019)
-Comeau, Huta, & Swirp
(2019)
Competence
- Psychological Needs Satisfaction
- Students favor repertoire that provides challenges
and improves their playing ability.
- Appropriate repertoire increases their desire to
practice in order to master a new skill.
- Competence Frustration:
- Repertoire that is perceived as too difficult
- Interviews expressed a feeling of being overwhelmed
- Interviews
Relatedness
- How do students relate to different types of music?
- Pop vs. Classical
- Quality of the arrangements
- Instrumentation
- Recognizing classical music
- Interviews identified classical works as piece that
they want to play in the future.
- Satisfaction when all sections are balanced and have
dialogue.
- Students identified motivating factors:
- Teacher enthusiasm and knowledge
- Competition within a section
- Frustration with other sections
Autonomy
-Challenge

- Competency

-Increased motivation
Limitations of this study.

Scale
● Inconsistency in
the scale within
the questionnaire.
Limitations of this study.

Questionnaire
● Questions addressing
psychological needs
did not directly
parallel questions
addressing
psychological
frustrations.
Limitations of this study.

Questionnaire
● Questions did not
sufficiently address
relatedness and
autonomy.
Limitations of this study.

Interviews
● Volunteers did not
provide an adequate
representation of the
student population.
Recommendations
Allow for a pilot Include a case Make requests for
study that allows study that targets interview
the researcher to sight-reading volunteers from
refine the sessions. specific age
instrument. groups.

Quotes for illustration purposes only

Implications
● Pop Music?

● Needs Satisfaction:

● Teachers must make ongoing

assessments to evaluate each student’s
skill level in order to create a plan for
building onto those skills.
Conclusions
Choice of repertoire::

● Helps to create competency

● Relatedness
● Provides a means for creating a sense
of autonomy
● Choices must be informed by
student-teacher relationships.
Comeauy, G. Huta. V., Lu, Y., & Swirm, M. (2019). The Motivation for Learning

Music (MLM) Questionnaire: Assessing children’s and adolescents’ autonomous

motivation for learning a musical instrument. Motivation and Emotion, 43,
705-718.https://doi.org/10.1007/s11031-019-09769-7

Evans, Paul, & Liu, Mark, Y. (2019) Psychological Needs and Motivation Outcomes in a
High School Orchestra Program. Journal of Research in Music Education, 67,83-105.

Rotjan, M. (2017). In between and together with: Exploring the complexity of repertoire
selection with school orchestra teachers and their students. (Number 10284642)
[Doctoral dissertationTeachers College, Columbia University].ProQuest.