Are you struggling to find new members for your orchestra? Perhaps former members stopped playing during lockdown and haven’t picked up their instruments again?
We’ve designed this free poster to help you persuade more musicians to join your orchestra.
Why should you join an orchestra?
Improve your musicality
Joining an orchestra can help you to become a better musician. Firstly, you’ll have the opportunity to learn from the other musicians in the orchestra. You’ll also develop your listening skills, by listening to the rest of the orchestra while also playing your part.
Boost your self-confidence
As part of an orchestra, you’ll work with others to create a beautiful sound and the feeling you get when you achieve that will really boost your confidence.
And you’ll develop your skills as a musician and instrumentalist, which will give you a real sense of achievement and increase your confidence too. Plus, the experience of performing in front of others will develop an inner confidence that you can draw upon in other areas of your life!
Make new friends
When you join an orchestra, you join a group of people with at least one similar interest – the music! And when you rehearse and play together, that feeling of togetherness is very strong and helps you to develop connections very quickly. Plus, you’ll have to work as a team in rehearsals and during performances, and these shared experiences, as well as the exhilaration of pulling off a good performance, will help you to form deep bonds and could lead to lifelong friendships.
Improve your mental health
Music, whether listened to or performed, is well-known for its calming effects. By joining a choir, you’ll have the opportunity to immerse yourself in music on a regular basis. And those connections that we mentioned a moment ago and that feeling of togetherness are important for wellbeing too.
In addition to all that, when you join a choir, you’ll develop your coping strategies for stressful situations. Most orchestras perform concerts at some point, and most musicians feel nervous before performing. But you’ll be surrounded by your fellow musicians who all feel the same and you can support one another to learn to turn that nervous energy into the adrenaline that will help you to perform. And you’ll be able to use these experiences to help you do the same at other times in your life when you might be nervous.
Become more responsible
Whether you have your own instrument or the orchestra provides you with one, you’ll need to take care of it and ensure it’s kept in a playing condition. And many orchestral instruments are incredibly fragile!
By joining an orchestra, you’ll also be committing to turning up to regular rehearsals and making sure you’re available to perform concerts. You’ll also be committing to improving your skills to contribute to the orchestra's development as a whole.
By doing all this, you will not only become a valued member of the orchestra, but you’ll also be able to demonstrate to prospective employers that you have these sought-after skills.
Be part of a team
In many walks of life, being a team player is highly advantageous. Your experience as part of an orchestra will develop your teamwork skills – after all, you’ll need to work together in order to produce a beautiful sound and put on a spectacular performance.
Enjoy unforgettable performance experiences
Most orchestras put on regular concerts and performances, so this is something you can really look forward to when you join an orchestra. You may even have the opportunity to perform in prestigious venues locally, elsewhere in the UK or even abroad!
Wherever you perform, that experience of hard work paying off, and being able to celebrate that as a group of people with a shared passion will leave you with lifelong memories and buckets of confidence and self-esteem!
Improve your cognitive skills
Learning an instrument actually uses the same parts of your brain as mathematics and languages, so something so enjoyable could also pay off in terms of raising your IQ and increasing your spatial-temporal intelligence. Learning new pieces of music will improve your memory and playing music will develop your creativity, which in turn helps with ‘out of the box’ thinking. All of this will be incredibly useful in other parts of your life, from school to work and beyond.
Make yourself stand out
Joining an orchestra can really make you stand out when applying for college, universities or jobs. Your participation in an orchestra will show that you have self-discipline and a good sense of responsibility, as you’ll have committed to learning an instrument and improving your own skills, as well as regular rehearsals and concerts. You’ll be able to show that you can work in a team and have good social skills.
And you’ll also be able to show that you have a good level of self-confidence and know how to manage stressful situations.
It’s fun!
First and foremost, playing in an orchestra is fun. And fun should always be the priority because when you’re having fun you’ll perform to the best of your ability. Rehearsals, where you regularly meet up with friends who share similar interests, will be the highlight of your week, and concerts will give you lifelong memories of incredible exhilaration and inspiration. In short, you certainly won’t regret joining an orchestra!
Still struggling to recruit new members?
A school music tour can be a great way to tempt new members to join your orchestra. Organise it for the end of the year, so that you can give your musicians something to work towards and give them time to feel confident enough in your repertoire to really enjoy the performances.
Please don’t hesitate to contact us for further information.