Elementary Music/Music Technology Blog

Last week, our school held our annual talent assembly. It was so well-received, that the 26 students who participated received a standing ovation from their fellow students, teachers, administrators, and parents.

The subject of school talent assemblies appears on the MENC General Music Boards from time to time. I often read about teachers who are questioning how they should proceed with talent assemblies, who should perform, who should judge, what classifies as talent, and if parents should be involved. These are interesting topics and ultimately, we approach our talent assembly in a way that would promote our music program. Therefore, we do assemble guidelines for the participants. They are as follows:

• Who is eligible to audition? Students in grades 1-8 who have studied privately on their talents.
• Is there a sign up form? Yes. The form includes the requirements to participate, the form’s due date, the audition dates, the performance date, and the signatures of the student, parent, and private teacher stating that they have read and agreed to the requirements.
• Does everyone who auditions get to perform? Usually, yes. We have a time limit to the assembly because our assemblies are 1 hour long. However, by the time the forms are due, we have around 26 performers, and that will usually take an hour to an hour and ten minutes, which is our alotted time.
• What happens if the form comes in late? We put the students on a waiting list. Often, one to three students will drop before the talent assembly due to illness or the students were not ready to perform in front of the school. Then, we can move the waiting list students to the performance list.
• Do you allow lip syncing or playing “Heart and Soul” in your talent assembly? No. By having the guideline that the student must be studying the talent privately for at least a year, this rules out those types of questionable talents. When asked for our rationale, we state that in our school every student in grade 6 and above must participate on a sports team. These teams are honored three times a year in a school awards assembly. We (the music department) would like to honor those students who take time out the of their day to study privately and the talent assembly accomplishes that.
• Who judges the auditions? The music teachers.
• What type of talent has performed? Singing, performing on various instruments, and dance.

This process works very well for us, however, it does not work for all schools. For example, I have heard of schools whose parents committee runs the “talent show.” The parents are the judges and run it like an “American Idol” type of show. I have heard other music teachers tell me that by only having private students perform, then we are missing out on “hidden talents” from students who can perform beautifully but have never taken a lesson. My response to the latter is that there is some truth to that, however, we have had so many experiences where students are not ready to perform in front of the entire school because they have not had the training from a teacher on how to perform in front of a big audience. In addition, we have had parents ask us to tell their children to not perform because they were to afraid to say that to them. Therefore, we like the guideline of private lessons, because we can directly contact the private teacher to assist us with the student’s preparation and we feel that the student will have a successful performing experience. For us, our goals are to honor these students with very successful performing experiences.

Does your school have a talent assembly? If so, what are the guidelines for the performers?