Your Source for
Beginning Band and Strings
At Classroom Composers, we provide a comprehensive curriculum for beginning band and string students, including method books, theory supplements, rhythm drills, sight-reading exercises, and chorale studies. We also offer supplemental resources such as sheet music, reference sheets, duets, song sheets, and worksheets, all designed to support first- and second-year musicians. Our materials are engaging, student-friendly, and pedagogically sound, helping music educators build a strong foundation for their ensembles.
Our Method Series
The Quarter Note Companion is a comprehensive and engaging instrumental music curriculum designed for first-year band and string students. The method builds strong technical foundations while also encouraging higher-level thinking, ensuring students develop both musical skills and critical thinking abilities.
Rooted in Bloom’s Taxonomy, an educational framework that categorizes learning into six levels—Remember, Understand, Apply, Analyze, Evaluate, and Create—this curriculum helps students go beyond just playing notes. By incorporating opportunities to analyze, evaluate, and create, the Quarter Note Companion Method Book series fosters musical independence and deeper artistic expression.
Designed to be inclusive and adaptable, this curriculum features a diverse selection of songs suitable for all classrooms. Additionally, it offers customizable elements, allowing teachers to tailor the materials to their specific ensemble needs and teaching styles.
With the Quarter Note Companion, students don’t just learn music—they understand, explore, and create it with confidence and excitement, all while enjoying a thoughtfully curated, inclusive, and flexible curriculum.
The Quarter Note Companion is a comprehensive instrumental music curriculum for first-year students. Our curriculum differs from the traditional method books because it solves the main problem with ensemble education: instrumental music students are rarely required to do higher-level thinking. The guiding research behind the curriculum is Bloom’s Taxonomy, which is an educational theory that divides educational tasks into six different levels based on complexity. A lower-level task requires less mastery of a subject, whereas a higher-level task requires complete mastery. The six levels are (from lowest to highest): Remember, understand, apply, analyze, evaluate, and create.
Instrumental music teachers spend most of their time teaching “apply” and “remember” tasks and the top three tasks are rarely taught. By not asking students to analyze, evaluate, and create, we are not requiring students to do any higher-level thinking. This creates students that are merely capable of applying remembered fingerings and notation symbols. The Quarter Note Companion Method Book series reinforces all levels of Bloom’s Taxonomy and specifically targets analyzing, evaluating, and creating tasks.
Our method is divided into five books to create a well-rounded musician.
- Method Book: teaches unison etudes designed at targeting new notes, symbols, and concepts
- Theory Supplement: reinforces what is being taught on the instrument in a written format
- Rhythm Drills: solely focuses on rhythms
- Sight-Reading: develops stronger instant note identification skills
- Chorale Studies: teaches balance, blend, part-importance, and intonation
About Us
Our goal is that each student leaves the classroom happier than when they arrived. We strive to create kid-friendly resources and a team-first, non-competitive environment, in which ensemble success is the ultimate goal.
Latest Episodes
Episode 25. Setting up for Success: The First Weeks of School
Listen on: Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, and Google Podcasts Are you feeling overwhelmed with the amount of tasks that need to be done before the
Episode 24: The Band Director Teaching Strings
Listen on: Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, and Google Podcasts How can you successfully teach strings when your background is in band? We both learned the
Episode 23: Connecting Sheet Music to Daily Warm-Ups and Drills
Listen on: Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, and Google Podcasts Are you and your students getting the most out of your daily warm-ups? When we first
