For the Love of the Fiddle

Walk into the orchestra room at Dodd Middle School and you’re just as likely to hear the melodies of a Cold Play or Katy Perry hit as you are a classical piece by Beethoven or Bach.

Since taking over the strings program 15 years ago, Jan Farrar-Royce has exposed her seventh- and eighth-graders to musical styles ranging from rock and jazz to Irish, Mexican and American folk music.

If a student has a popular song on their iPod they want to play, Farrar-Royce will go home, listen to it and come back with sheet music she has written up herself.

“I make them work on the riffs and the tunes so they can come up with their own arrangements,” said Farrar-Royce.

Farrar-Royce is nationally recognized as a leader in the movement to bring alternative styles of music into classrooms. She has conducted workshops for teachers across the country and co-authored textbooks promoting her teaching philosophy.

She believes school music programs are not there just to turn out classical musicians – after all, relatively few student musicians actually go on to play in symphonies -- but “people who love music and can express it any way they want to.”

“I want them to be able to go to a party and be able to play a Lady Gaga tune by ear,” said the 60-year-old educator. “It’s putting greater emphasis on giving kids the tools to express themselves and play what they want.”

The embracing of alternative styles is just part of the legacy she will leave at Dodd when she retires next week, ending a 35-year teaching career, including 15 years in Cheshire. She also taught at Norton Elementary School this year.

In addition to teaching hundreds of students how to play the violin, viola and cello, she turned Dodd's small, struggling orchestra into a thriving strings program with about 60 members. 

She also founded the Not Just Fiddle Club, which began as an after-school club but eventually grew so popular she had to move it off school grounds because parents, former students and residents from Cheshire and neighboring towns wanted to join. The ensemble has performed for Special Olympics and at area festivals.

Farrar-Royce began her career as a classical violist.  A New York City native, she also performed in several professional symphonies and Broadway pit and professional ballet orchestras before making the switch to teaching (although she can often be seen as a featured fiddler in several professional bands.)

“I absolutely fell in love with it,” she said of teaching. “l felt like I could be one musician in the symphony or I could bring what was so wonderful to me to 100 new kids every year.”

This spring, the Connecticut Chapter of the Music Educators National Conference (MENC) named Farrar-Royce 2011 Middle School Educator of the Year.

Several students in Dodd’s strings program said Farrar-Royce’s enthusiasm – and her respect for students’ musical tastes and opinions -- will be difficult to replace.

"If she finds an area of weakness in a piece, she’ll rewrite that part,” said eighth-grader Hannah Bonitz. “And she’ll rewrite it so that we all have interesting parts to play.”

Farrar-Royce said she is looking forward to the next phase in her career.  She plans to publish her own arrangements of classical pieces geared toward young musicians.

She also is opening the String Studio of Central Connecticut out of her home in North Branford, offering affordable lessons in hope of making music more accessible to children and adults with limited financial means. Other upcoming projects include workshops for the Disney Corporation’s music program and Yamaha.

"Is it easy for me to leave? No. But I think I can actually reach more kids by teaching their teachers,” she said.