This fall, 7th and 8th grade students in the Middle School Glass Ensemble spent six weeks designing paper instrument kits for the 4-and 5-year old students in the Josiah Quincy Orchestra Program (JQOP) in Boston.

When students start the JQOP, they spend their first three months learning about string instruments, developing general music skills, and building papier-mâché violins, cellos, or bass. These paper instruments teach the young musicians the mechanics of the real instruments and help them begin to form the muscle memory needed to play. In previous years, to build these cardboard instruments, either the parents of the JQOP students hand cut and glued each component or a small group of volunteers and administrators spent their limited time and resources laser cutting the pieces in bulk. Both processes took days (sometimes weeks) to complete, were quite tedious, and were not cost-effective.

To simplify the creation and assembly process, JQOP partnered with returning Middle School string musicians. Using their knowledge and experience with the instruments, students met three times per week with design coaches Amelia Walske and Nate Guevin to create paper instrument kits for JQOP families. They brainstormed the components needed for each instrument, discussed design challenges with JQOP Executive Director Christopher Schroeder, wrote instruction manuals, and iterated many (many) times. The final products were recently shared with families and, Schroeder said, the overall impact of the partnership has been “tremendous.”