Klarinet Archive - Posting 000308.txt from 1996/02

From: "Scott D. Morrow" <SDM@-----.EDU>
Subj: Re: Wind Ensemble/band
Date: Mon, 12 Feb 1996 10:17:39 -0500

As someone who loves creating music, both publicly and for my own
enjoyment, I must admit that I am a bit appalled by all of this talk about
preventing students from taking up particular instruments! I realize there
is a business side to this discussion, and that, in business, a glut of
applicants can be detrimental to those trying to make a living. There are
some professions that have stiff competition, and we generally know that
when we choose to go into them. If we don't want to deal with competition,
we choose a different profession. Students who are interested in learning
an instrument should not be shunted off onto different instruments merely
because they may (shudder!) become professionals one day and take a job
away from a "more deserving" instrumentalist in the future! The whole
concept of controlling what instrument a child learns smacks eerily of the
old Soviet system of assigning students to professions!
And, on the topic of clarinet gluts: who is to say that the
student you talk out of taking clarinet today might not have become the
better player over the one you allow to learn?

-Scott

Scott D. Morrow
Department of Biochemistry
School of Hygiene and Public Health
Johns Hopkins University
(410)-955-3631

SDM@-----.edu