Klarinet Archive - Posting 000325.txt from 1996/02

From: "Edwin V. Lacy" <el2@-----.EDU>
Subj: Re: Switching Instruments
Date: Mon, 12 Feb 1996 14:26:58 -0500

On Mon, 12 Feb 1996, SHELLEY A BARABASH wrote:

> I don't think I caught the whole thing, but I caught something about
> teachers not letting students choose their own instrument!!? In high
> school, our teacher moved students around to other instruments that
> he felt he needed more of (usually trombones) from instruments he
> felt he had too many of (usually clarinets). I didn't agree with
> that practice then, and I still don't now. Just because the teacher
> wants an evenly balanced band is a reason to switch instruments?
> Come off it! I know a lot of students that dropped music because the
> teacher put them on a instrument they didn't like! Is this the
> impression of music teachers we want to give? We could probably have
> a lot more musicians out there if some teachers actually listened to
> their students, instead of putting them on an instument "for the good
> of the band". What about what the student wants, or isn't that good
> for us? I know that teacher knows best, but shouldn't we at least
> have a say in what we want to play?

It's not that the teacher needs a balenced instrumentation - it's the
_students_ who _deserve_ to play in a group with balanced
instrumentation. I'm not sure that you are really advocating a system
where the instrumentation of school bands and orchestras would be
determined on a haphazard basis of just letting every student play the
instrument they think (as 10 to 12 year olds) that they want to play.
But, if you really have had the experience of playing in a band with a
gigantic clarinet section and no trombones, or very few trombones, you
may not have learned as much about music as you thought you were
learning.

Actually, there is a happy medium here. A perceptive teacher will find
that there are many students who could play several instruments
successfully. By gently nudging these students in a certain direction, a
balanced instrumentation can be achieved. There will be certain other
students who are physically or psychologically suited to only one
instrument, and they should be allowed to play that one. It is no
advantage to a student to let them play an instrument which they have
chosen on the basis of little or no information if they are unsuited to
that instrument.

In my case, I started on the clarinet. Why? Because when I was in the
6th grade, my girlfriend and my best friend played clarinet. That's
probably as substantial a reason as most students have. Later, my
teacher switched me to oboe and saxophone. I found I enjoyed those
instruments, too. When I went to college as a music major, for reasons
that are too complicated to list here, I became a bassoon major, even
though I was a beginner on bassoon. I have since found that bassoon is
the instrument to which I am best suited, physically, psychologically and
termperamentally.

When I became a high school band director, I used to occasionally change
a student from one instrument to another. In those cases, it would be a
matter of the needs of the organization for a balanced instrumentation,
but also, I would take into account the situation of the student. Let's
say you have 13 saxophones, or 35 clarinets, and among one or the other
of those groups is a student who is doing well, but who enjoys being
independent, and doing something other than what the crowd is doing.
That student might flourish much more if switched to bassoon or oboe, or
even to trombone in some cases. You can't just pick a student at random
for such changes, but if the teacher knows his/her students well, it will
be possible to get the right people in the right positions.

I believe the person who posted the message to which this is a reply said
she was a music education major. If so, when she becomes a teacher, her
attitudes on this question likely will undergo a radical change. It
would be interesting to find out.

Ed Lacy
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Dr. Edwin Lacy University of Evansville
Professor of Music 1800 Lincoln Avenue
Evansville, IN 47722
el2@-----.edu (812)479-2754
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