Klarinet Archive - Posting 000878.txt from 1997/04

From: "Edwin V. Lacy" <el2@-----.edu>
Subj: Re: marching bands
Date: Tue, 29 Apr 1997 12:21:32 -0400

On Tue, 29 Apr 1997, Michael D. Moors wrote:

> Marching band is vital for the PR of instrumental music. Voters will
> support band in elections because marching band is one of the only groups

I'm not an outsider taking potshots at the marching band world. I came
from the public school music program, played in marching bands through
junior high school, high school and the first two years of college. I
have a degree in music education, and was a public school music teacher
and band director (including marching) for six years. However, we always
managed to keep the marching program in some sort of perspective. It
didn't rule our lives, as it often does today.

When my children were in high school band, they had marching band
rehearsal the first period of each school day. So, the director had them
come to school at 7:00 a.m., so that they could have two hours of marching
each morning. Then, they had a 3 hour rehearsal every Thursday evening,
went back to school at 5:00 on Friday evening and practiced for a couple
of hours before their football game. Then there were one or two marching
contests every Saturday from September through early November. All this
time, they played only their 13 minutes of memorized music.

Then, when marching season was over and concert band began, the rehearsals
reverted to the regular schedule of 50 minutes rehearsal per day, with no
extra, outside-of-school-hours rehearsals. That shows me where the
priorities are.

All this was in a school in which the director tuned the band only just
before a marching contest. On the other days, it didn't seem to matter.
My children were in this band for four years each, and not once did either
one of them hear the words tone quality, intonation, blend, balance,
phrasing, musicality, interpretation or many others which are normally
used in a _musical_ setting. The program finally got so bad that parents
would go to concerts and videotape them, and then send the tapes to the
school board members, because otherwise, no one could possibly believe how
bad it was.

There are schools in this area which will complete their final marching
contest on a Saturday in November and then on the following Monday, they
will have the first organizational meeting for the next year's marching
band!

The band can provide all the PR that it and the school system need without
taking over the entire lives of the students and their teachers. This is
why we get so many people at the college level who are totally burned out
with bands and music. It is also why you very seldom see a high school
band director as much as 40 years old in a school with a competitive
marching band program. (I know there are a few exceptions.) I also
attribute to the fact that my children were relegated to a program of this
type that neither of them went into music as a profession.

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

   
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