Klarinet Archive - Posting 000938.txt from 1998/07

From: <SDSCHWAEG@-----.com>
Subj: Re: [kl] Re: mozart...
Date: Fri, 24 Jul 1998 09:13:49 -0400

In a message dated 7/23/98 10:59:58 PM Central Daylight Time,
bhausman@-----.com writes:

<<
At 01:46 PM 7/23/98 PDT, yCarrie Koman wrote:
>>>--------------------------------------------------------------------
>After my first year of college, I started to understand WHY some band
>directors are terrible and some are great. The terrible band director is
>the one that loves music but doesn't think s/he will "cut it" as a
>musician and then "falls back" on music education. I don't know how many
>times I've heard that expression. It takes more than a love of music to
>be a band director. You have to want to help others to love it too. The
>good band directors are usually those good musicians who have a drive to
>succeed in them... They could succeed as either a musician or a teacher
>if they put their mind to it. They're people who are studying music ed
>because they WANT to and not as a "fall back."
>I know quite a few people who are both excellent musicians and band
>directors and a know a lot of people who are neither, but pretend to be.
>
You've hit upon something here. "Mr. Holland" notwithstanding, successful
band directors tend NOT to be musicians who have gone into teaching, but
TEACHERS whose subject matter specialty is music. You have to love kids
and want to teach them everything you can to succeed as a teacher of ANY
subject. You certainly must know the material, so you have something TO
teach them. But without the burning desire to teach, the demands of the
job will eat you alive.
>>
I agree with what has been said here, but would like to add a point my dad (a
band director for over 30 years) makes - a band director (or choir or
orchestra director) has to PERFORM along with their students. On a concert,
the students are demonstrating what they have been taught, but they and the
director are also (hopefully!) directly engaged in the art of making music
together as fellow-musicians. For the director, the desire to teach and the
knowledge of the subject matter is essential, but that artistic "spark" is
also important.
Susan Schwaegler
(proud of Ken Bartosz, my dad AND high school band director)

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