Klarinet Archive - Posting 001199.txt from 1998/09

From: "Edwin V. Lacy" <el2@-----.edu>
Subj: Re: [kl] Marching band and (Concert Band also)
Date: Wed, 30 Sep 1998 18:53:28 -0400

On Wed, 30 Sep 1998, Kung-Gene Chu wrote:

> The band at my high school usually plays 6-8 pieces divided into a
> winter and spring concert

> is important to play a wide variety of music

It is difficult for me to see how you can achieve a "wide variety" of
music if you play only 6 to 8 pieces per year. I expect many high school
bands today, perhaps most of them, learn no more music than yours does.

Just so you will have a point of comparison, when I was in high school,
and later when I was a high school band director, in the 1960's, my bands
would play over 100 pieces of music per year. That included different
music for every football game, and sight reading materials in most
rehearsals.

The difference? People were expected to be able to sight-read music, and
didn't know that they weren't supposed to. When I was in high school, if
a marching band rehearsal was rained out, we would stay inside and play.
Often, in such instances we would read through something like the entire
"March Masters" book. That would be about 16 marches, in the original
arrangements. Today, I would predict that there are not a dozen high
school bands in the United States which could sight read even one of
those, because they are hardly ever asked to sightread. They learn their
7 minutes or 10 minutes of music, whatever it is, and then play from
memory from June until November, at which time they get their 3 or 4
pieces which they will play for contest, and set about learning that by
rote and by memory. Sight readers are nearly an extinct breed.

For a period of many years, teaching at the university level, I noticed
that our incoming students' became worse and worse at sightreading, until
I had to teach my jazz ensemble to play things nearly by rote.
Fortunately, this situation has gotten better within the past five years
or so. I don't know why it has improved. I wonder if any other college
teachers have noticed similar trends.

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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