Klarinet Archive - Posting 000651.txt from 1999/04

From: LeliaLoban@-----.com
Subj: [kl] the price of lessons (was Clarinet Summit)
Date: Wed, 14 Apr 1999 14:09:18 -0400

KlarBoy wrote,
>I just got a flyer for The New England Conservatory's Clarinet Summit. It
will be a 6 day clinic with Stoltzman and Kalmen Oppermann. The fee for the
seminar is $1,000. Is it just me or this really high? For that kind of
money you could have ten or more lessons with anyone in the country.
Wouldn't that be a better use of the cash? This is not meant to discredit
either of these two great clarinetist, I just find something a little amiss
here. >

Between the pages of a used music book, I found an old certificate (left as a
bookmark, apparently), dated June 9, 1930, for music lessons from Sears,
Roebuck and Co. in Lansing, Illinois. Apparently the store gave these
certificates to people who bought instruments there. On one side is a list
of prices of lessons for various instruments. The prices are "Regular
Tuition Rate for Five Lessons," but I'm not sure whether that's the price per
lesson or for an entire set of five lessons. Bear in mind that the dollar
has inflated a great deal since 1930, but still....

For accordion, banjo, clarinet, cornet, guitar, sax, trombone or ukelele:
$12.50. For piano: $7.50. For violin: $10.00. Why violin and piano came
cheaper I don't know, unless it was because more teachers were available for
those instruments and therefore the teachers had to compete harder for
students.

But wait! A bargain! On the back of this ad is a fancy certificate,
entitling the bearer to a discount. The discount five lesson rate for piano
is $3.75; for violin, $5 and for any of the other instruments, $6.25.

I find myself thinking less about how little the students had to pay than
about how little the teachers could earn in those dark days at the beginning
of the Depression.

Lelia
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"All the disorders, all the wars which we see in the world, only occur
because of the neglect to learn music.... Were all men to learn music, would
not this be the means of agreeing together, and of seeing universal peace
reign throughout the world?"
--Moliere, _The Bourgeois Gentleman_, 1670
Well ... no. But then he couldn't have forseen the Internet.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

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