Klarinet Archive - Posting 000939.txt from 1999/07

From: "Patricia Smith" <david-patty@-----.net>
Subj: Re: [kl] school music programs(kinda defending corps too)
Date: Sun, 25 Jul 1999 12:58:09 -0400

Again, Roger, you have voiced my opinions concerning marching band pretty
much to a "t". However, I feel I need to clarify and qualify myself in
relation to one thing. I personally hated marching band. I have nothing
against those students who truly enjoy it; however, when I was in school the
thing we kids enjoyed about it was the chance to travel and the opportunity
(such as it was) to get away from home; that was what I liked about it. I
was fortunate in that the first college I went to didn't have much of a
marching band, and the school where I finished up (VCU, Richmond, VA, late
'70's) didn't have one at all. When I went into the Navy, I ended up
spending my entire career in bands that marched - a lot. (And I never found
it useful for weight control; we didn't rehearse it much and I found out I
simply had to work to hard to change how I marched from the old military
style step to a corps style step to really care about it) So my dislike of
it is personal in a
lot of ways, and am not intentionally trying to instill hatred of it into
others.
I will re-iterate what others here have said about balance - our children
need to know how to make and keep commitments; however they also need to
learn how to say "enough is enough" when ANY teacher (music or other)
forgets the real purpose of schooling, which is to educate, not entertain
adults (or each other!)or win trophies. Where I grew up (and now live
again) we had one man who locally was representative of music in the schools
here. He was an icon in the schools here and was once finalist for Virginia
Teacher of the Year, yet his attitude was balanced. We practiced marching,
but we had the very best concert band in our district; his career here
spanned 36 years, and he always had award winning bands, concert and
marching. BUT his focus was ALWAYS teaching music...we knew what a
transcription was, and from the way he taught these (he always conveyed the
idea of opera as telling a story, and told us what part of the original
piece the transcription was from), many of us first became aware of great
music, such as opera and symphonic music. He always played any part people
needed to hear on his horn (a clarinet, of course), and we all had to learn
that music was to be
played with feeling, and expression. I learned not only "lessons of life"
but I had a good enough background,
thanks to him and two very fine private teachers, that I chose music as a
career because I loved (and still love) it. In fact, I have tried to quit
so many times, and never could, for some reason.
Bill Hausman wrote, "One local school district, a fairly affluent one with
two high schools, does not participate in competitions, but fields fine
marching bands anyway. They hold an invitational exhibition each fall where
bands perform for stands full of people (not a football in sight!) and
receive critiques from judges, but no grades." I rather like this concept,
because not only is marching graded, but, I would imagine, choice of music
(director) and performance of the music (several areas - intonation,
technique, etc.) is graded also. It is to be hoped that the comments are
specific enough that band directors can use them to improve music making by
their students..nothing worse than over-generalized judges' comments.
Concerning teacher tenure systems and how a new director must deal with
administration demands and requests, Roger Garrett wrote,"Well, it has
plenty[to do with tenure]. Until one receives tenure, one may not change
those things they feel will lose their position. However, many schools have
a 2 to 4 year tenure setup - and that is plenty of time to educate and
gradually change opinion to the contrary of competitions," and,
"Administrators are political creatures. They can be educated, convinced,
swayed, etc......but not by someone who dictates to them. They require
finesse". No one could have said it better.
Additionally, Roger Garrett wrote, "These [former students] are musically
literate people - not symphony players. That's our job as music
educators....to create musically literate people. That's all. I never
set out to create symphony, jazz, professional, etc. players....." I agree
100%. What is wrong with attempting to raise the standard for musical
skills? As I mentioned above, the more tools of music making a student has,
the more he or she can continue to enjoy music years after s/he has
graduated from high school or college. Also, one does not create any type of
player - students make these choices for themselves.

In closing (finally) I agree with Roger, again, enough on Marching
band...and you do have my applause.
{{{{{{{{Roger Garrett}}}}}}}}}}}}}

Sincerely,
Patty Smith

---------------------------------------------------------------------
Unsubscribe from Klarinet, e-mail: klarinet-unsubscribe@-----.org
Subscribe to the Digest: klarinet-digest-subscribe@-----.org
Additional commands: klarinet-help@-----.org
Other problems: klarinet-owner@-----.org