Klarinet Archive - Posting 001020.txt from 1999/07

From: James Leonard Hobby <jhobby@-----.Net>
Subj: [kl] Re: School Music programs
Date: Mon, 26 Jul 1999 10:49:14 -0400

Frankly, it sounds like you've got a problem with a few band directors and
you've let it become almost a neurosis about marching band.

Some of the attitudes I've seen here are more like an experience I had when
I was an undergrad music major. Two faculty members -- one the head of the
[elementary] music education and the other the conductor of the orchestra
-- were the problems. When you attended their classes, you'd best be
prepared to parrot back to them that their courses were the only thing
worth of study and their method was the only way things could be done. I
always hoped such childish attitudes were outmoded. Apparently not.

Large schools and/or large city schools have the advantage of offering a
multitude of music programs. Most schools, however, do not. Most school
are lucky to have 1 band director to cover middle and high schools and
occasionally a music ed. teacher who works in the elementary schools and
perhaps teaches chorus at the high school. I agree that MB shouldn't be
mandatory, but I'm not at all satisfied that it's as much a problem as it's
been made out to be here. I called around to friends -- band directors and
students -- in, I think, five states, to make an unscientific check. I
failed to find any that required participation in MB to be able to play in
the CB.

As I stated once before, when I was teaching, I didn't require it. Only
one ever opted out. I don't think musicianship suffered. It never seemed
to upset our ability to put a large number of students in All-State
Band/Orchestra.

I think it's best to show as many students as possible that music can be
entertaining as well as educational, and as well as a career path for the
few who are capable of it, without leaving the students with the impression
that all music teachers must have delusions of supreme importance.

Jim

=================

>>From: "Edwin V. Lacy" <el2@-----.edu>
>>Subject: Re: School Music programs
>
>>In this area, there are quite a few band directors (I don't call them
>>music educators) who are smitten with the idea of the drum and bugle
>>corps. They will drive across the country to hear one perform. On their
>>holidays and weekends, they watch videotapes of drum and bugle corps or
>>marching band competitions. If you go to their music teacher's staff
>>meetings, they talk an incomprehensible jargon belonging to the drum and
>>bugle corps culture. To participate, you need to learn casually to throw
>>about such terms as "curvo-linear," "horns south," and others. However,
>>at no time in these meetings will you hear any mention of music.
>
>

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