Klarinet Archive - Posting 000965.txt from 2000/04

From: Bill Hausmann <bhausman@-----.com>
Subj: Re: [kl] Practicing at school (was [kl] Gender bias - survey?)
Date: Sat, 22 Apr 2000 23:17:40 -0400

At 10:54 AM 4/21/2000 EDT, LeliaLoban wrote:
>
>Bill Hausmann wrote,
>>To get ANYBODY to play low brass is like pulling teeth. I assume they have
>made a mental measurement of the size of the instrument as compared to their
>seat on the bus and done the math! >
>
>Parental preferences may enter into this equation, too -- the "Are you
>kidding? That thing would take up half your bedroom!" reponse, followed
>quickly by, "And don't even think about leaving it in the living room!"

And you ought to see the doubletakes when the parents see what renting a
baritone for their kid COSTS, especially as compared to a clarinet or
trumpet. fortunately, many schools provide baritones and tubas at little
or no cost to the parents, some even offer french horns. A few even offer
ALL students free instruments for the first year.

>Though I begged for the chance to switch to a big, bass instrument as a kid,
>I must admit with adult hindsight that shlepping a bass whatsit to the bus
>stop half a mile from my house, then hoisting the equipment up and down the
>stairs and through the door, would have been a dauntingly strenuous
>undertaking. Also, in my overcrowded, baby-boomer schools, the buses were
>crammed with kids, wedged three to a seat and standing in the aisles.
>
I have seen cases where the school has enough tubas and baritones to offer
one to keep at home and one to play in school. The student only has to
"shlep" his mouthpiece back and forth.

>If it's at all financially feasible for the school to build a row of
>soundproofed practice cubicles along one wall of the music room, with
windows
>into the room so that the students in the cubicles can see out and the
>teachers can see in, I think it's an investment worth funding. In high
>school, I did nearly all of my Bb clarinet practice in the cubicles.
>Students could sign up for any time of day when a teacher had to be in the
>music building anyway to do paperwork or hold class. We used study hall
>periods, lunch hour or time just before and just after school (when the
>extracurricular music groups rehearsed). Kids who signed up didn't need
>much supervision -- we just signed in, practiced on our own or in small
>section groups and then left -- so we didn't create a lot of extra work for
>the teachers. They seemed happy with the arrangment, since it encouraged
>kids to practice.
>
Sound-deadened practice rooms are available in SOME of the schools I visit,
but many are rural schools where the bus schedule drives almost everything.
And with all the trouble these days with bomb threats, etc. in schools,
supervision is REQUIRED. I think it would be nice to allow the band
director a FEW minutes at home each day! By the way, it is not unusual to
see the practice rooms converted into storage closets.

Bill Hausmann bhausman@-----.com
451 Old Orchard Drive http://www.concentric.net/~bhausman
Essexville, MI 48732 http://homepages.go.com/~zoot14/zoot14.html
ICQ UIN 4862265

If you have to mic a saxophone, the rest of the band is too loud.

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