Klarinet Archive - Posting 001294.txt from 2000/10

From: LeliaLoban@-----.com
Subj: [kl] A curricular issue
Date: Fri, 27 Oct 2000 07:07:19 -0400

Roger Garrett wrote,
> Let's then say that the music major who
> did not make it in was 18th out of 10 majors and 10 non-majors.

Karl Krelove wrote,
>>These must be very good non-major flute players (or to keep it more
>>list-specific, let's change it to clarinet players). I can imagine this
>>happening in the abstract, but I'm having a hard time with the thought that
>>it happens often in the real world, unless clarinet (flute) #18 out of 20
>>really isn't at an appropriate level in the first place for the program
>>he/she was accepted into. You haven't said whether the other majors were
>>accepted into the ensembles (placed within the first 12) or whether more of
>>them are getting beaten by engineering and journalism majors.

I think it does happen in the real world. People whose talents lead them
naturally to music have always been subject to pressures to choose something
different for a career, something more lucrative. I think many parents fear
that a child who majors in music chooses a lifetime of financial sacrifice --
yet the pull toward music doesn't just go away because the student chooses
another major.

One of the younger people in my husband's circle of amateur chamber music
buddies is a fabulous musician. One teacher after another told her that she
had the stuff to be a concert soloist and urged her to apply to Juilliard,
Curtis or one of the other schools with heavy-duty programs in her
instrument. She really is that good, IMHO.

She's an immigrant from a culture where families stick together and observe a
strict generational hierarchy. Parents discipline their children sternly,
and children continue to obey as long as their parents live. Her parents
decided that she mustn't major in music because it would be too hard for her
to earn a living as a musician. They pressured her to go to law school
instead. She strongly disagreed. However, since they paid the bills, she
turned down scholarships she had won to music schools and went to a liberal
arts college -- but she chose a school with an excellent music program.

All through college and law school, she continued to take music classes. She
placed first or second in nearly every competition she entered. She didn't
need the competitions for anything. She's got a killer instinct and she got
a kick out of playing the socks off the music majors. (The idea of
*enjoying* a music competition seems downright grotesque to me, but diff'rent
strokes for diff'rent folks, I guess.) Also, the idea kept revolving in the
back of her mind that she'd better stay prepared on her instrument, because
one day, her parents might change their minds.

They didn't. Evidently she's now an excellent lawyer. I usually think about
this situation from the point of view that the world lost a fine soloist, but
Roger's question has made me see from the other perspective, of the rival
musicians she beat out for covetted ensemble spots and creamed in
competitions! It must have driven those kids wild to get trounced by a
pre-law student with nothing riding on the outcome. Her success may have
hurt the future careers of some of those kids.

So, should this dedicated amateur have been kept out of the competitions?
Banished from the music classes she took for fun? Should the ensemble
positions she won have gone to music majors instead? I don't see any easy
answers to these questions. Roger, I think your school is wise to think
about these issues before specific cases come up.

Lelia

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