Klarinet Archive - Posting 000104.txt from 2001/01

From: Bilwright@-----.net (William Wright)
Subj: Re: [kl] Community bands and clarinets
Date: Tue, 2 Jan 2001 23:55:23 -0500

<><> James Marioneaux wrote:
I am a band director and for the life of me cannot understand why they
would not let the kids take music home. [snip] Don't they expect the
kids to practice on the music?

I agree, of course.

This school requires every student in the school to own or rent an
instrument and take band --- period, end of sentence. Mandatory
participation in a public school, but no school-provided instruments.
My best guess is that more than one class shares the music, and if one
student takes it out of the classroom, all the other students are out of
luck.
I've never really understood the copyright issue. I was under the
impression that schools (legitimate public schools) are allowed to
photocopy things under some circumstances, but of course if they could
copy anything at will, then publishers would sell only one copy of each
item to each school ???

But still, if a kid is required to pay for an instrument, then why
not require that each student purchase a method book as well?

Probably I shouldn't have gone off on this tangent about teaching
kids, but both the sheet music policy and the requirement that every
student must take band and provide an instrument really and truly
offends me. I can understand requiring the three R's, political
science, health, and so forth. But not music.
In previous discussions, some Klarineters have supported a
mandatory music policy. For example, how s it different from excusing
a kid from math if he or she doesn't like it or never manages to get it
right? Somehow art is a different thing, imo. Especially since music
frequently doesn't pay a living wage even if you do it well. A person
can survive financially without art, but not without math.... but even
this isn't true. There are a lot of adults who can't do math, but they
survive.....

I'm sure that some of my personal bias is showing here, because I
was kicked out of mandatory chorus when I was a kid, and I never
recovered from my 'hate' because of it. So I'm sure that my thinking
on this point is twisted.

Oh well, everyone is entitled to his or her rant occasionally, eh
what?

Cheers,
Bill

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