Klarinet Archive - Posting 000723.txt from 2001/05

From: rgarrett@-----.edu
Subj: Re: [kl] School Board
Date: Sun, 27 May 2001 08:51:38 -0400

At 08:28 AM 05/27/2001 -0400, you wrote:
>OK drop the weekend and evening commitments then. Then make it a
>legitimate elective course. Right now the students have to do several
>times the work that students do in other classes with not nearly the
>reward. So long as they have to march football games, go to contests,
>play at pep rallies etc just to get their grade, they are being cheated as
>a music class. And I still keep saying make MUSIC mandatory.
>
>Dee Hays
>Michigan

As I told my wife last night when one of Dee's posts got me hot under the
collar - except for the suggestion to eliminate band and chorus from the
curriculum, we don't disagree. It is the notion that the substitution of
the other ideas for band and chorus - for the reasons given (originally 2
b.) that we have primary, major, significant professional disagreement on.

Your post above, Dee, is what I have said all along. It already IS a
legitimate elective course - at the high school level. My point to others,
and to you, was that it is the music teachers (band directors if you will)
who are making their own bed and then lying in it - they are the ones
creating the illusion that band is extracurricular - by virtue of what they
choose to do (or not do) with their programs.

I agree - get rid of all the damn weekend and evening activities (well,
concerts should happen on a Friday or Saturday night - but those are three
to five a year right??). These are the problems I have discussed for four
years on this list - and that I have argued vehemently about in my area.

So - with the clarification above - I have no problem with your idea of
adding to the required curriculum.

Best wishes,
Roger Garrett

Roger Garrett
Clarinet Professor
Director, Symphonic Winds
Illinois Wesleyan University
School of Music
Bloomington, IL 61702-2900
Phone: (309) 556-3268
Fax: (309) 556-3121

"A man never discloses his own character so clearly as when he describes
another's."
Jean Paul Richter (1763-1825)

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