Klarinet Archive - Posting 000759.txt from 2001/05

From: rgarrett@-----.edu
Subj: RE: [kl] School Board
Date: Sun, 27 May 2001 19:24:26 -0400

At 09:49 AM 05/27/2001 -0700, you wrote:
> Music is oriented towards performance, which means towards pleasing
> (and being judged by) an audience of peers in a public gathering.

In some ways yes - but Bill, don't you think the people who don't perform
but who are involved in music (eg., composers, historians, musicologists,
theorists, etc.) are as important in music as those who do the
performing? I think I understand what you mean - music is aural - it
requires a performance to experience, therefore it is oriented towards
performance.........but it seems somewhat general to me.

As funny as it may sound, I actually agree more with Dee than she may
believe - I feel there needs to be more MUSIC teaching/learning
occurring. I just think it can happen by making better teachers - not by
significantly altering the current "national" base of curriculum.

> Can you teach music without requiring performance? Would you be
> setting a significant number of children up for shame? and life-long
> resentment?

What a fantastically good question! Have you been hustling us? Are you
possibly a professional player/teacher who has been pretending to be a
musically average person???

There is great disagreement about the answer to your question. From my
point of view, it is difficult for anyone to experience music as a deep
mode of expression without performing and experiencing it at least once
themselves. But - as Tony Pay mentioned in an earlier post - we are
talking about a much higher level of expression - that requires a very
advanced ability to truly understand that expression when it does in fact
happen (that's not what Tony wrote - but I think I understood what he was
saying).

I tend to agree with Ed - (and I quote) - "I for one wouldn't want to
teach a class of high school students who were taking a required class in
music, in which most of the students would have no interest whatsoever in
the subject." I disagree that we should just put up with that for
advancement of the music program curriculum. It is unrealistic,
idealistic, and bordering on absurd to assume that there will be a greater
number of teachers who can do this in this manner than who are succeeding
in the current status quo. Of course, those of us who have taught middle
school and high school know why it won't work well. Those who have not may
not have a clue........

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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