Klarinet Archive - Posting 000779.txt from 2001/05

From: jim lande <lande@-----.com>
Subj: [kl] Re: school board
Date: Mon, 28 May 2001 10:13:31 -0400

Is a desire to perform and compete necessary for music education?
My kids are half way through the HFStival (a two day rock concert at RFK stadium, washington DC.
My younger son came home a little hoarse. He said that virtually every act had a sign along. As
do many religious services. The audience is neither performing (except maybe for the person
standing next to you) or competing, but is participating and enjoying. I don't think that it is
possible to teach unwilling middle schoolers if the objective is to get them to perform and
compete. That doesn't mean that they can't be engaged.

Are music competitions about technical competency or about performance?
In the many parts of the music world, working the audience, stage craft and presence are more
important than technical proficiency. Apparently it was very hard to do albums with Janice Joplin
and Big Brother and the Holding Company because some of the Holding Company would always be out of
tune, key, or time. Individual tunes sounded wrong to the engineers. And yet, the concerts were
great. Well, we don't want our budding clarinet players smashing their instruments during band
competitions. However, I can see where music education focused on technical proficienccy might not
seem relevant to kids who weren't in love with playing..

How many people use high school math after they graduate from school?
I work as a professional economist. I use arithmetic and 9th grade algebra. Still, I am guessing
that very few folks use their trig. and calculus. For me, it was necessary and useful to learn a
lot of math as part of learning how to think and understanding how other things worked. That
doesn't mean that I need a lot of technical proficiency with higher math. The same is true with
music. I believe that there is a lot to be gained from studying music and that developing
technical proficiency is only a part (and not a necessary part) of a good music education. .

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