Klarinet Archive - Posting 000824.txt from 2001/05

From: rgarrett@-----.edu
Subj: Re: [kl] Requirements for grade
Date: Tue, 29 May 2001 08:50:52 -0400

At 10:55 PM 05/28/2001 -0400, you wrote:
>Yep. Or, in some schools where the marching band program is especially
>strong, you are REQUIRED to be in concert band to be allowed into the
>marching band.

One of our local schools, Normal Community West High School, requires
students to march to be in the top wind ensemble during the fall
months. One of my private students, a Bands of America clarinetist, Honors
Band All-Stater, and a full-ride scholarship winner to a couple of
prominent music schools elected not to be in marching (I had literally
nothing to do with that decision - even encouraging her to go along with
the program), sat first chair in the second band every fall so that she
wouldn't have to march. She got a lot of flack for it. The band director
relented the last year and allowed her to sit in the first section of the
top wind ensemble during her senior year.

>There is no reason why marching band cannot develop a student's musical
>ability. I know it did mine. As for the attention thing, maybe the band
>does NOT get undivided attention while it is playing, but it would be
>sorely missed if absent. Like the score of a motion picture -- if you
>could see, say, Star Wars with all the music deleted from the sound track,
>you would probably find it boring, but, except for the Main Theme and the
>Canteena music, can you hum any of it? Besides, band geeks like me DO
>listen closely when the band is playing!

Marching band is not the best vehicle for teaching musical skills, but it
can be used that way - if the band director is careful - and keeps in mind
his objectives for teaching music. If the administration requires the band
to march for football games, the band director can still run his curriculum
within the parameters given. It is when he expands that to competitions
that you begin to wonder what the heck he is doing........

>>College/university bands are setup quite differently. They may have an
>>orchestra, audition only wind band, open wind band, plus a marching band on
>>top of all that. The college student can choose whether he is in the
>>marching ensemble or not. The high school student has no such choice.
>
>In most places, perhaps unfortunately, this is true, due to the size of
>the high schools. In a college with thousands of students such choices
>are available.

In many places it is not true......at least for the music
major. Wind/percussion majors at the majority of universities with
marching bands and music ed. programs are required to take marching band
for at least one year - often two. I know when Revelli was at U. Michigan
he required it all four years (not trying to get more Revelli stories
but.......!) - and that wasn't a slouchy program.

>>So I implore you don't equate band with marching band. These are really
>>quite different entities. Don't equate college systems with high school
>>systems. Their goals and programs are of a necessity radically different.
>
>Yes, band and marching band are different, but not as different as you
>make them out to be. Performance is still the goal. I don't quite
>understand your distinction between high school and college band, however.

Neither do I. I've taught at both levels. I wonder why someone who hasn't
would tell those of us who have that we don't know what our goals and
programs are/were/will be?

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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