Klarinet Archive - Posting 000830.txt from 2001/05

From: rgarrett@-----.edu
Subj: Re: [kl] Requirements for grade
Date: Tue, 29 May 2001 09:26:10 -0400

At 07:24 AM 05/29/2001 -0400, you wrote:
> > At 08:59 PM 05/28/2001 -0400, you wrote:
> > >Band does not have to equate to marching band.
> >
> > I must beg your pardon, but if the school principal says it does - it
> most > certainly does!
>
>See my other reply. In many schools, yes. But you've fought too hard to
>get credit for the classes to let it continue to be dictated by a
>non-music educator. That's the next step of the battle. And I'm not
>talking about all schools only those that have excessive requirements. I
>loved marching band but the schools I went to did not have extreme
>requirements such as some we've all read about.

I wouldn't describe my first principal as a dictator who didn't understand
music. His daughter was in my beginning band on up. I'm sure he
understood what our goals were.

It is an easy thing to say - educate the administrator and change the
marching part of the band curriculum to make it voluntary, or to get rid of
it, or whatever...............it is another thing to have only 65 kids in
the high school band program (if that - "some" schools don't even have that
many) and change something that is a positive tradition. Not all schools
are excessive in their use of marching bands - and, if done properly, can
be a real strong contributor to a band program.

I wish you would stop talking about what needs to be done in a global way
and then referring to your own experiences. They are limited in scope -
from what I can tell from your postings. And while they are intelligent
and deduce many important elements of teaching, they also show extreme
naivety of how things work in the schools - especially what and how music
is taught - and why.

While I agree in theory that more music can be learned without marching
band, I'm not sure it WOULD be learned if we removed it or watered it down
to the point where it didn't work well for a particular district. Every
school has it's own needs.............. Marching band isn't the problem
- it is the way it is used/taught/defended/etc. that is the problem.

Best wishes,
Roger Garrett

>Dee Hays
>Michigan
>
>
>
>
>
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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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