Klarinet Archive - Posting 000233.txt from 2002/10

From: Neil Leupold <leupold_1@-----.com>
Subj: Re: [kl] Marching band --- not what I expected
Date: Sun, 6 Oct 2002 13:06:12 -0400

--- Richard Bush <rbushidioglot@-----.com> wrote:

> Aside from Frederick Fennel's influence
> with his concept of the wind ensemble,
> DCI is the other influence that has had
> the most impact on public school band
> programs.

DCI is an independent organization, not affiliated with public school
programs. Look to the leadership of the school and the community in
question for answers about imbalances in a given band program. That
corps like The Cadets and the Vanguard offer clinics to high school
kids as part of their summer tours can not be reasonably construed to
be a form of manipulation of a school's band policies. They educate
and express their passion for the activity. How that is absorbed,
interpreted, and applied by the band director is beyond their in-
fluence.

> DCI is all
> about show, entertainment and visual
> effects.

If you've never participated in a similar program yourself, or asked
the members -- the kids -- to describe their experiences of what DCI is
"all about", a superficial attitude such as yours is not a surprise to
encounter.

> Watching DCI competition might be fun
> and entertaining, but it ain't what
> music education should be all about.

Nobody said it was. And "music education" isn't just about music.
The benefit of the doubt suggests that you already know this. Most of
the kids in a band program are not going to major in music in college,
much less pursue it as a career. An unbalanced band program is far
less insidious in its impact on society than is an unbalanced life.

Collaborative social programs for kids -- be they a high school band
program, DCI, or any other activity where kids learn the value of
teamwork and the bonds of social interaction -- derive their value
not from the targeted competencies they generate in their partici-
pants, but in the general recognition they engender: there is some-
thing about a group of people working together in a common endeavor
that is uniquely powerful in the results it can produce, something
that can not be captured or created when the work is performed alone.

It's folly to worry that high school band students aren't getting
a comprehensive or well-rounded music education. No public school
band program does that anyway. In the long term, that is less im-
portant than what the kids learn about themselves, and what they
might subconsciously extropolate later on in life about what is
possible for them as members of society. If a teenager is des-
tined to become the next Galway, Stern, or Drucker, (s)he is like-
ly receiving additional training outside of the program already.
The band program may be inadequate to their specific musical goals,
but that doesn't diminish the value that such a program can pro-
vide.

There has been a continuous dialectic on the subject of waning
school music programs. I suspect the majority of combatants on
the supportive side of these programs are not bemoaning the no-
tion that their absence will prevent a child from becoming a pro-
fessional musician. The known broader, extra-musical benefits
are what stir the passions of those who find themselves up in
arms.

Neil

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