Author: Mario
Date: 2001-11-05 16:02
The linkage between high-school clarinet teaching and its lack of popularity afterward might appear tenous to say the least. For now, let's state it as a hypothesis only (i.e.: something yet to prove that might not be right).
As a professional, I am an IT expert with advanced degrees in Computer Sciences and 25 years of experience in the business. It might be a surprise to many on this Board, but enrolment in Computer Sciences has been going down steadily since the beginning of the 1990's, in spite of the fact that these are great careers with plenty of opportunities. The reason for this phenomenon has been studied in depth (for instance, by the Canadian Software Human Resource Council), and the guilty party is **** HIGH-SCHOOL COMPUTER EDUCATION ****, which has made our profession extremely unpopular with kids (louzy equipment, un-skilled teachers, stupid assignments, etc.) . In fact, kids come out of high-school thinking that computers are for weirdos, are boring like hell, require too much work any way, and are not as cool as many other exciting careers. To quote the head of the Computer Sciences department in one of Montreal's university, "At the moment, most students singing up for Computer Sciences are mediocre to average - with a only a few really talented individuals." Wow!
This research is well backed up and is based on 10 years of logitudinal analysis.
So, when I put, as an un-proven hypothesis, that maybe, just maybe, the way we expose high-school kids to the clarinet might be why it is dropped like a led ballon after high-school, it is a piece of lateral thinking that might be right on the button.
"The clarinet is for weirdos, is boring like hell, require too much work anyway, and is certainly not as cool as the Tenor Sax..." One can easily imagine high-school students stating that about our instrument. I wonder which instrument the absolute bests (the emerging young musical elite) of the high school kids choose.
This would be a very interesting piece of research for a clarinet PhD student somewhere that would look at the clarinet TODAY instead of restating old historical facts or obscure interpretation of history.
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The Clarinet BBoard
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