Author: Dutchy
Date: 2008-09-26 03:49
One of my oboe method books, the Standard of Excellence Book 2, I obtained at a local used bookstore. And I saw that in the front, there was a girl's name written, the same name as a girl, now 20-something, who goes to my church, and who I always knew as a teenage flutist, before she went away to college, and then came back home again. This is a big city of about 90,000, so it could have been a coincidence, same name, but not the same girl.
So I always wondered whether it was her, and whether she played oboe, too, and finally Wednesday night, I got the chance to ask her.
And her face lit up with fond reminiscence. "Oh, yeah, that was my book! I started out on flute in the fifth and sixth grade, and then when you got into seventh grade, you were allowed to start double reeds. So I played oboe through seventh and eighth grade, but when it was time to start high school, the band director said they already had too many oboes, so I dropped it and went back to flute."
I was just flabbergasted. "I've never heard of a high school band director thinking he had 'too many oboes'..."
She said, "Well, he had two oboes in the freshman/sophomore band, and two oboes in the junior/senior band, and he said that was enough, and I didn't want to keep it up in the hopes that someone would graduate, or drop out, so..." She shrugged philosophically.
And I was just depressed all evening thinking about this. This band director has a huge band; it's an 1,100 student high school. My daughter was in the senior band for two years, she was one of six clarinets, he had six or eight flutists, trumpets ditto, at least a dozen percussionists. I cannot believe that three oboists somehow would have been one too many.
So I came home from church and was fulminating about this to my husband, and he pointed out, "Well, Mr. C. likes to win band contests, doesn't he?" Which is true; this band regularly wins all sorts of state band contests.
"Well," he went on, "You don't win band contests by allowing anybody to play anything they like. You win band contests by being picky about it, which includes having only the requisite number of oboists, and no more."
And he was right.
So then I was even more depressed, thinking about this supposed educator who placed a higher priority on winning band contests than on allowing a child to continue with an instrument she had chosen.
I think it's telling that this girl has routinely refused to play in our tiny church orchestra. Much is now explained. The flute isn't her chosen instrument; the oboe was.
Maybe I can get her interested in picking up the oboe again...
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