Read down far enough and you will get to the basses.
What can we learn from an orchestra of broken instruments?
What can we learn from an orchestra of broken instruments?
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Double Bass A GREAT!!! idea
- Thread starter GretschWretch
- Start date
I'll guarantee they've got enough money to buy a complete new set of curriculum materials being hocked by the superintendent's brother-in-law every year and ship several dozen to each teacher in the district who then has to find a place to stash them in the closet along with the last ten years' annual sets of useless materials.
Teachers may have to bring their own toner cartridges for the Xerox machine, but the superintendent just got all new Brazilian mahogany furniture for his office.
And so on, and so on, and so on.
Teachers may have to bring their own toner cartridges for the Xerox machine, but the superintendent just got all new Brazilian mahogany furniture for his office.
And so on, and so on, and so on.
Yep. And my local municipality has spent so much money on a new(ish) sports cathedral that the note won't be paid off until 2040. And to add injury to insult, about ten years ago they began going digital to the extent that they made a "student commons" out of the library and banished all the books to a closet. And the colleges get students who don't even know how to search databases, which supposedly have "replaced" books, or write an essay for that matter. And this ineptness and ignorance will only trickle up: students who have not been taught will become teachers who cannot teach and eventually become principals and school administrators who are the ones who started us down this slippery slope in the first place. And soon college and University faculty will display the same blindered-ness because they also will not have been taught.
I used to say I believed in public education; now I have to say I believe in the idea of public education. What was it King Crimson said? The fate of all mankind I fear, is in the hands of fools? And this was in1970!
You may, although those of us who are not footballolators may feel we are being sports cathederized.
Never underestimate the power of properly motivated human creativity. Not too many years ago the drama department of a chronically underfunded public school district in North Jersey decided to produce the science fiction film Alien for the stage. Their budget was $0.
Using things they found in the trash, the students and department director built multiple sets and costumes including the alien that will blow your mind. There's video on YouTube.
Using things they found in the trash, the students and department director built multiple sets and costumes including the alien that will blow your mind. There's video on YouTube.
"You damned kidz get off my lawn..."...rough crowd today.
I like this from the article:
However, to Lang, this small community project addresses a larger problem. "Today, people are breaking into little tribes and going against each other, but that is the opposite of what everyone learns in music," he said. "Music teaches people how to be better citizens, how to work in a group and how to overcome problems, we need more of that in our world today."
I like this from the article:
However, to Lang, this small community project addresses a larger problem. "Today, people are breaking into little tribes and going against each other, but that is the opposite of what everyone learns in music," he said. "Music teaches people how to be better citizens, how to work in a group and how to overcome problems, we need more of that in our world today."
I'm not being rough on the folks that did this work; I'm being rough on the school district that I can guarantee pays princely salaries to the top administrators; huge consulting fees to "curriculum specialists" who are qualified either by nepotism or by low cut blouses and short skirts; vast sums of money on laptop computers to supposedly enhance instruction for kids who are in seventh grade and still can't spell "KAT"; and more vast sums for football stadiums and Taj Mahal state of the art high schools - and THEN they have the gall to turn around and plead poverty when it comes to getting band and orchestra instruments fixed.
It's truly a sad situation. I keep hearing of more and more local schools in my area dropping their music programs for "lack of funding," whatever that means. The public school music program was how I got my start, and it pains me to see that opportunity taken away from future generations.
-Cal.
-Cal.
As a somewhat antidote to this, the University from which I recently retired, Jacksonville State University, has a globally renowned band, the Marching Southerners. To be on the roster of that band you have to be able to PLAY! (And they march Conn 20J tubas, just to squeeze some bass content in here.)
A lot of Southerners graduate to become band directors at area high schools, who steer their students back to JSU, and the students get in the Southerners and then graduate to become area band directors, who then . . .
