dizforprez

MUSICandCHARACTER

Just because a band doesn’t capture a state crown doesn’t mean the students haven’t achieved something.

“I teach music and I am aware of the expense. I also know the benefits,” said LeAnn Boedeker, president of the Snider Performing Arts Boosters. “We are teaching them … how to work together as a group to accomplish something. That’s the same as any business situation in real life. … They gain pride and self-esteem for themselves for working so hard. That translates into other academic areas.”

Concord’s Jones called marching band a “life-changing experience.”

“There is no greater education. Music is my way of teaching young people to be incredible adults. They have such responsibility to themselves; they have such responsibility to the group.”

He also said they learn skills such as quick thinking and problem solving they can transfer to other areas of education, including math and science.

“On the outside you can say it’s a frivolous frill but in my estimation it’s one of the core academic subjects we have,” Jones said. “What we spend on it is darn cheap compared to what we get out of it.”

I live in Indiana. The schools here pour money into their bands. Part of the reason is above. The rest of the reason is because school districts will not pay for marching competitions. But they will pay for football uniforms (most bands buy their own with help from the boosters) and if the football team goes to state, you can bet the district will pay the way.

Cut the music budget -- and the parents decide that music won't die. Then the get scrutinized for raising money. Interesting .....

M&C

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Dr. Jim Fox
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Heavens2kadonka

Bleh, football has always seemed to be music's natural enemy....

Van

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MUSICandCHARACTER

I was thinking tonight when I was at the local HS football game ... isn't it nice that we have a warm up act and follow up act for the marching band show! And isn't wonderful that the band tricked the school district into building that football stadium so the band could march.

Believe me, is some places, the band is much more important than the football team. Here is Southern Indiana they do take football pretty serious (not like Texas) but the bands are awfully serious here too.

As the article dizforprez linked to stated, lots of money pouring into these marching bands. I spent last Saturday at a major contest -- I saw some pretty darn good bands -- especially from the smaller schools. Some of these kids can play. It takes a lot of money, but very few marching band kids are trouble.

Jim

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Dr. Jim Fox
Licensed Mental Health Therapist
Mouthpiece chart: www.ibowtie.com/tmptmpccharts.html

bigaggietrumpet

Yeah, we take football just a bit too seriously. Of course, I always had fun making the coaches mad in 2 ways. First, they wanted me as their tight end, to which I promptly said no, and then I turned around and wrote an article in the school newspaper about how the performing arts were unappreciated and that the old gym (we had two) should be torn down to build a new performing arts center. I got some UGLY looks for a while.

To get more on topic, though, there are some places here that don't take it as seriously. For example, Argyle, which is a little 2A town south of Denton Texas a little bit. It's a relatively new school, I think around 7 years or so. They didn't have a varsity football team until 2 years ago (and my school had the prestigious honor of being the first to have their tails handed to them by said rookie team). Up to that point, the band had it ALL. Director's name is Cindy Mikel. She has made a monster program there. I believe my junior year I was told that she had 2 associate directors and had 10 student teachers coming in from UNT (yes, THAT UNT). Needless to say, they were pretty good, even though we still beat them (that was due to the technical difficulty of the show, however). Since that time, they've still been a major music power, but I think the football team has definitely put a large dent in their program.

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