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Saw this on Craigslist today:

Maritime Institute/San Diego City College Team is currently accepting resumes for Music Instrumental Instructors. Candidates' possessing a Bachelor's Degree in Music, Music Education and or Performance or have had the position of Instrumental Instructor while on active duty with any branch of service. Candidates that graduate from the Navy Basic/Journeyman Instructor Training Course or equivalent and have three years of documented instructor experience. Please apply.

Send resume to:

Wendy Lark
Maritime/San Diego City College
PO Box 15410
Norfolk VA 23511

or

Email: larksdcc@yahoo.com" target="_blank" target="_blank
Phone: 757-444-5332 ext: 3018

I should have mentioned that this is a civilian contractor position. You do not need to enlist, and prior military service is not required.

Mike,

Why is this post titled this way? The job listing does not mention euphonium, and it most DEFINITELY is not associated with the US Navy School of Music.

The Navy School of Music is located in Little Creek, Virginia and both students and instructors are active duty military members.

Moderators, please verify and change this listing to something more representative of the post.

Karl "please correct me if I'm in error" H.

I agree that the listing is pretty confusing. However, not ALL of the instructors are active duty military. When I was there, there was a civilian oboe instructor, and there is currently a civilian teaching euphonium to Marines and Sailors (I'd like to take over, myself!).

Karl H. wrote:Mike,

Why is this post titled this way? The job listing does not mention euphonium, and it most DEFINITELY is not associated with the US Navy School of Music.

The Navy School of Music is located in Little Creek, Virginia and both students and instructors are active duty military members.

Moderators, please verify and change this listing to something more representative of the post.

Karl "please correct me if I'm in error" H.

I appreciate your concern, Karl, thanks for posting. The Craigslist ad is very vague, but I can assure you it is for the SOM. The TO provided me with this link, apparently it's a contracting/headhunting company that he's worked something out with. Since the Army moved to a seperate training track, very few of their instructors still take on Navy/Marine Corps students. This has neccessitated the hiring of some local contractors on a temporary basis until other arrangements could be made. Looks like they've worked something out for a more "permanent" position. I haven't contacted them myself, as I'm the one they're looking to replace. I've been teaching there since the spring - worked there a couple of summers ago for the ANG/Reserve, too - but now that school is back in session (I'm the band director at a couple of local Catholic schools) I'm not sure I'll have the ability to continue.

Hope that clears it up a little, and SpartanHooah, if you are eligible please do apply!

M "graduated from SOM myself just over twenty years ago" F

Mike and spartanhooah, thanks for the clarification!

I was aware of the Army's split from the Navy's school, but am flabbergasted by the use of civilian contractors as instructors. I guess it makes some sense from an administrative/financial/BRAC-type point of view.

On the other hand, this appears to be only the second purely-euphonium education position (after North Texas) in the USA! Progress!

Karl "who is also an AFSOM grad from (gasp) 1977" H.

Karl H. wrote: I was aware of the Army's split from the Navy's school, but am flabbergasted by the use of civilian contractors as instructors.

Yeah, I agree it's kind of weird, but for the record, among the civilian instructors I've worked with here most were carreer military musicians themselves, many of whom taught here during their active service, including a retired Master Chief of the SOM, a retired soloist from the US Army Field Band, a retired Sergeant-Major who led the Jazz Ambassadors for several years, and a retired First Sergeant from a MACOM band. A lot of it has to do with the fact that there are only a few folks in the fleet who would be qualified (by audition score at least) for some of these positions, and the ones who are good enough need to be out there performing. Hard to justify pulling your top vocalist or bass player or bassoonist from the fleet when there's only one at each band in the first place (one if you're lucky) and they'd only have a couple of students a week, sometimes no students at all for a couple of months. I don't know what the answer is (and with all the military music cutbacks coming I don't know what the future holds) but we're getting these young Sailors and Marines trained up the best we can. The vast majority of first and third deck instructors are still active duty bandsmen.

Hey Mike. I talked to CDR Ingraham about the euphonium job and although I can understand the need out here in the fleet for those qualified musicians, why not try to combine the euphonium and trombone instructor positions? I'm sure you're aware that it wasn't too long ago when those of us who attended the school also had to test out on trombone. Maybe if there are 13-15 trombone students there the euphonium instructor could take 4 or 5 of the less proficient students to help the load for the bone teacher. I just don't understand (in this world in which everything is about money) why they would hire a civilian for a job that someone already on the payroll could do. Maybe that's why I'm not the CO there. Well for whoever gets the job, enjoy the opportunity because its unlike any teaching job out there. Its very demanding and requires you to fix problems with a student's playing very quickly. You only have 6 months to turn a decent player into a professional level performer. Fortunately the navy has been hiring much higher quality than in weeks past.

PS: I still use your mouthpiece and its doing the job just fine.