high school band A-holes

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Captain Sousie
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Re: high school band assholes

Post by Captain Sousie »

TUBACHRIS85 wrote:...I realized there are only four NORMAL people in band...
Wow, that's a lot of normal people for a band. :mrgreen:

But seriously folks, hang in there. It is bad now but in a few years, the freshman of which you speak will still not value other people's things and you will, I hope, have a better respect for others people's stuff. You will run into a lot of really annoying people in your life, get used to it. You can let it go or stay pissed off forever. Finally, please keep the profanity out of your posts, it only shows a lack of respect for others and a lack of vocabulary for the user.

Enough cliches from me,
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Post by Captain Sousie »

In my experience, a kitty can make everything better. Sorry about the lecture, it is my teacher instinct flaring up. By the way, vent on. We all understand how it feels to deal with a really annoying jerk and I myself feel your pain. A colleague of mine put a dent in my new horn the first week that I brought it to college and several people have put dents in it since. They don't get any easier to take and some still make me sad/mad to think about. :cry:

Good luck
Sousie

By the way, put everything in writing as well as talking to your superiors. Take a polite letter to your band director stating the damage and the culprit when you go to talk to him/her. Keep a copy for yourself, and see where that leads. If it goes nowhere, start up the chain of command, eg. your grade/level principle, sending a copy of each letter to the band director. Allow time for each letter to be processed, read, or discarded. Above all, keep your cool in front of everyone, it will help to make things easier.
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Rick Denney
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Post by Rick Denney »

Captain Sousie wrote:By the way, put everything in writing as well as talking to your superiors.
I hate to suggest to any student that he should take on a teacher in any venue. No matter how polite the letter is, it will be threatening, and who needs the results of that? If it remains an issue, get the parents involved. If they won't get involved, then live with and hope for better days. Even parents are at a disadvantage when dealing with a teacher, but the student is in no position to press a case, however politely. The encouragement to pursue this politely and in writing is advice that should be followed by the parents.

Besides, the polite approach has already proven to be ineffective.

It's not too early to learn that throughout life, people are likely to find themselves under the control of others who are incompetent. Even if that's the case here, it doesn't hurt to learn how to live with it. The only recourse in most cases is to set a better example yourself.

Rick "who has lost more than he's gained by challenging authority inappropriately" Denney
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Dan Schultz
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Post by Dan Schultz »

It's been a lonnnnngggg time since I was in high school and I certainly didn't own my own tuba back then. NO ONE that I know of did. I own a dozen or so horns now and I would NEVER leave one in a situation I could not trust. I think you made a serious mistake leaving your horn at school. My guess is that your school is like most others with respect that they won't take any responsibility for items left there. It's a shame your tuba was damaged and I wish you well with the recovery
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Post by dtemp »

That's what I did in high school. Our tuba section (when it didn't consist of just me) was pretty naive and careless with the school's horns. I didn't want them doing that around my horn, so I left it at home. I plugged through rehearsals with an old giant Yamaha top-action. It kind of sucked then, but 7 years later when I wanted to sell my horn, the lack of dents was very appealing to most.

Good luck Chris
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Post by Tabor »

Are you sure that your band director was giving out the combination to your locker, or do you just suspect it? Do you have witnesses? Preferably a room full of witnesses? If so, and he was giving other kids access to a locker which is only used by you (and checked out in some way), it may have been against the law. It is a touchy area where I teach. If this is indeed the case, the director should be concerned.

Still, since he wasn't the one who dented your horn, I think it is really between you and the person who was using your horn. If you gave this student permission to use your horn and didn't let the director know that you had revoked that permission, he may have assumed that all was well.

Was there a point when this freshman clearly didn't have permission. Did you make it clear to this person and others? If this person used your horn after that point against your wishes and did indeed open your locker without your permission, you might want to involve your parents and ask him or his parents to pay for the damages

Like Rick was saying, challenging authority can be rough, so be polite and follow the chain of command if you do that. Put yourself in your director's shoes. Involving your parents, to talk with the other students' parents if nothing happens is a good idea. If you did have this horn locked up and had taken back permission and the student still damaged it AND they refuse to even help pay for it, CALL JUDGE JUDY! :)

-Tabor
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Post by Rick Denney »

Doc wrote:Rick makes a good point, but if somebody purposely (or through continous negligence) damages my instrument (worth $XXXX), I'm not going to let incompetent boobs keep being incompetent boobs AT MY EXPENSE. There are proper ways to handle this situation, if need be (defer to Rick here).
I may be operating under a misconception here, but I gathered that the instrument in question was a new tuba owned by the school and assigned to the player in question. That's why he called it "his".

If it is his personal horn, the solution is simple: He should never allow the tuba to be outside his control. That means taking it home every day at the very least, and it may mean not using a personal instrument at school.

Rick "who can't imagine any tolerance at all of letting a freshman (or anyone else) play someone else's personal horn without permission" Denney
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Post by Dylan King »

So many people in this world lack the simple understanding of the second Great Commandment of "due unto others".

I was playing Pomp and Circumstance for graduation in my junior year back in 1991. I went to a huge inner-city LA high school and there were around 700 graduates, so we played for quite a while. Somewhere towards the end of the graduates walking up to get their diplomas, a graduating student behind me was "moved" in some way to sneak up behind me, grab the bell of my tuba, and PULL! To this day I have no idea why she would do this.

All I know is one second I am playing quarter notes, and the next my mouthpiece crashes through my front teeth, chipping both of them and tearing my lip in the process. I thought that I had been attacked and without looking I turned punched the chest of this person with all my might. This person flew onto the ground with the force of the hit, and it was then that I noticed it was a girl!

I had never noticed her before, but I could tell from her gold chains that she had gand affiliations. Only seconds later about ten people from the audience were bum-rushing the band. Mostly big black dudes. I was seriously afraid for my life for a few short seconds.

The band stopped playing immediately and all of my friends from the band, mostly big black dudes as well, formed a wall on that side of the band in front of me. The police were in action and our band director (David Sears, now a VP at NARAS and head of the Grammy's in the Schools program) got right up to the girls father while pointing at the girl. He looked him right in the eye and looked at the cop and told him "arrest this girl!"

By then LAPD had arrived, because the cops were pushing out the angry family members and the girl was in handcuffs. Mr. Sears told me to go home, and I ran out of there like Carl Lewis carrying a tuba. She did time for the crime and I recovered and learned to have an eye in the back of my head while I'm playing, which did come in handy a few times after this incedent.

You just don't know what people are going to do these days. So many people are self-only oriented and don't even know it. Stay away from sucka's that want to mess you up at all costs. The truth is in the Word.
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high school band

Post by TubaRay »

Well, that is certain clear, now!???
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Post by Captain Sousie »

TUBACHRIS85 wrote:...and the freshman tuba player thought it would be funny to tell the purcussionists that I was hitting on his 6-grade
girlfriend(im getting ready to puke :evil: )...
Image

Thanks Doc

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Post by Captain Sousie »

That's where I stole it from.

Here's the page where Doc posted it.

viewtopic.php?t=5496&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=72
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