Only slightly OT: "A Devil to Play One Man's Year-Long Quest

[David Richoux]

Just read a review of this new book about a man who re-learns to play the French Horn
http://www.harpercollins.com/books/9780 ... index.aspx" target="_blank

and the review:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.c ... 14BF1C.DTL" target="_blank

looks pretty interesting for us brass fanatics!

Dave Richoux

[timdicarlo]

I can sympathize-- as a music education major, I have to be able to play every band instrument at a high-school level by the time I graduate. Just the thought of having to pick up a French horn and relearn it makes me shudder.

Which is why I play tuba: just as beautiful as the French horn, but without the cork up its arse.

(with apologies to any horn players out there)

[Matt G]

I can sympathize-- as a music education major, I have to be able to play every band instrument at a high-school level by the time I graduate.

More Off Topic:

Do you really believe this? A middle school director should be able to play most instruments reasonably well. A high school band director trying to do this would be wasting his/her time. Does your university level band director play all the instruments at a collegiate level? What are the criteria for high school level playing?

The best high school directors I have encountered (this is while they were in their "older" years) didn't even play. They were both accomplished musicians at one point (think orchestra principal level/recordings that are benchmarks), but really put their efforts into being great conductors and educators. What they learned by playing one instrument at a professional level was far more valuable than knowing how to play scales on the bassoon.

I was also a music ed major. I did enough to pass instrumental techniques classes with a good grade (A always) and that knowledge would have been next to useless as a band director. It might be nice to know general tendencies of certain instruments in certain registers, but in the end that is the responsibility of the student at the high school level. If they can't figure it out on their own, pull in a local professional who will know what to fix. And how to fix it quickly. Trying to remember the difference of each 2nd position on the trombone throughout the registers if you aren't a regular player is hard enough for a tuba player. Are you really going to remember the tendencies of the throat register on the bass clarinet?

On topic:

This book could be very valuable to those who used to play and want to get back into playing. As our life expectancy increases, it would be nice for many folks to get back into playing through community bands. I book like this could be a great stepping stone for them.

[timdicarlo]

It's more of a personal goal-- I'll settle for a middle-school level, but I'd like to be proficient enough to be able to pick up any student's instrument and demonstrate something on it, if need be. I realize it's a little unrealistic, but as any high school band student will tell you, there's nothing worse than not being able to rely on your director for the answers. I realize that a director can be more than competent without being able to play every instrument, but if some freshman needs help, I want to be able to demonstrate-- not just describe-- what they're doing wrong and how to fix it.

[MaryAnn]

I read the book. The guy appears to have a different kind of talent, the one of getting people to let him do stuff that others would have been rebuffed for. A friend of mine just performed a world premiere of a piece that she said was playable really only by the computer it was written on. It had won some kind of prize, and her little group was the first one willing to play it on real instruments. She said it all made sense after she met the composer, who was a delightfully sweet person who made you just want to help her out.

Interesting the kinds of talent that are out there...anybody read the book by Malcolm Gladwell called Outliers yet? (same guy that wrote Blink and Tipping Point.) I bet we all know somebody who is talented out the wazoo but who has "other" problems that cause them to get in their own way to an extent that they fall far short of meeting their apparent potential. (I mean people who *want* a particular kind of success but get in their own way in achieving it.)

MA