ALL public schools should buy ALL low-grade Chinese instr's

[Mojo workin']

Going one better, ALL public schools should NOT buy ANY instruments for band programs.

They don't freaking deserve it.

(Come forth, exceptional anecdote of how not ALL kids are that way.

My hyperbole is intentional).

But Bloke is right, all across the USA, there are little butthole punks that couldn't give a rat's a** about music or music making, much less refraining from destructing public property that was purchased for the betterment of their future sadist existence.

[sloan]

Why call it hyperbole? "Deserve it" or not - what, precisely is the argument that public school systems should purchase musical instruments for students to use?

[THE TUBA]

...what, precisely is the argument that public school systems should purchase musical instruments for students to use?

The same argument as to why school systems should purchase textbooks for students to use and books for students to read.

[bisontuba]

Hi-
A serious question regarding trombones and public schools--how would the plastic 'pBones' be for schools--just curious....

Mark

[sloan]

...what, precisely is the argument that public school systems should purchase musical instruments for students to use?

The same argument as to why school systems should purchase textbooks for students to use and books for students to read.

Textbooks are for use in academic classes - not extracurricular activities.

[Tubaman2365]

...what, precisely is the argument that public school systems should purchase musical instruments for students to use?

The same argument as to why school systems should purchase textbooks for students to use and books for students to read.

Textbooks are for use in academic classes - not extracurricular activities.

Music is NOT extra curricular.

[ghmerrill]

Music is NOT extra curricular.

It is if it's not part of the curriculum.

More to the point, if you don't get academic credit for it (i.e., some sort of genuine credit towards graduation), then it IS extra-curricular in exactly the same sense that, say, football is. Whether you think it SHOULD or should NOT be extracurricular is a different issue. There are schools in which it definitely is a part of the curriculum (schools of the arts, for example; perhaps other schools depending on what the local or state curriculum may be), and schools where it is not. But this dispute rather runs off in the weeds -- led there by a poor analogy to textbooks.

[MackBrass]

Those in the repair business should be smiling, as this is what keeps food on your plate. Why complain about it?
If I were a tech I would be saying, "bring it on, cha ching".

As for bringing up the so called inferior Chinese made instruments go, would this really make a difference? Besides, calling them inferior, I think not, I have a 186 clone that some say sounds better than the Alex I have, go figure and its not because I sell them. I would be upset as a band director having this done to one of my horns, it would not matter what the horn cost or where it was made.

Inferior???? Please, where are most of the student model instruments made anyway? Manufacturer makes no difference, its the player behind the horn and the teacher behind the player.

[eupher61]

The performances are extra-curricular. The classes are not.

I wish schools would ban competitions for music. And cheerleading. And guard. And, frankly, sports, but that will never happen.

I never have understood how a grade can be lowered for missing an extra-curricular activity like a marching show, or a concert, or whatever.

[Walter Webb]

Ya. Sure. When i was a kid, we had to walk barefoot uphill 15 miles in the driven snow, both ways, to school. So sayeth the crusty old farts on TubeNet. We have, as a nation, boatloads of unaccountable money to dump trillions down the ratholes of ill-considered land invasions, but no money for school music programs? This is why taxes get raised. I teach at a middle school where the band program thrives, starting in 4th grade, and we dominate the high school band. Some of our more affluent kids have their own instruments and even take lessons outside school. Asking one of the lower middle class working families to cough up a tuba for junior is just crazy. the school keeps a few of these in stock as loaners, and they still work despite the dents. The smaller the instrument, the better it fares. The larger horns, like bari saxes, euphs and tubas get bonked on a regular basis, as it has always been. I wonder, are there any student model instruments these days that are NOT made in China?

[PMeuph]

I don't have much of a horse in this race... But anyways, I probably wouldn't have picked up the euphonium if my parents would have had to buy me one (or rent one).

When I entered middle school, with the cdn$ much weaker than it is now, a yep-201 (which I played on for 5 years) would have cost around $2000 new. I could imagine my parents dropping that kind of dough on a horn given that I had no previous musical experience and neither did they. The school I went too had a rental program of $25 dollars/year. That served me well. The Euphonium was about 20 yrs old when first got it, and it was a decent condition.....I wouldn't have it any other way.

OTOH, damage like the one above should be severely reprimanded...

[sloan]

The performances are extra-curricular. The classes are not.

what part of the "curricular" class requires holding a tuba in your lap? I would be most interested in a complete set of lesson plans for such a course.

Are these classes (the ones requiring tubas) available to all students in the school - or just
those who "volunteer" for the performances? Do all students who sign up for these classes get
a school-supplied tuba? If not, I think the comparison with "textbooks" is a bit suspect.

I'm sure there *are* "curricular" classes in music taught in the public schools - I've seen some listed in the catalogs (but...for some reason they are rarely actually offered). None of them seem to me to require a tuba. They mostly require textbooks.

[sloan]

"Kids! What's the matter with kids, today?" - exercise for the reader: when were these lyrics written?

[Chadtuba]

The performances are extra-curricular. The classes are not.

what part of the "curricular" class requires holding a tuba in your lap? I would be most interested in a complete set of lesson plans for such a course.

Are these classes (the ones requiring tubas) available to all students in the school - or just
those who "volunteer" for the performances? Do all students who sign up for these classes get
a school-supplied tuba? If not, I think the comparison with "textbooks" is a bit suspect.

I'm sure there *are* "curricular" classes in music taught in the public schools - I've seen some listed in the catalogs (but...for some reason they are rarely actually offered). None of them seem to me to require a tuba. They mostly require textbooks.

I have taught in 3 different school districts where beginning band was required of all the students. One of the schools required 1 year in 5th grade, the other two schools required 2 years in 5th and 6th grade. The first school treated it just like any other curricular class and provided instruments and books. In the other 2 districts I fought with the administration, and won, to get enough instruments to be able to provide everybody with school owned instruments and books. My argument was just what was stated above, if we require them to take the class then we must provide the required equipment just as it is done in every other required course. I never told them what instruments they "had" to play, but rather tried to help them find the right instrument to fit them. Some showed up with their own instruments, but nobody had to have one as I was able to provide one for them.

That being said, I also fought to get rid of the requirement, at least with the 2nd year if not fully and make it an elective class. I had too many students who didn't' want to be there and made for a rough time for those who wanted to be there as well as for me. While I believe in the power of music and band, I also believe that they should have at least a little bit of freedom of choice. Maybe have the one year required, but after that they know whether or not they enjoy band and want to continue.

[Tubaman2365]

Music is NOT extra curricular.

Is "football" extracurricular?

bloke "Band, undoubtedly, is extracurricular."

Yes, football like all sports that practice outside of the school day are extra curricular. In my school, performing music is curricular. All students must have instruction in music, if not performance based, then general music. Each student receives a grade for their band, chorus or orchestra class that receives the same weight as their grade for math, science etc. I teach at a regular public school in NY, not a school for the arts.

[ghmerrill]

This all started with :

This is a cheap (not one of the better-playing ones...but, nevertheless, "reasonably sturdy") Communist Chinese tuba.

...

...so since "treating instruments like crap" is the BEST kids can do these days, WHY should taxpayers BUY anything better than CRAP for them to use?

And then several good questions got raised, with some good points on each side. But notice something odd? Not one of those issues has ANYTHING to do with whether an instrument is CHINESE.

The question isn't whether taxpayers should buy anything better than crap for students to use. The question is whether taxpayers should buy anything at all for band students to use. Where rental instruments are available, I think the answer is "no". Where they are not, I think the answer (for SOME instruments) is "yes" -- but with some approach to working out the details surrounding care and consequences of mistreatment. That's the only PRACTICAL solution. The other alternatives are largely fantasy and theoretical, based on emotion and political inclination. And I don't care whether the instrumental music is "curricular" or not.

Neither I nor any of my three children (flute, clarinet, oboe->bassoon) ever used a school-owned instrument (none were available for any of us). My son had his own bassoon (a Fox 220 we got used from a Master's student who had moved up to a Heckel) since middle school and played it in public middle school and public high school (in both the urban north and the rural south) without it every getting so much as a scratch on it.

This isn't about the Chinese or even about taxpayers or even (in most cases) about band directors. It's about parents and about school property being mistreated. (Believe me. My daughter teaches in what is best described as a "problem" public middle school in a city in central NC. The very expensive private school that my kids went to in their final high school years provides tubas for students in the middle school band. They don't have a lot of dents on them.) And it's about the schools' willingness to adopt and enforce rules that have consequences. It's really not about "The sky is falling and Chinese instruments are crap." (Although in a lot of public schools, the sky is falling -- but not in ways that are peculiar to the instrumental music program or have anything to do with Chinese instruments.)

[ghmerrill]

Private school? Yes, I'll believe it, but... Public schools adopting rules and actually enforcing them, even when the parents don't like their child or themselves being held accountable??? Riiiiiiggghht...

I'm afraid you're too right about this. Oddly, and depressingly, this is something that is -- by and large -- NOT the fault of the parents. The public schools in fact adopt all kinds of goofy rules that they ARE willing to enforce (usually driven by some sort of ideology). Based on my experience as a parent, and my daughter's experience as a teacher, adopting rules and enforcing them in the public schools isn't a general problem. The problem is WHICH rules get adopted and enforced. I HAVE seen a number of the things suggested in these threads work in public schools -- but not, I must confess, recently (and it is often dependent on the school location and environment).

[sceuphonium]

Former Band Director, 28 years in small, poorly funded, rural schools. I'll throw out a few comments:

1
The Draconian "put a scratch in your school horn and you'll pay every cent" works until kids and parents realize it's a bluff... when the director is out a day and the substitute lets the guitar class honk on all the horns; you've got multiple damage not caused by the kid who borrowed the horns, and ANY damage gets blamed on this. Kid X says Kid Y knocked the horn over a month ago. Kid Z says kid X borrowed all his valve caps. Parents call principals, who won't back you up unless you saw the damage with your own eyes.

2
Even if you've got the kids (and parents) convince they will pay for every ding, it only works with new looking horns. Give a kid a great playing old beater and you had better pick the kid carefully, then give a great song and dance about how "It's a classic, way better than that shiny new junk, it's to play - not to look at, I gave it to YOU because you're good enough to appreciate its true quality." And then hope, because you'll never spot a new dent on that old clunker.

2
Despite the above, MOST kids are pretty good about taking care of stuff, if they know the director is keeping a close eye on things. Bloke, you're seeing a skewed sample... you never see the many, many instruments kids have taken good care of; they never come into your shop.

3
Why have school tubas, or any other instrument? Because a band sounds BETTER with a tuba. And baritones. And Bari Sax. Take away the school owned big horns and you've got a thin, colorless band... The school doesn't buy the tuba for the one tuba player, it's for the improvement of the whole band. If you are willing to invest a thousand student practice hours (fifty kids times an hour a day for 4 weeks) for a concert, doesn't the investment in a tuba seem smaller by comparison?

John Thompson

[GC]

Rentals and accountability are a good point, but what music stores would ever stock tubas for rental? They know that they'd be beaten to a pulp quickly.

[Rick Denney]

Music is NOT extra curricular.

Music may not be, but band surely is.

Rick "at least with the marching and contest orientation brought to it by many band directors" Denney