HIGH SCHOOL MUSIC

Last night we went to a jazz concert over at the local high school. We haven’t been to one of those functions since my youngest daughter was in school and although she wasn’t in the jazz band she was in several of the other bands and we attended a lot of concerts and shows. This year our nephew, a junior at the school, is extremely active in the music program. He’s in chorus, concert band, marching band and jazz band. There may even be some other peripheral groups that he’s involved in but I can’t be sure about that. He’s a gifted young musician and has a great deal of possibility for a future in that field.

I’m a fan of high school music. The marching band impresses me. The concert bands amaze me. The jazz band, choral groups and ensemble players all give me hope for some of the young people in our communities. We happen to be blessed with strong music programs here in the center of the state. Hundreds of kids are involved and they do some really outstanding things. If you’ve ever tried to learn an instrument and play in a group then you know the amount of hard work that is involved. And to attain the level of excellence that a large number of these young people reach goes well beyond a little hard work. These kids are dedicated and maybe even a little bit obsessed. But they do have fun and it shows when they put on a program.

The program last night consisted of the moderately skilled jazz band, the very skilled jazz chorus, and the “A” level, almost professional sounding, big band. They all tackle complex pieces of music that demand precision and virtuosity. There are solo parts and parts where a particular section will be featured. Sometimes the solos are a little weak, showing perhaps a lot of nervousness or maybe not too high a degree of maturity. But at other times, as when our nephew soloed on clarinet or when a young woman carried an entire song on alto sax, these kids can just knock you out with what they’ve learned. Over the years there have always been students who excelled at music and pursued careers related to the arts. More often the discipline and focus that the somewhat less talented young people learned in the music programs carried over into their school work and they went on to college and became successful in other fields. Our daughter is an example of that group. She was a good musician but she became a better mathematician. So school band and other musical groups, far from being the joke spurring activities portrayed in many bad comedy movies, is a positive and extremely worthwhile thing for most participants.

When the budget cuts come to school districts, as they have in the past and will again, the inclination is to eliminate the arts programs first and then to go after sports. I feel that when cuts need to happen they should start with sports first. Actually cuts should start with eliminating some of the levels of administration before they ever move on to programs that actually help the kids. But that’s just a fantasy. Back to the point, sports while valuable in many ways, helps fewer students than the music programs. In a school with twelve hundred or so students an expensive football program, for example, may help a maximum of fifty or sixty boys and a dozen cheerleading girls. A marching band can help three times that number. And even without football games to play at during half times a marching band can take part in competitions and parades. When my daughter was in band we had numerous fund raising events and the band parents organization tended to cover a great deal of the costs of the band. I’m sure that continues to be true today. When all the other music programs are added to the marching band there are about three hundred kids involved. That is one quarter of our school’s students and it could be more if some of the sports programs weren’t available. In an ideal world the sports and arts programs would be allowed to continue. We are fortunate in our area because the voting public tends to support a complete school program with the aim of having excellent schools. Other places have made some hard, and unfortunate, choices and the quality of their schools has suffered a great deal because of those choices. We hope that that won’t be necessary here in our area.

So that’s my preaching about the arts in our high schools, and it’s all because I like to listen to young people doing their best to make some good music. Support the arts in education. I’ll be glad that you did.

Have a fine day.