Posted by Jeremy on January 29, 2002 at 19:34:31:
In Reply to: orchestra players in marching band posted by Tom on January 29, 2002 at 14:53:54:
In high schools, marching band should be seen as a part of the carriculum. It's a matter of setting guildlines and sticking to them. Once you start making exceptions to accomodate certain people, then you have to offer that same treatment to everyone. What about those die-hard marchers who live for marching band and could care less about concert band? They are still required to play in concert band and rightly so. If you start trading people because of seasons, the numbers and interest in music will begin to die down.
Compare band to math class. If a student doesn't want to do something in a certain chapter because they don't think it applies to them, the teacher doesn't excuse them. Just because you think you are above fractions, doesn't mean that you get to skip it while everyone has to deal with it.
Too often people don't think of band as a class. Taking high school band is just as much of a class as any other, so the director should be able to exercise as much discression as any other teach would have. If we start losing faith in our bands and their directors, then the students and the community will lose pride in their organization, and that is a road we don't want to travel down.
Jeremy