Posted by Atlanta Tuba Dad on November 05, 2003 at 09:06:19:
In Reply to: Re: Re: When students should buy a horn posted by Anon... on November 05, 2003 at 02:51:04:
Anon, in general I wholeheartedly agree with you that it is very important for kids to work for their "toys," whether it be tuba, car, computer, etc. In fact, our kid just bought an expensive 2.0 DP G5 Mac with his earnings from his campus job. He wanted a high-end desktop Mac when he started college last year, but after a few verses of "want vs. need" he ended up with an iBook at our expense. He was not pleased, but took to heart my advice to earn the money to buy the 'puter he wanted.
In our case, we wanted our HS kid to have his own horn for multiple reasons but before making the plunge we had a few heart-to-hearts with him to make certain he planned to continue with the instrument after HS. And we also had a few discussions with his teacher, to confirm for ourselves that his skills and potential warranted such a purchase.
But, we would not have funded a quality horn for our then-HS student without his history of hard work, focus, and accomplishment. So, in effect he did earn his own horn.
For us, buying him a quality horn was an investment, not in a horn, but in him. So far, it looks like it has been a decent dividend. 8-)