Anyone have Band/Music Kids?

I have a very bad garage band across the street, that counts, right?



They gave me a clarinet in grade school to play. I stuck with it until they tried to teach me to read music. I had to tap out. It's too bad, I can't think of too many gigs that would be more fun than being a sax player in a rock band.

 

I cant get the youtube link to work...you would just have to search macys day parade monache band and i think its first that pops up

 

I just watched it! Great job. I know that was a thrill.

 

Well, if they're going into music ed, that's not totally impractical. We have three of four that went various musical routes. But all are now going in different directions because they're done with the starving and/or uncertainty of it. The oldest had a good job with Disney at their theme parks and cruise ships. But she was lured away from that to try and make it on Broadway. Now she's in school to be a physician's assistant. The second was in a promising hip-hop band and graduated with a music business degree. He is now in radio. The third was also in the hip-hop band as well as fronting her own project. She's now in school for anthropology. Here are my son and daughter in the hip-hop band:

 

Great post. First off, let me say that I really liked the vid. To be bluntly honest, I am not much of a "Hip Hop" fan, so I was kinda eehh... but this was really cool. To me, at first, I was listening and thinking this is almost gonna to be more R and B flavored, then I thought, "Ooh, almost heading funky...". Hell, maybe I am too old and curmudgeonly to even know what Hip Hop means today, but your daughter can really sing, and that was pretty cool. I watched it twice.

You are totally right about the other part, and my son has been (since the sixth grade when he said he wanted to be a music teacher), headed the education route. But he has also since been awarded a rather lucrative fellowship, and been been introduced to some mentorship opportunities that worry me he is going to go the performance route, which (honestly) scares me a bit. Either way he goes I will totally support him, and I have always been over the top proud of his performances; as long as He gets that teaching cred. Especially when it is being paid for, right?

 

My son was in the band during middle school. He, like @Jayaruh, played the cornet. I loved watching them play; such high quality music coming out of middle schoolers. It was inspiring.

I know @Bird Lives is a pro trumpet player, among other instruments too I believe. If you search "Lloyd Chisolm" in youtube, you'll see him leading the band.

 

High school music students on average score 11% higher on their SAT than non-music students. I think getting in to college is pretty practical.

 

Also, those music scholarships come in handy aswell....lol....I know more than a few Doctors who got their undergraduate degrees with Music Scholarships, and made their spending bread, making gigs while in school too...

Also....it's becoming common knowledge now that children who learn the problem solving skills that learning an instrument teaches them, are more likely to be successful at whatever leaning opportunities they choose to undertake, than many who don't have the music background....

Thats why now that so many schools are dropping Band and Music from their cirriculums is such a pet peeve....Music and the Arts are the last rhings we should be depriving our children of.....But I know I'm preaching to the Choir here so I'll step down from my soapbox and end my rant....

 

Ahh man....I should have read page 1 before I jumped in here....PLAla and MarshalArtist have already present such an eloquent defense for taking part in a school music program......I am so happy to see this....and they are so well informed.....To the OP.....I hope to don't take lightly any of this great advice that you are receiving from these guys....

I know the time I spent in my High School Band, changed my life.....since then I have played music all over the World and taught Jazz Improvisation at Universities and Conservatories aswell as volunter conducting of High School Jazz Orchestras....and some of my students occupy chairs in some of our finest orchestras, rock bands (Blood Sweat & Tears, Billy Joel etc) aswell as teaching positions at Julliard and Universities...and many stay in touch with me, just as I'm still in touch with my High School band directors to this day....

As these guys have said before me....It's not about choosing a career in Music or not...Thats not what is important....What is though, is I know learning to play music helps a child to learn about themselves, and how to break a large proplem into it's smallest fundamentals....aswell as how to work with large and small groups of people and create something....overcoming ego, and personal diferences and learning to work together to create something larger than just themselves and hopefully something beautiful.......

I also recommend children studing Jazz....Because improvising is the act of learning spontaneous group composition....It really calls upon all the kids to not only practice their instruments, but to learn, just what it is that they want to say on their instrument... Thats a soul searching and very rewarding endeavor...even if they never want to pursue it any further....It puts them intouch with their creative inner-self...not just how to take tests, which is what so much in school mainly teaches....

Sorry for the dissertation......I want to hear more of what you guys have experienced...this is great....I'll be back to share.....

 

I bet it did move you to watch him play....Is he in High School now?

 

Yep. A few months and he'll be a senior! Time certainly does fly!

 

One of my sons high school senior pics. He played in his high school's jazz ensemble for three years, and also took a year of jazz improv lessons somewhere in there. He still,plays in one of his university's ensembles, but being his main instrument is tuba, he does not maybe have as much time for it as he would enjoy.



Hardly a dissertation, and great post. Thanks.