Thoughts on Music Education

This past weekend I had drill with the 147th Army Band. One of the members is a band director and he took his high school jazz band to a local high school jazz festival in Sioux Falls, SD. He shared with us a comment tape from one of the judges. After listening to the band for all three songs and to his comments, I became very upset with this COLLEGE educator who is so ignorant towards music. Let me share some things he said and my thoughts on them.

1. HOUND ON ONE KID AND NOT EVEN GIVE CONSTRUCTIVE CRITICISM! And of course it was the drummer, us poor drummers. Will anyone give us a break? Now these festivals are for kids to learn, not be criticized. For goodness sake's, they are ONLY in high school. Be inspiring, not a killer of childrens dreams.

2. YOUR DRUMS ARE BACKWARDS AND YOU WON'T BE ACCEPTED BY MANY MUSICIANS. This is almost the first thing out of the judges mouth. I wonder if he would say this to Phil Collins or Mark Craney. Listen to them play and tell them their drums are backwards. Oh and look at their resume and tell me if they were not accepted by many musicians.

3. THERE ARE TWO GROUPS, A DRUMMER AND A BAND! Just one example of horrible criticism. As I was listening to the funk tune, the drummer was grooving and had great fills and played the tune very well. At times the he may have been a little loud compared to the band, however. The other two judges said maybe he was a little loud but then they said that the rest of the band could of came up to his dynamic. Oh and the other two judges were Allen Vizzutti and Audrey Morrison.

To me listening to that judges tape was not educational or inspirational. If I was in that band and were to have heard that tape, I would not be inspired to play and continue learning. The judges comments were ignorant and disrespectful. Thankfully, the band director is very good and he really inspired his students and told them did a good job. Yes they have things to work on,but don't we all? Point is the band did a really good job, especially the drummer. And the music educator was just ignorant.

Let me tell you, this young drummer can kill it on the drum-set. His drum instructor Chuck Case (who was mine in high school) showed me some dvd's the kid made of him drumming with his own group. Lets just say he nailed Billy Cobham's "Stratus."