May 15, 2009
PARALLEL UNIVERSE: Confessions of a Band Geek, Orch Dork
By David M. Kinchen
Huntingtonnews.net Editor
My inner Band Geek and Orch Dork surfaced this week after more than half a century, thanks to an obituary of Huntington band director Bob Tweel (link: http://www.huntingtonnews.net/obit/090507-spencer-obitbobtweel.html) and a story in the June 2007 Texas Monthly magazine about the All-State, where 55,000 talented high school band and orchestra performers try out for 1,500 coveted spots on the orchestras and bands that are formed at the conference.
(Link to Cecilia Balli's "Sounds Like Teen Spirit" Texas Monthly, June 2007
http://www.texasmonthly.com/preview/2007-06-01/feature3)
Like Texan Balli, I was in high school bands -- concert, pep and marching -- and the orchestra in our small town of Rochelle, Illinois -- the hometown of actress Joan Allen ("The Contender," "Manhunter," "The Bourne Supremacy," "Pleasantville," and many other movies).
I started out playing trombone but was quickly switched by our band director to tuba for the orchestra and sousaphone for the bands. I don't think any talent I possessed played a role in the switch in brass; it was more a case of my six-foot stature, which enabled me to march with the heavy all-brass instruments of the time.
Still, being the only tuba in our orchestra -- there's only one in any orchestra -- placed a great burden on me when we traveled to state competitions like the one Balli wrote about. She was an All-State (three times) clarinet player in her high school in Brownsville, on the Texas-Mexico border. If you're the only tuba in an orchestra, you learn to play very carefully! We didn't have safety in numbers like trombones or clarinets.
Perhaps the most fun was the pep band, which we called a German band, with some of the players wearing lederhosen and others sporting the Davy Crockett coonskin cap popular in the mid-1950s. I confess, I was a Crockett lookalike.
Balli writes that study after study reveal that performers in band and orchestra were and still are among the smartest students in the school. Which came first: Kids who are smart drawn to music or music making smart kids even smarter? Music students at Rochelle Township High School were overrepresented on the National Honor Society and many went on to highly selective colleges and universities, where more often than not, they didn't play music in public again.
Sad to say many schools across the nation have dropped music from their curricula. This is shocking to me, since music performed live by students is a very enriching activity. I was reinforced in my performing in high school by my mother, a piano teacher and graduate of Chicago's American Conservatory of Music, which boasted Pete Seeger's stepmother Ruth as an alumna.
If you're a present or past Band Geek or Orch Dork, I recommend Balli's wonderfully written and very evocative story. Free registration is required to access the story online.
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PARALLEL UNIVERSE: Confessions of a Band Geek, Orch Dork
By David M. Kinchen
Huntingtonnews.net Editor
My inner Band Geek and Orch Dork surfaced this week after more than half a century, thanks to an obituary of Huntington band director Bob Tweel (link: http://www.huntingtonnews.net/obit/090507-spencer-obitbobtweel.html) and a story in the June 2007 Texas Monthly magazine about the All-State, where 55,000 talented high school band and orchestra performers try out for 1,500 coveted spots on the orchestras and bands that are formed at the conference.
(Link to Cecilia Balli's "Sounds Like Teen Spirit" Texas Monthly, June 2007
http://www.texasmonthly.com/preview/2007-06-01/feature3)
Like Texan Balli, I was in high school bands -- concert, pep and marching -- and the orchestra in our small town of Rochelle, Illinois -- the hometown of actress Joan Allen ("The Contender," "Manhunter," "The Bourne Supremacy," "Pleasantville," and many other movies).
I started out playing trombone but was quickly switched by our band director to tuba for the orchestra and sousaphone for the bands. I don't think any talent I possessed played a role in the switch in brass; it was more a case of my six-foot stature, which enabled me to march with the heavy all-brass instruments of the time.
Still, being the only tuba in our orchestra -- there's only one in any orchestra -- placed a great burden on me when we traveled to state competitions like the one Balli wrote about. She was an All-State (three times) clarinet player in her high school in Brownsville, on the Texas-Mexico border. If you're the only tuba in an orchestra, you learn to play very carefully! We didn't have safety in numbers like trombones or clarinets.
Perhaps the most fun was the pep band, which we called a German band, with some of the players wearing lederhosen and others sporting the Davy Crockett coonskin cap popular in the mid-1950s. I confess, I was a Crockett lookalike.
Balli writes that study after study reveal that performers in band and orchestra were and still are among the smartest students in the school. Which came first: Kids who are smart drawn to music or music making smart kids even smarter? Music students at Rochelle Township High School were overrepresented on the National Honor Society and many went on to highly selective colleges and universities, where more often than not, they didn't play music in public again.
Sad to say many schools across the nation have dropped music from their curricula. This is shocking to me, since music performed live by students is a very enriching activity. I was reinforced in my performing in high school by my mother, a piano teacher and graduate of Chicago's American Conservatory of Music, which boasted Pete Seeger's stepmother Ruth as an alumna.
If you're a present or past Band Geek or Orch Dork, I recommend Balli's wonderfully written and very evocative story. Free registration is required to access the story online.
Share This Story:
Make HNN Your Homepage (IE Users Only)
