Sometimes, I get annoyed at "legacy" band directors

[bloke]

OK...Here's a town with a $39,000 median HOUSEHOLD income (which means that 50% of the HOUSEHOLD income is LOWER THAN $39,000.

Some past band director (for the public middle school) decided to buy a FOUR valve euphonium (OK...they economized and bought Taiwanese, but)...for whatever reason (in addition to failing to realize that they could be TWO 3-valve LACQUER FINISH euphoniums for the same dough) for whatever reason decided, "oh...This needs to be a SILVER PLATED euphonium, as well as a four-valve euphonium (for these beginners).

OK...some of you Texans and such will respond, but bloke, blah-blah and blah-blah-blah (education/"they need to learn to use four valves" bullcrap), to which I would say. Hell no they don't, they need as many instruments for as many (probably no-dad) children as possible, to get them involved in doing something (anything...)

Anyway, (BACK TO THE REPAIR TOPIC)...I've really grown weary of having to braze cracked rims on these delicate Taiwan instruments (very thin-diameter delicate rims, with no wire inside)...and do it in a terrible rush - during the summer.

I don't try to make these repairs perfect cosmetically...not at all...I intentionally (though I grind it down somewhat) leave part of the blob of brazing material over the crack (for more strength).

Here's a typical (summer, beat-up-crap instrument) rim repair.

- remove the crease
- remove the tiny dent on the tear itself (caused by the tear)
- line up the rim the best I can manage
- walk on a tightrope (stupid-ass silver plating) to get the rim just hot enough to braze the crack in it WITHOUT burning away a semicircle of silver plating on the bell flare.
- grind it down a little bit, but (again) leave some extra material there for strength
- go back and straighten the rim (to a plane), so that - at least until they re-bend the rim - the instrument will rest on it's bell without falling over (for the 473rd time).

Here's a typical ugly rim repair (while managing to somehow NOT burn the silver plating)

...so yeah (per typical) the bell's sheet metal (past the rim) was torn for an additional c. 1/16th of an inch...thus the shape of the chunk of brazing material...

...so now: onto their f'ed up trumpets...

[LargeTuba]

Are you seriously mad a band director bought a nicer instrument for their students?

[bloke]

Are you seriously mad a band director bought a nicer instrument for their students?

Yes, because they could have bought more instruments for more of these beginner students and they wasted hundreds of dollars on 4th valves and silver plating.
I don't guess you might have overlooked that the taxpayers in this town really can't afford anything. ...I suppose that doesn't matter.
band director: "it's not my money, "four valves" is cool (even though a 5th graders' pinky fingers can't reach over there), and I like silver"

I really admire the CURRENT band director:
"We need to work with what we've got here - whatever it is, and keep it in working order... Once I get these children to understand how to pay attention and how to treat equipment, but there's a lot of work to do at this school." (This is a long time band director who took over this program last year.)

disappointing:
I got several of the same instruments back this year that I fixed up pretty nice last year; they were already about 30% as torn up as they previously were before last year - again: after just one year. I suspect there are quite a few single-parent children in this program.

what could be done:
There are still quite a few more instruments on the shelves that could be made to play again and are worth repairing, but having to backtrack and repair the same instruments again - after just one year - is discouraging.

reality:
We repair instruments for a whole bunch of middle schools. Well, we repair a whole bunch of instruments for a whole bunch of schools. These days, all the middle schools seem to have name brand $4,500+ double French horns, as well as all sorts of other fancy instruments that are bought for beginner students (trying to learn how to produce a sound and trying to remember how to play five or six different pitches)... and that - once these instruments are two or three years old - have all been beaten to hell... and this is across the board from wealthy districts to the $39,000 median household income districts. ... so I guess the two-parent homes aren't doing much better jobs than the single parent homes, come to think of it. Over half century ago, we actually wore instruments out, rather than tearing them up... and you can go ahead and laugh at the old man - recalling better times.

[Schlitzz]

Are you seriously mad a band director bought a nicer instrument for their students?

I would. Lots of instances where somebody doesn’t use common sense. I’ve seen a lot of red flags with DC military bands. They have a comptroller and still buy stuff they shouldn’t. And a band director’s needs for instruments, should be a want list. You want the more expensive stuff, look at getting some fundraising, donations. I did yard work and light building maintenance as a teenager. Made enough to buy a pro horn and accessories.

[bloke]

This stuff in just about all aspects of government is why towns, counties, and states are broke and why the entire nation is dozens of trillions of dollars in debt.

For those who think I'm getting political, it's all politicians (not one certain type)... and it's the people who work under them who - again - are not spending their own money...and spend other people's money with the mentality and mindset of small children.
"Band instruments" isn't even the tip of the iceberg. It's insanity.

[Schlitzz]

Yeah, I have a relative that had an aspiring trombone player. Finances were always tight. So when he started out, he had an old, well used King Cleveland. Took the dents out, new inners, gave it a satin appearance. When he hit high school, he got a ‘70’s overhauled King 3BF. His friends don’t play anymore, but one parent made payments for a full 2 years after quitting. Instruments should be based on function, and sound. Not a a shiny silver plated toy.

[MiBrassFS]

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[iiipopes]

Oops. Accidental double post.

[iiipopes]

Every time I see a thread like this posted by bloke, I have one question and three observations:

1) I wonder if school band directors for the most part have no common sense, or have they simply not been educated as to what true economy, including the limitations of student musicians and school district budgets.

2) I am fortunate to have grown up in a public school program where my director did. For example, we had old-style King fiberglass sousaphones for both marching and concert band, because all the school could afford was one set of instruments. We were prepared, with the backing of the principal, superintendent, and the school board, that if we did something stupid, the parents would have to pay for the repairs. "Normal" wear and tear excepted, of course.

3) Our director worked with the owner of the local music store that his father and him had been in business over two generations to find the best value/money instruments to purchase for the school. Yes, the owner was primarily a King dealer, but not exclusively.

4) When you were issued an instrument as a freshman, you were expected to take care of it for all four years. No "trading up" for chair placement or seniority, as that only encouraged neglect of instruments. When as a freshman I was issued my souzy, it was the oldest one in the inventory. By the time I graduated, it was as white as the ancient fiberglass could be, played the best, and there was never a question about it, despite its dings, scuffed places in the fiberglass, etc., that occurred before me. If more school districts could enforce such a policy, it would be better for everybody.

[bloke]

Step up instruments are a racket (coercing parents to turn in beginner instruments - substituting and selling them basically "jazzed up" beginner instruments for 3X as much - yet STILL in the 5th grade) and selling fancy instruments to school systems is a racket. Since school bids are based on low margins, if a store can sell schools more expensive instruments, the low margins end l up being more (arithmetic) money.

Look at the money that high schools spend on band:
They spend hundreds of thousands on marching and "a few thousand" on concert season, so it's obvious which one is more important, and during marching season all the instruments are three valve instruments, unless a school bought some of those gimmicky four valve sousaphones, etc.

Four non-compensating valves actually don't accomplish very much. It just doesn't repair the tuning of very many pitches, and the pitches that a four-valve non-compensating system does correct only partially corrects those very few pitches. It takes five valves to affect mathematical tuning flaws in a significant way (yet still incompletely). Three compensating valves (a system which has been abandoned by manufacturers and consumers) repairs tuning more than does four non-compensating valves.

"extended low range":
Four non-compensating valves is hit and miss, and large ensemble compositions really shouldn't dip into that range very far or much, regardless of the skill levels of players, unless for special effects... Certainly so-called "graded music" should mostly stay out of the mud.

[gocsick]

What is interesting to me is that in terms of relative cost... student instruments today cost slightly less than I've the 1960s.. List on an Olds Ambassador trumpet was $300 in 1960... Adjusted for inflation that is $1,800 in today's money.. Slightly more than the list price for a Yamaha YTR-2330 today.

However in 1960 it wasn't expected that a student would move up to a professional instrument early in high school... Schools were definitely not buying 30 silver plate trumpets to have a uniform look for marching band. I wonder how much the notion that student instruments are somehow temporary or just for beginners feeds into the level of care that "young scholars" bestow on them.

There is another thing that confuses me a bit. If you play any instrument except tuba, Euphonium, or bari sax.. You are expected to provide your own... So parents are on the hook for rentals or purchases. But if you are a tuba player you get a school instrument and a home instrument for basically nothing. My subs school charges a $75/year instrument rental fee. That didn't even cover one cleaning. Granted the home instruments are a bit rough.. but the school instruments are St. Petes and Miraphone186s. Same for the Euphoniums.. the students get either Yamaha 321 or Neos depending on which band they are in.. They do have to take this back and forth. I suggested to the band director that the school should charge rental fees that actually cover the cost of maintaining the instruments... It would still be less than it costs to rent a French horn. If the home instruments were properly maintained.. I wouldn't have had to buy my son a tuba for Honor bands.. he could have played the King 2341.. Somehow that was a non starter... if we charged more no one would play low brass. Sending all the school owned instruments for annual service and repair would keep them in better shape... and there isn't any question of who is damaging instruments... "It was that way when I got" it wouldn't fly.

[tubatodd]

I lived in a po' school district. I didn't see anything with 4 valves until high school. And those 4 valve horns were older than dirt and beat to hell. My horn of preference in high school was a Miraphone 184 BBb that looked more like crumpled aluminum foil than a real tuba. The bell had so many tears I used duct tape to keep it together and keep from cuts.

I brought that tuba to Tuba Christmas NYC from 1994 - 1996. I happened to run into Charles Kuralt (my parents took pictures) who was working on a book. He asked me about the horn. I don't remember the conversation. But he was pretty appalled at the appearance.

My high school band director DID eventually order (and was approved) a brand-new old style King 2341. I got to play it my last semester of high school.

[bloke]

Back in the early/mid '70s, some kids who lived over near UT Knoxville or in Nashville had some snazzy horns like Marzan, Meinl-Weston, Miraphone...YET somehow our poor white trash redneck Memphis high school held first year in the All-State band for six or seven years in a row with our 36K fiberglass sousaphones... oh yeah: and no screen between the judge and the auditioner.

[MiBrassFS]

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[bloke]

Back in the early/mid '70s, some kids who lived over near UT Knoxville or in Nashville had some snazzy horns like Marzan, Meinl-Weston, Miraphone...YET somehow our poor white trash redneck Memphis high school held first year in the All-State band for six or seven years in a row with our 36K fiberglass sousaphones... oh yeah: and no screen between the judge and the auditioner.

I bet those in charge had some miles on them…

The most bizarre audition I ever did (to date, other than a couple of sham orchestra auditions, and several of us have participated in those) was auditioning for my chair in the Tennessee All-State band as a high school senior.. I decided to use my school's (rattly worn valves) King 1240 with a detachable upright 22-in bell. I had removed the lacquer from the bell and painted clear lacquer on it with a brush, to render it somewhat presentable (just to paint a little bit of a visual picture).

The rehearsals were up in the Skyway of the famous Peabody Hotel in Memphis - right out on the round dance floor with Colonel Arnald Gabriel conducting the band...

... but all the auditions for chairs were done hastily - and at the last minute - in some of the smaller cheaper rooms in the hotel. I was first, and walked in there with some band director sitting on the bed and barely room for a chair and a stand. We were supposed to audition by playing passages from our music that we were going to perform that weekend.

The band director - who was a stranger to me - admitted that he knew nothing about the music and asked me if I might suggest some passages to use as audition material from the pieces.

I looked through them one at a time, found a "dog fight" in a octavo-sized march, and suggested that might be one passage. I then found another piece where it appeared as though the tubas had a melody, suggested-and-played that passage, and found a couple more passages in a couple more pieces and played those for him.

Perhaps he assigned me with the first chair out of gratitude.

[Heavy_Metal]

As screwy as that process was, you ended up playing for Col. Gabriel who, even in his late 90s, was still as good as it gets.