Re: Re: Re: Re: CC St.Pete any news?


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Posted by Rick Denney on December 16, 2002 at 17:25:21:

In Reply to: Re: Re: Re: CC St.Pete any news? posted by the idea guy on December 16, 2002 at 16:45:51:

The question would be: Why?

There are three classes of ex-high-school tuba players: Those who go on to professional tuba playing (or training for same), those who go on to amateur tuba playing, and those who abandon the instrument.

I suspect that the first category is the tiniest fraction of the whole. I have no idea how many high-school tuba players exist out there, but I'd bet they would be numbered in the tens of thousands. How many study tuba with the intent of becoming professional? Perhaps a hundred or two. But thousands will remain as amateurs, even if it takes a few years for them to come back to it. I daresay most high-school tuba players become listeners after graduation.

Most amateurs who are not frusatrated professional wannabes play BBb tubas, and not just because that's what they learned. They play them because they are cheaper--much cheaper--for instruments of similar quality. If we woke up one day and all schools everywhere used only C tubas and always did, then maybe new and used C tubas would be available in those lower-cost categories, too. But the world isn't that way and the conversion would take decades.

It seems to me that designing high-school programs around the desires of professionals is a bit of the tail wagging the dog. They should be designed around the convenience of amateurs, which outnumber professionals by orders of magnitude and which create a critically important audience for professionals. Any tuba player who wants to be a professional should be able to make the switch to C at any time of his or her choosing with little difficulty. Too much difficulty in making that switch is a sign that perhaps the aptitude is not there in an incredibly competitive profession.

Rick "who thinks amateurs are in some ways more important than professionals" Denney


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