Post by paddy on Dec 29, 2022 10:08:09 GMT -6
On the momentous occasion of my 1,000th post, I have decided to post a manifesto about the pageantry arts...
I believe in the power of band (and by extension all performing arts) to positively affect our children. I believe that the lessons learned in the arts directly impact the future of the participants and will help launch them into adult life. When I hear people talk about how kids these days are lazy or unwilling to work, I look at the hundreds of kids I see every day that commit being part of a group and then work their butts offs for months to create the best performance possible. The kids who are out there in the heat and the cold, the blazing sun and the glare of the football field lights. The kids who willingly give up their nights and weekends for 7ish minutes of music and marching that s largely ignored by the general public.
I know that my 3 kids are not the people they are today without the opportunities provided to them by our school's arts programs. I know that I am a better person by being involved in the booster program that supports those programs. For a number of years, nearly every major milestone in our family involved our band program, and for that I am grateful.
I love to cuss and discuss the world of competitive pageantry arts. I love to prognosticate, dissect results, opine on performances, and criticize decisions I don't like. However, at the end of the day that matters very little as long as we are providing positive opportunities for kids.
With some the recent developments/happenings in our small niche world, I am concerned about the future of the activity. I worry that we have priced kids out of experiences that benefit them. I worry that we have focused too much on the "show" and too little on the music. The activity that I participated in as a youth is not the activity that my kids participate in. When I was a kid, we had maybe 6 parents and 3 directors who traveled with us to a show in 3 buses and 1 equipment vehicle. Today I am part of a group that travels with 50ish adults (40 parents 10 staff), 5 buses, a semi, 3 box trucks and 2 trucks with trailers, and our program isn't anywhere near the biggest in the state. I don't know if this is sustainable, but I don't know how you retreat from what this has become. Of course I recognize my hypocrisy in this as I enable this to happen and spent a small fortune sending my oldest kid on tour with a DCI group multiple years.
Ultimately, I have faith that we can sustain all the good that band brings, and hopefully work to fix the warts. In the end, it is band, and band is fun.
I believe in the power of band (and by extension all performing arts) to positively affect our children. I believe that the lessons learned in the arts directly impact the future of the participants and will help launch them into adult life. When I hear people talk about how kids these days are lazy or unwilling to work, I look at the hundreds of kids I see every day that commit being part of a group and then work their butts offs for months to create the best performance possible. The kids who are out there in the heat and the cold, the blazing sun and the glare of the football field lights. The kids who willingly give up their nights and weekends for 7ish minutes of music and marching that s largely ignored by the general public.
I know that my 3 kids are not the people they are today without the opportunities provided to them by our school's arts programs. I know that I am a better person by being involved in the booster program that supports those programs. For a number of years, nearly every major milestone in our family involved our band program, and for that I am grateful.
I love to cuss and discuss the world of competitive pageantry arts. I love to prognosticate, dissect results, opine on performances, and criticize decisions I don't like. However, at the end of the day that matters very little as long as we are providing positive opportunities for kids.
With some the recent developments/happenings in our small niche world, I am concerned about the future of the activity. I worry that we have priced kids out of experiences that benefit them. I worry that we have focused too much on the "show" and too little on the music. The activity that I participated in as a youth is not the activity that my kids participate in. When I was a kid, we had maybe 6 parents and 3 directors who traveled with us to a show in 3 buses and 1 equipment vehicle. Today I am part of a group that travels with 50ish adults (40 parents 10 staff), 5 buses, a semi, 3 box trucks and 2 trucks with trailers, and our program isn't anywhere near the biggest in the state. I don't know if this is sustainable, but I don't know how you retreat from what this has become. Of course I recognize my hypocrisy in this as I enable this to happen and spent a small fortune sending my oldest kid on tour with a DCI group multiple years.
Ultimately, I have faith that we can sustain all the good that band brings, and hopefully work to fix the warts. In the end, it is band, and band is fun.