Post #181,973
11/1/04 10:22:21 AM
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What is it about Canada?
I've taken a real shine to Sarah McLachlan lately. Naturally, it turns out that she's from Canada (Halifax). Why does Canada produce so many top-caliber musicians? The list is endless.
Is musical education just something the Canadians do very well?
Or is it just that "the idea of north" causes them to internalize a lot of things?
-drl
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Post #181,974
11/1/04 10:38:28 AM
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Whiny, bitchy girl singer.
I'm surprised. There's hope for you yet. :)
(P.S. I think Sarah's great.)
All I want for my birthday is a new President!
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Post #181,977
11/1/04 10:56:41 AM
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T'aint no girl, that's a woman
-drl
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Post #181,980
11/1/04 11:29:58 AM
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Yes
Canada has a nationwide set of highschool music competitions. Choirs and bands compete with the following format: - Perform a 10-15 minute set. Be judged.
- One of the judges goes up and works - on stage and in front of the audience (which includes other choirs and bands, and their teachers) with the group that just performed.
- Go backstage to a private room where another experienced musician proceeds to give a slightly longer private training session.
The purpose of this system is, under the guise of letting schools compete with each other, teach music teachers to be far better teachers. I don't know how much this system is responsible for the musicians that you like. Most work in categories of music that the competitions are not held in. (The ones that I remember are concert choir, jazz choir with various sizes of choir, concert band, and jazz band.) But Diana Krall is an obvious product of it. Cheers, Ben I have come to believe that idealism without discipline is a quick road to disaster, while discipline without idealism is pointless. -- Aaron Ward (my brother)
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Post #182,063
11/1/04 4:33:34 PM
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Tell me Celine is not on that list
"The significant problems we face cannot be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them." --Albert Einstein
Step 1: THINK!
Step 2: VOTE!
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Post #182,065
11/1/04 4:35:35 PM
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She is in fact on that list
-drl
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Post #182,080
11/1/04 5:38:16 PM
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Re: What is it about Canada?
I doubt it has much to do with Ben's reasoning as we do similar things here in the US. I expect it has more to do with the fact that the government of Canada supports a shitload of lousy singers and the good ones can afford to practice their craft until greater recognition is granted internationally. Government support of the arts is something that the Canadians practice and we should spend more on here. I state that from a historical prospective rather than the strict constitutional prospective as the traditional role of the monarchy it replaced did in fact take care of charity and artists.
regards,
daemon
that way too many Iraqis conceived of free society as little more than a mosh pit with grenades. ANDISHEH NOURAEE
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Post #182,088
11/1/04 6:38:55 PM
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Similar things?
I've heard about similar programs in the US.
I've never heard of one on that big a scale, or that well run.
But I may be biased, I went to Esquimalt highschool as its [link|http://esquimalt.sd61.bc.ca/jazz/JAzz/jazz.html|musical reputation] was just starting to be created. Literally just started - I was in jazz choir the first year that we won a competition and got to go to the nationals. Which we then proceeded to do repeatedly, and winning a number of medals there.
In my last year we had an unbelievably good band teacher join, and the band side of the school almost immediately was better than the choral group. In his first year he figured that he was going to have to do some building because he started with so little, so he focussed on junior jazz band. Half of them had never even held instruments before. At the end of the year that band, and several small ensembles from it, won their respective categories at nationals. In every category that they entered. By the time I left Victoria, kids went of their way to go to Esquimalt because they wanted to have the chance to work with him!
Cheers,
Ben
I have come to believe that idealism without discipline is a quick road to disaster, while discipline without idealism is pointless. -- Aaron Ward (my brother)
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Post #182,090
11/1/04 7:56:48 PM
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*May* be biased?
I feel safe in saying that any program that consistently wins the highest competition in its system is most likely not representative of the system as a whole. As with doctors, half the music programs have to be in the bottom half. And that's not counting the ones who don't even have music programs, much less compete. I say this as someone who went undefeated in jazz band competition for three years in junior high, including two years competing in national competitions against high schools.
I heard a few years ago that a group of parents got together and got the band director fired because she had the nerve to hold auditions for the jazz band. I probably wouldn't have liked being told I wasn't good enough for the jazz band. But I also wouldn't have liked knowing we could win national competitions, but didn't qualify for them because the band director was required to take anyone who wanted to play. Yes, this is the exact same argument parents have over sports. That's why I see both sides of the debate.
The only solution I see to participation in competetive activities is at the league/organization level. Either every team has to take anyone who wants to play, with guaranteed minutes, or every coach/director/etc is free to hold tryouts. But there will always be activities with more people than minutes. Expecially when you factor in drama competitoins. How do you let everyone participate when the play only has three roles?
===
Implicitly condoning stupidity since 2001.
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Post #182,112
11/1/04 9:42:07 PM
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I say "may" for a reason.
I'm quite aware of how my experience was atypical.
I'm also aware - because I was there to see it - how the system could help music teachers. I saw how Mrs. Cooper would go to a competition, come back, and deliberately try out things that had been suggested for other groups. Would come back and ask us for feedback on what we thought of suggestions which had been given in the workshops that we got. I saw the difference that this made.
Of course teachers varied in how much they learned. Obviously I saw a best case scenario. But I also saw a lot of other teachers who were clearly taking advantage of the program, and were also improving rapidly. Many were people who, like my teacher, had been music teachers for a long time before but hadn't really improved that much.
Cheers,
Ben
PS At my school there were no auditions to get into choir or band. There were auditions to get into the smaller ensembles, like jazz choir, but those were in place because the ensemble had a maximum workable size. Interest was generally low enough that the problem was getting enough people into the group, not turning extra people away. (If getting in was competitive, I would have certainly been turned away!)
I have come to believe that idealism without discipline is a quick road to disaster, while discipline without idealism is pointless. -- Aaron Ward (my brother)
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Post #182,133
11/1/04 11:31:51 PM
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Re: Similar things?
Well locally the County has no funding for Music per se, $200 annual stipend for the music teacher to be the band director but we have a booster club that raises money to hire staff, pay a choreographer and a vicious competition locally, statewide and nationally. The competitive level is what keeps the music teachers in the school, the accolades of a ton of hard work with no financial reward except "regognition" keeps the music alive. Find a local highschool, watch their marching band play or their concert band or their chorus and support them with cheers and financial donations.
regards,
daemon
that way too many Iraqis conceived of free society as little more than a mosh pit with grenades. ANDISHEH NOURAEE
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