The Great TMEA Bassoon Kerfuffle of ‘21

[Three Valves]

Truth lost.

[jtm]

I might not have looked for more info if I hadn't played bassoon at TMEA once....

I switched to bassoon after a year on clarinet partly because nobody else was playing bassoon so there wouldn't be chair tests (lazy 7th grader priorities).
Seems like I might have been on the reduced-price school lunch plan that year, with my parents getting a divorce.

So, that's demerits for motivation, socio-economic status, and stable home life. Maybe I got in because I could read bass clef.

Or maybe it was because my band director wasn't a total ignorant jerk more interested in gatekeeping than in building his middle school band.

[greenbean]

I only know because I belong to a couple of bassoon groups. But I will refrain from commenting.

[jtm]

Thanks for linking that, @greenbean. I won't refrain from commenting (as I've done above).

[Three Valves]

I switched to bassoon after a year on clarinet partly because nobody else was playing bassoon so there wouldn't be chair tests (lazy 7th grader priorities).

Another truth bomb!!

[jtm]

I switched to bassoon after a year on clarinet partly because nobody else was playing bassoon so there wouldn't be chair tests (lazy 7th grader priorities).

Another truth bomb!!

Turned out I was right, too. The corollary, that nobody told me, was that if there was an audible mistake in the bassoon part, then everyone would know it was me. :)

It worked out well, overall. I liked the instrument, and the chances to play small ensembles and those nifty woodwind bits in some orchestra music. And I liked that it definitely wasn't a football instrument, so I got to pick other things to play in football bands and jazz bands.

[bort2.0]

Ok, so what happened next?

[jtm]

Next? From what I see on Twitter, TMEA took down the seminar, but they haven't made any statement about how it got there or how they might or might not endorse the educational approach. But that's just from Twitter; I'm in no way plugged in to the TMEA or music educator community.

[Three Valves]

Ok, so what happened next?

Everyone ignored “never prohibitive” under the socio-economic topic and went to town.

Some people pretended that the instructor was suggesting the children themselves be interrogated by the teacher.

The inevitable call for firings and re-education followed.

I thought the greatest obstacle to finding a bassoon player was locating anyone willing to play the damn thing!!

[bloke]

Mrs. bloke switched from flute TO bassoon c. age 13 (because it fascinated her), and it was very difficult - because her parents were broke. She went from playing an OK flute to playing a crappy school bassoon (that she had to figure out how to repair herself), and saved up to buy an even crappier bassoon (ancient, worn out, Czech) which was all she could afford). Even so, she overcame the limitations of the crappy bassoons and was chosen for the all-state orchestra…and (sorry about more truth, but) competition for those chairs was more steep, back then. She did receive some private instruction. That instruction was donated by the teacher, which was extremely generous of them…but the teacher was also broke, and certainly didn’t have any money to buy her a better bassoon.
(Mrs. bloke’s father worked in the post office. His car broke down right about the time they moved the post office three miles farther away from his house. He couldn’t afford union dues, so he was abused at work for not being a union member, was loaded down with work, and never given raises. He could not afford to repair his car, so he walked to and from work every day for several years. He had one bad leg from a teenage injury, and also suffered from scarlet fever as an infant - so he could not hear nor see very well. One day, on his way to work, three union thugs beat him up badly. Mrs. bloke’s mother also had a job cleaning motel rooms. It paid very little.)

I switched from trumpet TO tuba (in the middle of the beginner band school year) because I didn’t want to ask my father to buy me a trumpet (for several hundred dollars). I had already bought my own guitar for $125 (1972 $$’s), and worked my @$$ off (as a newspaper boy) to buy that. Ironically, the guitar gigs that I played - between that pre-driving-age acquisition and age 18 - are how I was able to pay cash for my own Miraphone tuba ($1700) when I was 18 (...but that involved practicing guitar etudes, lute transcriptions, and solo repertoire for about five hours every night).

Truth be told, buying expensive instruments is a daunting proposition, and now: with scores upon scores of millions of Americans impoverished (struggling to make car, house, utility, grocery, utility, and tax payments) after having lost their private sector jobs, I just don’t see how we can expect people (unless they volunteer to do so of their own free will) to pay for other people’s children’s expensive instruments.

Don’t misread this post:
That - which is larger than us - has - loud-and-clear - told us to look after those who are in need...
...but – as a teenager – I don’t view myself as ever having “needed“ a guitar or a tuba. Had I never had those things, I would’ve found other things to do that were equally productive and equally rewarding, if not more so.

Just for what it’s worth, I attended high school in a very poor part of Memphis. (The school not only didn’t have air-conditioning - as our school wasn’t deemed to be worth it, but there wasn’t even any toilet paper…yes: really.) A parade of tuba players - from our band - held the first chair in the all-state band for roughly a decade. Each of us auditioned for the all-state band with a Conn fiberglass model 36K sousaphone that (of course) belonged to the school. Most of us used school-owned mouthpieces. Those all-state tuba sections did look odd with a plastic sousaphone in the principal chair - followed up by a grouping of Meinl-Weston, Marzan, and Miraphone tubas...and none of us ever had any private tuba instruction, just for what it’s worth.

I’m not promoting any narrative…but only reporting how things were.

[Three Valves]

It worked out well, overall. I liked the instrument, and the chances to play small ensembles and those nifty woodwind bits in some orchestra music. And I liked that it definitely wasn't a football instrument, so I got to pick other things to play in football bands and jazz bands.

I saw the Christmas Revels in DC a few years back. They play period instruments many of which are double reed precursors to the bassoon. It really made me appreciate them more.

[jtm]

I saw the Christmas Revels in DC a few years back. They play period instruments many of which are double reed precursors to the bassoon. It really made me appreciate them more.

I once saw someone play Mozart on an appropriate 4 key bassoon, an it made me appreciate all the keys on a modern bassoon, even if nine of them are for the left thumb.

[bort2.0]

[Stryk]

Bassoon takes a greater investment in brain power, time, work ethic, money, and stability than almost any other instrument. What that presenter is saying looks like the truth to me. JS

[Yorkboy]

I had a flirtation with the bassoon way back in high school. My band director sent me home with a spare one (actually it was spare because no-one was playing it) and a Voxman/Rubank fingering chart.

I actually learned enough to play it in the school orchestra (after I bombed out on viola, but that's another story entirely).

FWIW, it's still a dream of mine to own a double bassoon.....

[bloke]

contrabassoon…??

[bort2.0]

^ I would prefer to go into the other direction, and go for the Tenor oon. Either way, I prefer the name "farting bedpost."

A good friend in college was a bassoon major, and switched almost exclusively to contrabassoon. Did his entire senior recital on contrabassoon.

[jtm]

Bassoon takes a greater investment in brain power, time, work ethic, money, and stability than almost any other instrument. What that presenter is saying looks like the truth to me. JS

If the presenter had written what you wrote, there would be no kerfuffle.

Trying to use "socio-economic status" as a proxy for any of those is misguided and discriminatory.

Asking if the kid lives in a rental house or apartment, or if they switch parents every week, is, too. Ask if they can commit to practicing, ask a parent (or grandparent, or whatever) if the kid will have support, and let them figure it out.

And money? Reeds are expensive, but they're 3x bari sax reeds, not 20x. Most schools who want bassoon players will buy bassoons, so that part is not an issue.

You didn't mention "musical knowledge," but that part of the slide is also gatekeeping. Sure, you'd love a kid who's been playing piano and understands harmony and reading bass clef and all that. But if it's their first wind instrument, they can learn bass clef just like the trombone players. If they're switching from sax, they have to learn a new set of fingerings anyway, so might as well learn them along with notes on bass clef lines. Nobody knows tenor clef in 7th grade, and they'll need that too, eventually.

I may be sensitive because this hits too close to home. I wanted to play French horn but didn't know about school-owned instruments, so I played clarinet because my father had one (a lovely Buffet, which was nice). When I took up bassoon in 7th grade, I used a school instrument. Happily, it was a decent plastic Fox, but I certainly could not have bought my own then. The director asked for volunteers to play bassoon. I may have been the only one. But if there had been a competition, I would not have won on "socio-economic status" or visibly stable home life.

As it happened, things worked out well. I did have that piano background, and my piano teacher had recognized that I would never be on the competition circuit, so my lessons were much more about making music, listening to music, playing with others, and improvising and jamming than about working up repertoire. That was perfect for playing bassoon, so often in a supporting and blending role.

One more thing about money. I got all the way through college bands with only school-owned instruments (bassoons, baritones, tubas) and a couple of borrowed instruments -- clarinet, trombone for high school jazz band (the director never asked if I'd be able to practice the borrowed trombone at my stable home; she just assumed I'd make it work) -- so I finished college without owning any of my main instruments. That was disappointing to me, but it was never a problem for the bands or my contributions to them.

[bloke]

If all of this is some educational argument “for this children”, then practicality dictates that we steer most young people (interested in instrumental music) to playing the fiddle. Usable fiddles are cheap, cheap to replace (actually: cheaper to replace than a set a really good strings), and - as a practical matter - it’s probably one instrument whereby there’s actually a shortage of competent players in the adult world.

Anytime anything about someone’s/anyone’s socioeconomic status as mentioned as a matter of nuts and bolts practicality, someone’s going to be triggered. Further, some people are going to read “race“ into that seven-syllable hypenation, rather than the limited meaning that it actually has. As an example (from my previous post), it should be obvious to all that my socioeconomic status - when growing up - was quite low, and that playing anything other than a maintenance-free school-owned instrument - with a school-owned mouthpiece - would have been difficult.

[Three Valves]

Bassoon takes a greater investment in brain power, time, work ethic, money, and stability than almost any other instrument. What that presenter is saying looks like the truth to me. JS

Now, now, we can't have any of that!!