Whatever happened to basic instrument training in schools?

[BrassSection]

Maybe it’s just a pet peeve of mine, but very few people seem to have any grasp anymore of what instrument is what any more. Back in my day (Days of lots of chrome and tail fins) our elementary music teachers would give us music basics and educate all the students on the various instruments. Now, it seems not so much.

Example #1. I play trumpet and low brass instruments at church, the trumpet no more than a third of the time in most months. My trombone gets more play time than any other horn. What am I known as… The Trumpet Player.
Example #2. Had a professional sound tech in awhile back to go through our sound system and give instructions to sound board operators in the church. Of course he knew the trumpet, but when I tried the euph his comment was “Nice French horn!”
Example #3. At a brass group concert overheard somebody looking through the program say “What is a euphonium? I never heard of that before!” I’ll give them that one, more people do seem to be familiar with a baritone vs a euph.

When I was still in my single digit age Dad took me to a concert. On the walk home he asked if I had any questions, only one I had is “What’s the percussion section?” He described a percussion instrument as “Something you have to hit to make it work.” A light went on and I replied “Like me!” Dad got a good chuckle out of that!

[musicofnote]

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[cmcslide]

I played a wedding reception out in the country once, where I was warming up before sound check and a friend of the party says to me, “Hey, it’s a trumpet player!” I said “yeah, he’s on the way, this is my trombone” or something like that. At the end of the gig that guy came up and played guitar and sang with the band- he was releasing a country single that weekend.

[harrisonreed]

I mean, it's about as relevant as knowing different types of wood working tools or different types of machine tool cutters. Or knowing the rules of basketball.

Knowing the name of instruments is nearly useless information unless you *need* to know it. I couldn't name traditional Asian stringed instruments even though they are used as regularly as an oboe, if not more often.

I think the pet peeve is related to your perspective, which must be music driven. Most people in the world are not serious about studying Western music. My pet peeve is when the guy on the BizarreBub YouTube channel "Scary Comp" series says "things were about to get a whole lot scary" every episode, which is obviously unusual English syntax. But at the end of the day I understand every word he says and he entertains millions of people. So pet peeves are just that.

[CharlieB]

I mean, it's about as relevant as knowing different types of wood working tools or different types of machine tool cutters. Or knowing the rules of basketball.
Knowing the name of instruments is nearly useless information unless you *need* to know it.

In my youth, I posed that logic to one of my elementary school teachers, and he redirected me.
He said that nobody's future is certain, and expanding one's learning in all directions is the best way to be prepared for life. There is no such thing as useless information. Even if you derive no immediate benefit from the learning, it will make you a better person. That was 1953. He was right. That's why today I could talk at length with the OP about all the "chrome and fins" he mentioned.

[AtomicClock]

Back in my day (Days of lots of chrome and tail fins) our elementary music teachers would give us music basics and educate all the students on the various instruments. Now, it seems not so much.

Back in MY day (Thriller and Max Headroom), General Music taught us the names of the big Rock and Roll stars, and how they died (mostly "drug overdose" or" plane crash"). Oddly, we never listened to any of their music. I learned the band instruments in band class, and the orchestra strings from a well-rounded childhood, through not through the public school system. We did watch Grease and Grease II, though.

[ghmerrill]

Maybe it’s just a pet peeve of mine, but very few people seem to have any grasp anymore of what instrument is what any more. Back in my day (Days of lots of chrome and tail fins) our elementary music teachers would give us music basics and educate all the students on the various instruments. Now, it seems not so much.

Well, maybe it is too much.

While I don't (at least entirely) agree with Harrison's "need based" approach (but that would involve us in a terribly tangled and probably incoherent discussion of "needs"), I would point briefly to a historic desire to provide children with a broad (once called "liberal" -- without any political taint to it) education which included basic elements of the arts (broadly construed) and the sciences (basic biology, chemistry, and physics to at least some degree). Among other things, this was intended to provide a platform which in part taught the student "how to learn" and provided a basis for that as well as.

Great. But times have changed (they always do ). And there are only so many hours in the day, days in the week, weeks in the year, and years in a "basic education." So my beloved general shop, wood shop, and machine shop classes have disappeared -- originally to be supplanted by "keyboarding" classes, and now with a number of other types of classes as well (e.g., "robotics" -- now starting to appear in middle school). Was something lost? You bet. Has something been gained? Yeah, that too. But how do you keep all those old classes and also teach the new ones? How do you cram more of the important and "necessary" contemporary knowledge into the time available so that our kids come out with a fundamental 21st century education instead of a 19th century one? Choices have to be made -- just as long ago the teaching of Latin and Greek was dropped out of the elementary curriculum. So as time marches on, some things do become "too much."

There's a way to save some of it, of course. There always has been -- but even that is more difficult now. Parents have to take up the slack -- either with teaching things themselves or providing private teaching in areas such as the arts. I see my son and his wife doing that. But that too has its limitations -- or else every kid's day is just filled up with regimented learning. Because as the knowledge and skills bubbles are getting bigger and bigger, the days aren't getting any longer.

[harrisonreed]

It's not just a needs based approach -- literally any information can be valuable. It's about assigning value to the need to know Western instruments over African, Asian, or Australian ones. Or knowing different makes of American cars. Or literally any other fact based pursuit of knowledge. Shouldn't the history of the Normans be more important to know in and out? It has had a much bigger impact on our culture today than the oboe.

I'm playing devil's advocate, of course, but a pet peeve is usually somewhat irrational. Mine are, anyways.

The OP is projecting their world view onto others, because they love music, and that's what we all do. Being mistakenly the "trumpet guy" is not really such a big thing in the scheme of things. About the same thing as being the shamisen guy when you actually play the biwa.

[ghmerrill]

Shouldn't the history of the Normans be more important to know in and out? It has had a much bigger impact on our culture today than the oboe.
...
... but a pet peeve is usually somewhat irrational. Mine are, anyways.

While that does seem somewhat irrational, I have to say that I remember a LOT more time in junior high school and high school spent on the history of the Normans than was spent on the oboe. And the ONLY history I remember from elementary school involved the Dutch and the Iroquois (well, with some Pilgrims thrown in, but then the Iroquois were involved as well, and also the Delaware/Lenni Lenape).

Of course, that may not be true today. Well ... I would bet that no more time is spent on the oboe than on the Normans, even in today's schools. And I, for one, don't feel that our children or society are harmed by that.

[BrassSection]

Irrational pet peeves…me…the person that likes to make sure the 3-way light switches all are in the same position??? Wife says it’s my OCD. She may have a point…

In the grand scheme of things there’s only 2 things I’ve never been accused of…being a fisherman, and being normal. That may explain the tug of playing the French horn!

[ghmerrill]

Irrational pet peeves…me…the person that likes to make sure the 3-way light switches all are in the same position???

Not entirely irrational. We COULD make 3-way light switches that would be in the same position. It would just involve a bit more expense -- and not be appreciated by most switch users. So not much of a market there.

I also don't think that a case can be made that pet peeves tend to be irrational. Many are quite rational (e.g., several I have about certain word usage and grammar issues), but just not of interest to a lot of people. For example, one of my pet peeves is the use of the term "nickel silver" (as occurring in another thread at this date). It's just nickel -- not at all silver. Then there's the wide-spread mistaken use of "beg the question." But you don't want to hear about that.

[CharlieB]

Irrational pet peeves ???

Many are quite rational (e.g., several I have about certain word usage and grammar issues), but just not of interest to a lot of people.
[/quote]

Like, give me an example. I mean, like, what usage?

[JohnL]

For example, one of my pet peeves is the use of the term "nickel silver" (as occurring in another thread at this date). It's just nickel -- not at all silver.

Ah, but my pet peeve is the use of "nickel" to refer to that same material. It's not "just nickel"; it's mostly copper with significant amounts of nickel and zinc (with maybe a little tin, depending on the alloy). Technically, it's a bronze - but if you started calling it "nickel bronze" now, people would just be confused - doubly so, since the "person on the street" doesn't think of bronze as being a silver color.

It's kinda like calling an American bison a buffalo, or calling a pronghorn an antelope. Not technically accurate, but the terms have been in wide use for so long that we're kind of stuck with them. Besides, it would mess up the song...

Oh give me a home, where the American bison roam,
where the deer and the pronghorn play.

[bitbckt]

That’s a speed goat where I come from.

[ghmerrill]

Like, give me an example. I mean, like, what usage?

Like using "beg the question" to mean "raise the question." That was an example, though now it has been so frequently misused that many popular dictionaries include that as a possible meaning. Such is the nature of linguistic drift. Similarly, "exponential" has now come to mean something like "REALLY REALLY big". I've seen a number of technical writers use "brake" instead of "break" (.e.g. "setting a brake point" for debugging code). And that's not a typo because they do it consistently and repeatedly. How about "capital" vs. "capitol"? How about (now very popular in political commentary and statements by news people) the conflation of "censor" and "censure"? "Continuous" vs. "contiguous"? "Criteria" vs. "criterion"? "Disburse" vs. "disperse" vs. "dispense"? The list goes on.

I actually now have a list of about 100 examples that I started working into a short book for writers -- but got side-tracked. I'll get back to it some day, maybe.

[ghmerrill]

Ah, but my pet peeve is the use of "nickel" to refer to that same material. It's not "just nickel"; it's mostly copper with significant amounts of nickel and zinc (with maybe a little tin, depending on the alloy).

Well at least a nickel instrument part has nickel in it, whereas a nickel silver instrument part doesn't have silver in it. Maybe we should call it "fool's silver" on the model of "fool's gold".

[BrassSection]

My 3 way switch comment was referring to multiple switches in a box, all should either be up or down, not mixed. Yeah, I’m the electrician that makes sure all light switch and receptacle cover plate screws are aligned with the slot being vertical.

I’ve even debated at times jacking up my vehicles and moving the tires to have all 4 valve stems in the same position and logos in the wheels all level, but I’m not that far gone!

And on wrong use of words, once had a book in our engineering department on bearings. They listed plain bearings as “plane” bearings! Like we often said, “Yesterday I couldn’t spell engine-ear, now I are one!”

[harrisonreed]

What about making up new compound words, German style? My wife says one day, "do we have one of those multiple-source-power-plugs left?"

She was of course referring to a power strip or surge protector. But I kind of like the new term.

[ghmerrill]

My 3 way switch comment was referring to multiple switches in a box, all should either be up or down, not mixed.

Even if they're all to different lights and some of those lights are on and some are off? I don't think I can proceed with an analysis or further understanding of such a view since it appears to be incoherent.

I’ve even debated at times jacking up my vehicles and moving the tires to have all 4 valve stems in the same position and logos in the wheels all level, but I’m not that far gone!

I presume that as part of your engineering education you studied some physics -- a fairly quick consideration of which would illuminate the futility of such an idea if you were planning to ever move the car.

They listed plain bearings as “plane” bearings! Like we often said, “Yesterday I couldn’t spell engine-ear, now I are one!”

So you're sure this wasn't a reference to bearings for airplanes?

e**x, dy/dx, e**dx dx;
cosine, secant, tangent, sine
3.14159
... etc.

[officermayo]

Ah, but my pet peeve is the use of "nickel" to refer to that same material. It's not "just nickel"; it's mostly copper with significant amounts of nickel and zinc (with maybe a little tin, depending on the alloy).

Well at least a nickel instrument part has nickel in it, whereas a nickel silver instrument part doesn't have silver in it. Maybe we should call it "fool's silver" on the model of "fool's gold".

Then Pyrex is "fool's glass"?

[ghmerrill]

What about making up new compound words, German style? My wife says one day, "do we have one of those multiple-source-power-plugs left?"

Ja, Ich finde Deutsch ganz gern. The admirable German approach is not to introduce yet another new noun into the language if you can make what you need from existing pieces. It's a kind of application of Occam's Razor to vocabulary construction. But then there's always Mark Twain's view of "The Awful German Language":

https://faculty.georgetown.edu/jod/text ... erman.html

With respect to some socio-linguistic issues today, see in particular the section on genders.

[ghmerrill]

Then Pyrex is "fool's glass"?

Well, ... no. Under the usual understanding of what a "glass" Is, it's a kind of glass just as nickel is a kind of metal. It's just not a pure silicate glass. Similarly, obsidian is glass.

[AtomicClock]

So you accept the "usual understanding" for glass, but not for begging questions?

[harrisonreed]

It begs the question, what are your other pet peeves?

Reesee's pea-sees, anyone?

[ghmerrill]

So you accept the "usual understanding" for glass, but not for begging questions?

Do you have a different understanding of "glass"? Or do you want to go all Humpty Dumpty on us?

[ghmerrill]

It begs the question, what are your other pet peeves?

Well, I do get a little peeved at people who refer to cartridges as "bullets". But I suppose that's just being picky.

[officermayo]

It begs the question, what are your other pet peeves?

Well, I do get a little peeved at people who refer to cartridges as "bullets". But I suppose that's just being picky.

And magazines as "clips".

[ghmerrill]

I'll raise you safeties on revolvers.

[ghmerrill]

People who want the knives they use to be sharp, but constantly do things that dull them needlessly and then don't even tell the tool sharpener that they need sharpening so he has to discover that himself when he needs a sharp knife in the kitchen and can't find one. Not to mention people who think that a butter knife is not only a good screwdriver for a slotted screw but an adequate screwdriver for a Phillips screw -- who are the same people who will use the point of an expensive German paring knife as a pry bar to open a can.

Oh ... sorry for that outburst.

[BrassSection]

Actually my engineer training was basic common sense, I reviewed many mechanical, piping, electrical, and instrument control drawings. And the bearings in question were plain bearings not for planes. Plane bearings carry FAA stamping.

Examples of engineering oversights:

Production wanted more capacity in a process tank, very heavy, dense product. Engineering came up with a drawing, showing only tank addition and piping modifications. I raised the question “Are the current support beams strong enough?” After doing what they were paid to do, Oops, yeah, we gotta add more support structure!

Large tank with a heavy slurry in it had 3 tangential recirc lines near the bottom that frequently plugged. Let’s put an agitator on! 40 HP drive unit was to sit and be bolted onto quarter inch steel plate top. Uh, what will the torque reaction do to the top mounting area? Hmmm: Actually required large I-beams welded to the tank to support a heavy I-beam frame on top.

Tank drawing, to replace stream sparger heating with titanium coil piping with a condensate trap piped to the exterior so as to not dilute the chlorine dioxide generating solution when it was not in the generator. Convenient way to support coil was bolting it to a saddle on the manhole cover! Once you’ve done that, how do you get back out of the tank???

I guess this is a large digression from trombones! And as for the wheels, that was equal to me asking my grandson to practice my trumpet for me since I was busy. Light switch clarification…if all lights are off, all switches should be in the same position.

[ghmerrill]

Actually my engineer training was basic common sense,

Oh. Personally, I wouldn't refer to commons sense as "training" under any circumstances. Also common sense turns out not to be too reliable. In my personal experience, if you ask a class of students (in pretty much any course except one after they've actually had physics) whether a 10 lb. lead ball or a golf ball will fall faster, pretty much all of them will pick the lead ball. The reliability of common sense is why we replaced it with real science and engineering.

[BrassSection]

Yeah, but which weighs more, a pound of stones or a pound of feathers?

Common sense involves not just oh, this will work, it involves analyzing the situation and thinking thru what will happen. Some of us have the ability of seeing a problem and correctly coming up with the solution.

Other examples of engineering marvels:

Electrical engineers car wouldn’t start…dead battery. He wondered why his car still wouldn’t start when he ran a jumper wire from a lawnmower spark plug to his car battery!

I had a Dodge Dakota I needed to replace the water pump on. Special tool required to remove fan clutch if you didn’t get lucky with a wrench. I didn’t get lucky. Took it to the local dealer and asked if they could use their special tool to loosen the fan clutch for me, they agreed. After all 3 of their tools broke without loosening the clutch, they sent me on my way with no charge since they didn’t accomplish anything. Stopped at the local steel yard on my way home, paid a bucks for a piece of strap steel. Drilled 2 holes on to match location of fan bolts, cut a notch in the strap to clear clutch shaft and bolted the steel to the fan. Wrench on clutch nut and strap holding the fan and assembly was off in under 2 minutes. Shoulda sold my tool to the dealer for what Chrysler charged for theirs!

Did have a couple good engineers, bought my trombone from a younger electrical engineer that actually knew what he was doing, and a geocentric mechanical engineer gave me a good deal on my trumpet.

Some peoples line of thinking: If a knife doesn’t work for a pry bar, try a screwdriver!

[ghmerrill]

That's a really great question for an introductory physics or engineering course exam. So what do you take the common sense answer to be?

[harrisonreed]

Don't objects of different densities fall at different rates in an atmosphere?

[AtomicClock]

Depends on the cross-section. A deployed parachute falls slower than one that stays bundled up.

[JohnL]

Depends on the cross-section. A deployed parachute falls slower than one that stays bundled up.

Yeah, drag/air resistance is a major factor. Even if you made a "feather" out of the same material as a bowling ball, the feather would fall more slowly.

[ghmerrill]

Even if you made a "feather" out of the same material as a bowling ball, the feather would fall more slowly.

Maybe that's why Galileo didn't do his experiments with a feather, but (supposedly) with identically shaped objects of the same material. Actually, the same experiment had been done several years earlier (well documented) by a couple of Dutch guys using two lead balls. But in fact it's not clear that Galileo actually did that experiment himself (there is some dispute, with people on each side of that). But the experiment was really only Galileo's empirical foundation for further developing his theory.

Also, concerning the feather idea, this in fact was done in the "atmosphere" of the moon in 1971 using a feather and
a hammer. Guess what happened? (There's actually a YouTube video of it, if you can't guess.)

And yet for untold numbers of people (perhaps all of us at one time in our lives), the "common sense" answer would be that the heavier object falls faster. Aristotle believed that.

But the really interesting stuff is what happens in that same broad domain in the special theory of relativity. Talk about common sense? Leave that behind when you go in the relativity direction. Ain't science wonderful?

[AtomicClock]

ghmerrill misattributed that quote. Not me.
I think the BBS inelegantly disallows deeply nested quotes.

[harrisonreed]

The moon doesn't have an atmosphere, at least not one that could create measurable drag. That's why they did it there.

[ghmerrill]

The moon doesn't have an atmosphere, ...

You'll find some dispute on that point -- which is why it was in scare quotes. But there's really not much dispute about the moon's atmosphere nowadays. You can find any number of articles (Wikipedia: "Atmosphere of the Moon", NASA: "The Moon has an atmosphere ..." , Space.com: "One of the sources for the moon's atmosphere is outgassing ...", Study.com: "Yes, the moon has an atmosphere. It is largely composed of helium, neon, argon, and hydrogen.", etc., etc. ). So atmosphere, but not enough to affect the demo they wanted to do and to establish the point.

[harrisonreed]

Gravity is always a multiple body problem. I don't think the objects actually do fall or accelerate at the same rate. Case in point, gps satellites are all technically "falling" forever onto the earth, but they will be affected by the passing moon, or even the shape of the earth's surface as they pass over it, to the point that they each will need to make different corrections to maintain orbit. Thus, they don't "fall" at the same rate.

Imagine dropping a coin sized black hole (the event horizon, that is) next to an actual coin -- the coin would fall towards the black hole sideways before stretching into the event horizon forever, and the earth's core would be pulled upwards towards the black hole, ripping the earth apart as the black hole falls straight through the earth to merge with the core. Dropping a feather and a lead ball on the moon would involve the same forces, just to a much much smaller extent.

[ghmerrill]

Dropping a feather and a lead ball on the moon would involve the same forces, just to a much much smaller extent.

Yes, that's true, and the theory tells us that the same forces would be "involved" -- though not to any measurable extent. And even then the theory doesn't tell us precisely what the effect (measurable or not) is, there still being no general solution to the n-body gravitational problem. But again, it's an illustration of the difference (and reliability) of what people think of as "common sense" -- which is often just ignorance, feeling, or guesswork -- compared to evidence-based knowledge that provides accurate predictions and explanations.

If you're interested in these things, a book you might enjoy reading (by one of my oldest friends and fellow graduate student eons ago) is Bill Harper's Isaac Newton's Scientific Method: Turning Data into Evidence about Gravity & Cosmology. It's truly an award-winning masterpiece that took Harper decades to write.

https://www.amazon.com/Isaac-Newtons-Sc ... 147&sr=8-1

[schwinghammer04]

I see this too in the education system. When I was warming up for a jazz concert I had for my school, a boy around 11-13 ish years old asked, "Is that a trumpet?" When I replied no and told him it was a trombone, he replied, "Aren't they the same thing?". I had to explain to him the difference between valves and a slide. I get that not everybody is a musician and needs to know, but it is still good to have some basic knowledge on it incase needed. Ive noticed that schools tend to focus more on their sports programs than music, which annoys me sometimes too. I am a martial artist and I understand the value of sports, but music is just as important as sports and should be respected equally.

[AtomicClock]

schools tend to focus more on their sports programs than music, which annoys me sometimes too

I'm not so sure about that. I made it through high school without learning the rules of any of the major sports. And was never encouraged to participate in any. We drilled basketball skills a little in gym class (which I guess would be the equivalent of the basic music classes we're discussing), but not much else. Now as a fat, weak, middle-aged man, I wish schools had emphasized sports and fitness more. I'd trade that for the basic music classes I did have.

[ghmerrill]

I think that may depend a lot on the particular school involved, or on the state it's in, or region, or even county (depending on how some states run their education systems). My wife, for example, had NO physical education in school until she went to college (and then took the riflery course to satisfy the basic phys ed requirement at Northwestern, in order to avoid -- in her words -- "getting sweaty between classes" ). Up to that point she had spent her life in Catholic girls schools where apparently the nuns were not committed to pursuing sports and physical education. But she did learn a LOT of music (piano) in those days.

I had solid instrumental instruction from 6th grade onwards, but the physical education classes were a complete waste of time (as were the art courses). I recall that in sixth grade a regular amount of time was devoted to learning square dancing (!) in combined classes with the girls, and otherwise playing the usual sports and some minor efforts at gymnastics and wrestling. Really pretty senseless pro forma stuff -- and I say that as a member of the school basketball teams in freshman and sophomore years of high school (east-central NY State, small city). My kids -- growing up in rural NC -- had similar experiences (in both public and private schools, although the private school has a much more serious, and competent, sports program). In general, in terms of my experience, programs in instrumental music and in chorus and drama were much better organized and taught than the physical education courses -- from which I exclude the extracurricular JV and Varsity sports, which don't count as "courses" or "classes."

But I have no idea how things stand now.