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Show Open letter Parent praises music effort of teacher, students Springville's music is disrupted dis-rupted again. Can we parents and students possibly learn from our mistakes of the past? It is unfortunate that fans and supporters don't find out until too late that damage is being done with criticism which is always al-ways lounder and heard more clearly than compliments and approval. I've felt for some time that Springville's music program was developing very well and interest was gaining. Evidence of this was the ambitious am-bitious project, "The Sound of Music," by the high school. Everyone who worked on it deserved great praise and compliments. com-pliments. Because it took such effort and dedication, the individual in-dividual contributions were lost. I would like to thank publicly everyone that gave this gift to the community particularly march; encourage students to "stick to it"; require practising; practis-ing; hold our criticism as much as possible; keep our teachers tea-chers long enough to give them a chance to develop a sound program and continuing relationship rela-tionship with the students; expose ex-pose our young people to music mu-sic wherever possible. Dorothy Collings Mr. Harrison and Mr. Carter. I've had three children benefit bene-fit from the music program here over the last 5 years. Frankly, I've not been disappointed disap-pointed a bit by the teachers or instruction, only that it changed chang-ed so often. Each year and sometimes twice a year, the whole direction of the choruses and b ands would change. I'll share with you some comments I've heard music students make, not just my children. "I want to take band but can't get it in"; T want to take band but can't take chorus too, on my schedule"; "Seven guys got kicked out today"; "Only one-third of the kids turned up for the practice"; "We only had six come out of 50 kids." I'm embarrassed to march with such a small band"; The other schools kidded us and asked if we were a junior high band." The uniforms don't fit and are very hot." "Boy, did we have a good time in Nephi." "Marching "Mar-ching is hot and miserable." "We had to follow all those horses." "We had a good time in Salt Lake." Now, parents, where were we when the kids were called to practice or perform? Couldn't we require them to come? We bought the horns and paid the rental and signed up for the classes. Someone must have been interested. Where were we when they gave a program and only 50 seats of the big auditorium audi-torium were filled? I've heard whole families plan their vacations vaca-tions to make it possible for a ball player to be in every game. If we parents would demonstrate the same interest in the music program as athletics, ath-letics, it could be outstanding. Did you realize the big, successful suc-cessful bands of the area (100 members or more) such as Carbon, Tooele, American Fork, and Lehi are the result of concentrated con-centrated community effort of the caliber of our art projects? The Carbon coaches actually complained in the newspaper that their players were taken over by the band so they couldn't excel in sports. These communities spend thousands of dollars on equipment and travel expenses to send their bands to celebrations in Reno, Elko, Canada and the Pasadena Rose Parade to advertise their towns. In some cases one-fourth one-fourth of the student body par ticipates in their marching band but the high school hand class might still have only 35 members. How do they do it? The parents support the efforts ef-forts of the teachers and students; stu-dents; the kids meet early at 5:00 or 6:00 a.m. and march and practice every day for months before school. It takes precedence over all other youth activities. Our musical groups have been forbidden to take overnight trips at all and sometimes some-times not even out of town. Ambitious promotion for uniforms uni-forms and wishes for a 100 piece band are desirable but un-realistic in a city where parents don't require kids to take music as seriously as math or sports. We are told children will read if they see their parents par-ents read. The same is true with involvement in music. Many churches, groups and clubs have enlisted help ofr programs from the music students stu-dents and benefitted and enjoyed enjoy-ed the music, then individuals turn and criticize the school's program. Recently, at a high school assembly in which Pay-son Pay-son and Spanish Fork participated partici-pated with our a cappella choir, Springville without piano sang difficult and fine quality numbers, num-bers, indicating some real technique tech-nique was taught. The other choruses sounded fine, were much larger, but used pianc accompaniment, sang pop 01 semi-popular numbers that were fun for the performers and audience but were obviously obvi-ously not challengingly difficult. diffi-cult. The choir was wonderful or TV and as they caroled at Christmastime in Provo, they were told they sounded better than other choruses that had sung. Mr. Harrison has had the choir only two years. Mr Schaefer and Mr. Harrison have had a fine system of team teaching operating at the junior jun-ior high which has benefited the students and department. I'm convinced Mr. Harrison is an unusually talented and effective teacher of music. I'm sorry Springville will lose his help. It is wonderful that the interest in-terest remains high in the String Orchestra program. 1 suspect these parentts insist the children behave and practice prac-tice and they have had had one fine instructor over a long period of time and that they know he will be there and what to expect each year. I would like to make a few constructive suggestions for the future. Let's support our music mu-sic teachers and students in areas of discipline, policy, attendance, at-tendance, and enthusiasm; attend at-tend the performances; give genuine compliments when due; clap when Springville's bands I |