Real Life Adventures by Gary Wise and Lance Aldrich for July 18, 2022

I used to pretend to sing in junior high music class until the teacher tested me. After that he told me I didn’t have to sing. I can’t sing in tune. I was the only one in class who got the pass on singing. I was mortified, certain I was the laughingstock of the class, but years later I asked classmates about that and no one had any memory of it. 99% of what kids are embarrassed about no one else cares. They’re all worried about their own pimples, bad hair, uncool parents, etc.

This is the reason I could never teach a music class in school. Too many kids with no desire to be there.

Banding together

I faked it most of the time, too.

Haha that works until you are given a solo bit

It’s easier to fake playing in marching band.

He’ll never be a Benny Goodman.

Then there were those of us who actually enjoyed playing and singing. Later went on to teach foreign language class and knew that Freshmen were only there because they had to be. I always addressed that up front and said we were going to make the best of it and maybe have some fun that might even be useful. LOVED teaching Juniors the most. They wanted to be there and were not yet infected with senioritis.

I played percussion. When it comes time for the chimes (tubular bells) or the timpani, everybody knows if you are playing or not.

You probably wouldn’t worry about what people think of you if you could know how seldom they do.

Homemade joke: So the band student was fussing with her clarinet mouthpiece, trying this, trying that, but every time she tried to play all it would do was squeak. After a few minutes of this, the student next to her asked, “What’s the matter, can’t you reed?”

If the teachers would tell the kids that they could play any type music, not just what’s taught in class, they would enjoy it more

Have also been there, done that.

My band director never would have allowed that to happen. Periodically, he would have each one of us play something in order to see what chair we’d be sitting in, so everybody had to have at least some minimum skills, or they would have been kicked out.

That would make sense if you were forced to be in a music class. Our band and orchestra groups were by choice… I played the trombone in HS marching band, loved it despite never being really good at it.