John Detwiler writes:

>Being a young person now, I know one of the major problems with CM
>exposure.  Students are not getting exposure from the one place they should
>be guaranteed it-their music director.  While the directors have some
>interest in CM, every one in my city has come to their profession because
>of Marching Band and Jazz Band.  Maybe this has to do with the fact that I
>live in Indiana- one of the premier Marching Band states.

Hi John.  I agree with you for the most part.  I grew up in Iowa, which
used to be a "big" marching band state, although athletics have displaced
that somewhat.  My jazz band director was excellent; he stuck to jazz.  I
learned much from him.  The other directors would program some good music,
notably Grainger.  I learned to love Grainger in high school and I'm
grateful for that.  And we had a decent symphonic band.  Some of the other
minor figures I liked too.  I liked Claude T. Smith, whose irregular tempo
and meter changes were fun to play (Sousa et al. wrote mostly tedious
euphonium parts).  [CT Smith has still to be discovered it seems.  I think
last time I checked he had  but 1 piece in Schwann.] But, and this is the
point I guess, we hardly played any other "real" CM although the CM
literature for band ("wind orchestra") is growing. Marching band especially
could have been really cool, but it wasn't.  Transcriptions of "Walk Like
an Egyptian" and such don't cut it.  The football crowd generally doesn't
care what the heck you play anyway so we should stop trying to pander to
them.  On the other hand: when I was 16 I joined the local drum & bugle
corps, the Emerald Knights.  We were small, but the attitude was serious
(not marching band), the music was more or less serious (also not band),
the level of musicianship was much higher, and the experience was generally
excellent.  This art form is generally ignored today.  But I heard my first
John Adams piece performed by a drum corps.  And so on.  CM is out there,
waiting.  But no one's gonna bring it to you as a young person in this
country.  Or even usually encourage you to try.  You gotta go find it
yourself.  I understand (second hand) that other Western nations, Europe
I guess, do a lot more about CM education and support than the U.S. does.
Is this true?

Bob K.