Delayed Gratification in Band Helps the Community

Each year I see the directors in my area have more hurdles thrown at them, making it harder to have band where they are. These hurdles start with national testing, new graduation requirements, scheduling, and the list is endless. We as directors need to sell the real value of band to all in the community instead of getting stuck on the spirit or public relations area that all see and recognize. Phi Beta Mu can be the energy of this Why Band? movement for the band world.

Every employer in our nation should demand that there is a good band in their community. We know how music helps all parts of the brain develop, music study increases test scores, etc. Let’s talk about the real reason why band is important to the community. Building citizenship is the reason band is important to the community. To understand that, we first have to determine and communicate how band is different than ANY other subject. 

First, most band classes are different in size and scope. Most academic classes in secondary schools have 20 to 25 students per class. Generally, the room has approximately that many desks, where the students take notes from the lecture, do desk work, or participate in discussion. Band classes are larger and different in scope.  Band halls look different! Most are larger, do not have traditional desks! In place of a text book and other traditional classroom necessities, band students have complex instruments, music stands, and chairs. Every instrument requires a specific type of instruction and each student has a different set of physical attributes that require the directors to be more analytical and detailed with their instruction. To have any form of success with this type of INDIVIDUAL instruction each student must develop tenacious self-discipline and the group discipline must be exceptional as well. Band students learn that they alone do not make a band and without them the band is not as strong.  This type of group experience is a great citizenship development tool. 

Secondly, everybody must achieve excellence in band to have a successful program. In traditional classes you can sit on the front row, study hard, and  make an A or you can sleep on the back row and barely get by, or even flunk out, and your performance does not affect anyone else.  In band, one person with an immature tone quality or bad pitch affects everyone else tremendously. 

Band participation is more demanding than school organizations such as athletics, choir, and orchestra. Everyone is not physically suited to participate in sports.  On the other hand, many students that have grown up singing in church choirs can join school choir almost any time that they choose. Orchestras offer the advantages of instrumental music instruction, but they do not have to perform outside in all kinds of weather and withstand the heat, extra rehearsals, and the peer pressure of marching and playing at football games.  It would be very difficult to find an individual not started in beginner band who was able to walk in and participate in a superior level high school band program.  How much time and effort individuals dedicate to coordinating the very small muscles in their lips, their lungs, tongues, their eyes, their fingers, and their toes over a sustained period of time is 99% of the total ingredients needed to be a good band student.  Students achieve excellence on their own merit while they learn a valuable lesson in self-discipline and citizenship because they achieve in a group experience with peers working toward a common goal.

Thirdly, almost every student has to make a sizable investment.  Generally speaking, less than 5% of the instruments are provided by the school district. Most families even go into debt to purchase an instrument and eventually transfer that or even larger debt to a more advanced quality horn. So there is not only the time investment, but a sizable financial investment. This experience is like taking a job and having to buy your desk and every tool that you need to be a valuable part of your employer’s company.  Other school activities do not require that. With an investment of both time and money, parents are more likely to support the effort and to insist that their child gets more out of the activity rather than wanting band to be an “easy in, easy out” sort of class like many things in our society are today.  Students must be persistent for years to succeed in band.

And that’s the final step – DELAYED GRATIFICATION!  It takes years of small improvements to learn to coordinate every aspect of the body in performing on an instrument, even at a modest level for success in a high school band.  Students have to be supported to succeed in spite of other academic subjects, athletics, dating, working, and family obligations. The likelihood of someone sticking with this lengthy process is really pretty small. What a child learns is the benefit of delayed gratification which is often missing from our society. One cannot buy a wind instrument, program it electronically, and play it over night!

When students develop tenacious self-discipline by investing time and money, they learn the pleasure of delayed gratification in a group setting and also achieve on their own merit. These are the qualities that make up the backbone of every successful citizen activity in our society. All of us should learn the joy of going to work for the team and learning to stick with the company through thick and thin even though we don’t get continuous accolades for beauty or anything else.

I hope that every employer in America will understand these things and demand that their communities have outstanding band programs. The time and effort expended will pay dividends for generations to come.