[TPIN] Adults playing in student productions

[Steve Evans]

----- Original Message ----
From: Steve Roiland sjrtrumpet1 at hotmail.com


This is called mentoring an is the best way to teach,

>From: mike magers <regstrad43 at yahoo.com>
>
>If students are excluded, I think it defeats the purpose,
>
>----- Original Message ----
>From: "Vaxtrpts at aol.com" <Vaxtrpts at aol.com>
>
>When a production is put on by a school, it should be  something
>that involves STUDENTS.  Hiring an all adult pit band completely  goes 
>against the EDUCATIONAL aspects of even putting on a musical.
 
------------------------------
I guess I started this so let me say one more thing.
 
As my good friend Scott pointed out to me last night, ALL of what you guys are saying is true, IF you're basic premise is that HS musicals are an educational experience for ALL students. That was not my perspective as I clearly stated in the very beginning of this debate. 

I still maintain that musicals are a theatrical production and therefore an educational experience for the actors, singers, dancers, and theater technical people (lights, sound, set design, stage crew). Instrumentalist have plenty of their own venues for educational experience that will not adversly affect the experience of those on stage if they are not up to par, not playing their role as accompanist, or worse, screwing up. 

A 5th or 6th chair HS trumpet player will not have the best interests of the actors and singers and dancers in mind while they play. I'd be willing to bet they won't even think of them unless the actor misses a line or the singer forgets a lyric. Then they'll just laugh. If the tempo is slow because the dancers can't quite keep up, do you think these kids will understand and hold back? No. It doesn't matter that the conductor is trying to hold back, the kids will push the tempo to where they want it or think it should. And yes, that's something they need to learn as an accompanist, but let them learn it when they're not spoiling the dancer's or singer's experience. In many cases it's their ONLY educational experience.We tumpet players in a pit are accompanists, even when we have solos. If our solo does not excite those on stage, we have let them down. We are NOT playing to the audience. How many HS kids get that? How many of you on TPIN get that? We *are* trumpet players
 after all. :)

One final thought.

I once asked a 2nd trumpet player student why he wasn't on stage. He was one of the better ones, best in the school. His answer, besides not wanting to dance...'they work too hard. They rehearse 2 HOURS EVERY DAY after school. If I play in the pit we only rehearse an hour 2 or 3 days a week. And we don't start until about a month before the show. They're doing it for 2 and half months!' So my challenge to all you parents and teachers out there who say your trumpet players need this educational experience in a pit is, make them work for it. Make them rehearse just as much as the actors, singers, and dancers if that means 2 hours, 5 days a week, for 8 to 10 weeks. And make them understand what their role in the pit actually is. Then, and only then, have you given them an educational experience that's worth something.

I've done many HS shows in at least 7 different schools over the last 5 to 7 years. I guess that makes me either a hero for so much mentoring or a goat for stealing the chair from a kid. I don't see myself as either. I'm there to help the folks on stage. That's what a pit does. I've been on that stage. I know what I'm talking about.

...Steve

P.S. I'll bet this debate would have a very different twist if it were held on a theater forum.


 
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