Where in the World Isn't Bob Saget?

Songbird76

Songbird76

Well-Known Member
Goofyernmost said:
Music has always been a big part of my family. My Father had been asked to sing at weddings and events for years and the was part of organizing a Barbershop chorus (a cappella) in our home town. His whole family was musical, but his voice was wonderful. He even had a Quartet that sang in different places. I also belonged to the chorus but was two young to feel the confidence require to be part of a four part harmony quartet. (especially trying to follow my dads voice)

My wife couldn't carry a note in a bucket along with my oldest daughter, but she did play trumpet in the school band. My youngest played piano and did a few recitals and she was in the HS chorus and also the High School Madrigal singers that performed for the state Governor at his inauguration. It makes me sad that she has now, like me, I guess, just stopped. I thought myself to play guitar in my 20's and also could pick out a few tunes and cords on the piano, but only at a self amusement level. She was used to singing along with me when she was very young. She was really good but seems to have lost all interest in music now. Life sometimes just alters the things that become important to us.
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I think the important thing is that you still get enjoyment from music, even if you aren't making it yourself. I can only speak for myself, but my goal as a music teacher wasn't to turn all the kids into little musicians. It was to get them to love music. And it doesn't have to be ALL music....I can't stand rap, and I don't really like opera. There are some who really relate to those genres, and that's great, they just aren't for me. But I can appreciate the art of it without listening to them myself.

My father couldn't carry a tune in a bushel basket, and my husband is pretty tone deaf himself, as is A, but E would be a better singer than I am if she got training. Unfortunately, she had horrible music teachers who killed any interest she had in making music, so singing along with the radio is about the extent to which she is involved in music. She used to do musical theater when she was younger, but felt like she doesn't have enough time to devote to it now that she's in high school and has homework. So she stopped doing that, and there is no chorus or band here through the school, so the only way for her to get music is to take the music classes at school with the awful teacher (there's only one good music teacher there, and E never got her and there's no guarantee she'd get her if she did music now.) and she's much more into chemistry and biology and math, etc....she would have to drop something she loves to take music. I would love for her to have the same love of music I do, and I wish that she had had decent teachers who would have fostered that, but at least I know she still loves musicals and Disney music. She still gets enjoyment out of the music she DOES listen to, and that's the important thing. She's never going to be one to sing professionally, but as long as we can still sing Disney songs or Phantom of the Opera while we bake together, etc, I'm glad that music is a part of her life.

It's great that you have those memories of your father, and you can still enjoy music personally. Not everyone has to be a professional. I actually really hate singing solo. I'm classically trained and I CAN, but I really don't like to. It's a huge source of anxiety. I would much rather be in the chorus. Just enjoy what you enjoy, whether that's singing, playing an instrument, or just listening. The audience plays a HUGE role in music...playing to an unappreciative audience is SOOOO hard. It's the listeners who really make or break a performance.
 
Goofyernmost

Goofyernmost

Well-Known Member
Songbird76 said:
I think the important thing is that you still get enjoyment from music, even if you aren't making it yourself. I can only speak for myself, but my goal as a music teacher wasn't to turn all the kids into little musicians. It was to get them to love music. And it doesn't have to be ALL music....I can't stand rap, and I don't really like opera. There are some who really relate to those genres, and that's great, they just aren't for me. But I can appreciate the art of it without listening to them myself.

My father couldn't carry a tune in a bushel basket, and my husband is pretty tone deaf himself, as is A, but E would be a better singer than I am if she got training. Unfortunately, she had horrible music teachers who killed any interest she had in making music, so singing along with the radio is about the extent to which she is involved in music. She used to do musical theater when she was younger, but felt like she doesn't have enough time to devote to it now that she's in high school and has homework. So she stopped doing that, and there is no chorus or band here through the school, so the only way for her to get music is to take the music classes at school with the awful teacher (there's only one good music teacher there, and E never got her and there's no guarantee she'd get her if she did music now.) and she's much more into chemistry and biology and math, etc....she would have to drop something she loves to take music. I would love for her to have the same love of music I do, and I wish that she had had decent teachers who would have fostered that, but at least I know she still loves musicals and Disney music. She still gets enjoyment out of the music she DOES listen to, and that's the important thing. She's never going to be one to sing professionally, but as long as we can still sing Disney songs or Phantom of the Opera while we bake together, etc, I'm glad that music is a part of her life.

It's great that you have those memories of your father, and you can still enjoy music personally. Not everyone has to be a professional. I actually really hate singing solo. I'm classically trained and I CAN, but I really don't like to. It's a huge source of anxiety. I would much rather be in the chorus. Just enjoy what you enjoy, whether that's singing, playing an instrument, or just listening. The audience plays a HUGE role in music...playing to an unappreciative audience is SOOOO hard. It's the listeners who really make or break a performance.
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I'm afraid I wasn't very helpful when they did school concerts. I had spent so much of my life listening to GOOD music that the concerts were like fingernails on a blackboard. I was never upset with the kids, they tried their best but I was always angry at what the music teachers chose to have them sing. Songs that no one had ever heard and kids hated to sing. They were to complex and unfamiliar for kids that age to understand or really get into. I dreaded going to those concerts. It probably showed through, but I would tell them that I thought they did great but I really did wish that the teachers had chosen some more songs that the kids could get into and enjoy themselves.

My feelings about that were confirmed when during one of my youngest daughters school breaks some group offered a music camp. I don't remember who organized it, but the kids (the same one that had me cringing) had to learn the script and the music (complete with harmonies), build the sets, rehearse the lines and the movements and put on a show at the end of that week. It was a musical, which unfortunately I do not remember the name of but it was like Showboatin'. Same general theme with songs that were fun to sing and upbeat. It included solo's for those that wanted to do them and it was spectacular. Those same uninterested kids that just a few weeks before were bored looking singing songs that were both difficult and not particularly fun to sing. All of a sudden the were singing the songs out with confidence and enjoyment and pride in what they were accomplishing.

That is what motivated my daughter to carry it through to High School and the Madrigals. Even though I don't remember the name of the play, it was spectacular and I loved every second of it. That is the type of things that I think music teachers should try and do. Something that is a bit challenging but still fun and familiar to everyone in the show and in the audience. I do have it on VHS tapes, but no longer have a player. I need to ask my daughter if she remembers the name of the play.
 
Songbird76

Songbird76

Well-Known Member
Goofyernmost said:
I'm afraid I wasn't very helpful when they did school concerts. I had spent so much of my life listening to GOOD music that the concerts were like fingernails on a blackboard. I was never upset with the kids, they tried their best but I was always angry at what the music teachers chose to have them sing. Songs that no one had ever heard and kids hated to sing. They were to complex and unfamiliar for kids that age to understand or really get into. I dreaded going to those concerts. It probably showed through, but I would tell them that I thought they did great but I really did wish that the teachers had chosen some more songs that the kids could get into and enjoy themselves.

My feelings about that were confirmed when during one of my youngest daughters school breaks some group offered a music camp. I don't remember who organized it, but the kids (the same one that had me cringing) had to learn the script and the music (complete with harmonies), build the sets, rehearse the lines and the movements and put on a show at the end of that week. It was a musical, which unfortunately I do not remember the name of but it was like Showboatin'. Same general theme with songs that were fun to sing and upbeat. It included solo's for those that wanted to do them and it was spectacular. Those same uninterested kids that just a few weeks before were bored looking singing songs that were both difficult and not particularly fun to sing. All of a sudden the were singing the songs out with confidence and enjoyment and pride in what they were accomplishing.

That is what motivated my daughter to carry it through to High School and the Madrigals. Even though I don't remember the name of the play, it was spectacular and I loved every second of it. That is the type of things that I think music teachers should try and do. Something that is a bit challenging but still fun and familiar to everyone in the show and in the audience. I do have it on VHS tapes, but no longer have a player. I need to ask my daughter if she remembers the name of the play.
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I lived in a really small town. We did a musical every year from the time I was in 8th grade...that was the first year we did a musical in our school. We really didn't have the kids to play the parts! We did Paint Your Wagon, which was quite ambitious, and the biggest problem is that it's a musical about the gold rush. There are very few parts for girls...it's all coal miners. There are some showgirls, but those are non-singing roles. There are 3 female parts, and only one of them sings a lot. The rest of the singing parts are all male, but we hardly had any boys who could sing. It was a junior Senior high, so we had 7-12th grades in one school, and one of the main parts was being done by an 8th grader for lack of anyone else. His older brother played the big main role part, his sister played one of the female singing parts. As a lowly 8th grader, I didn't have any seniority, so I was a showgirl. I didn't get to sing at all. It just wasn't a good show for us to do and I don't know how in the world they got it in their heads to do a show that had almost exclusively male singing parts when we hardly had any boys who could sing, or even wanted to.

After that, they mostly chose better, and I had the lead every year. I made it to All-State choir as a freshman, and I was the only one from my school to get in, so that gave me seniority over the other girls who were older, so I had basically proven that I could handle it. But our school really was just a bit too small for musicals. My freshman year, there were only 5 kids in choir. The principal was trying to kill the arts so he could have the budget, and he made it miserable for the teachers. We had an amazing band/choir teacher when I was in 7th grade who had been there since the school opened. She was AWESOME and got the kids really involved. It was actually COOL to be in music, and she had the "jocks" in jazz band and show choir. The principal kept pulling stupid things that made it impossible for her....he'd rearrange the schedule so no one could take music because it was at the same time as required classes. He'd take away funding, or make sure the trip to such and such a place had to be canceled, etc. The teacher quit at the end of my 7th grade year. At the beginning of my 8th grade year, we still had no choir teacher. He asked us what we wanted, took notes, and then hired the person we had said we absolutely did not want. And there went the music program. The one thing I will say was we did music we all liked, because our teacher couldn't really do anything too difficult. She couldn't play the piano, so we never had anyone to accompany us until right before the concert. We learned all music by rote, we never had any theory, nor did we learn to read music at all. ( I was a music major in college and went in not even knowing key signatures.) So we did mostly pop music because those were things we already knew and it was easier to learn. But we didn't really learn anything about musicality either. There has to be a balance between doing the easy, fun stuff, and the more challenging things that really bring out the best in the singers. We didn't have that balance.
 


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