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Sometimes your clarinet is just broken (thelemmy.club)
submitted 1 day ago by to c/justpost@lemmy.world
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[โ€“] 2 points 11 hours ago (3 children)

All of the community's job is to fund the school district. There's not much a band teacher can do if there's no money for maintenance...and very often there isn't.

Not that I'm defending band teachers. Some are great. Some suck. Just like everyone else. But it's not like the pads grow on trees.

Or maybe they do. I don't know. I'm not a musician.

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  • [โ€“] 11 points 10 hours ago (2 children)

    There's a big difference between "sorry, we can't afford pads" and "your fundamentals suck. Git gud, n00b." And that difference is a bad band teacher.

    Also, the student or parents were willing to pay for private lessons. My private lessons all the way back in the 1900s cost 3-4x more than clarinet pads cost now. I'm sure they would have much rather covered the cost of new pads.

    Finally, back when I ran technology for a middle school, I'd often help the band teachers repair and maintain instruments while chatting in my free time. If a band class/school district can't afford clarinet pads for years, then they are weeks away from every single instrument turning to dust in the hands of teenagers.

    Which brings me back to my main point: if a school-owned clarinet has bad pads for years, then that band teacher ain't band teachering.

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  • [โ€“] 3 points 10 hours ago (1 child)

    Yeah, like I said, I'm not defending any band teachers. However, my kids' elementary school band teacher was awesome, but the saxophone she loaned my son one summer was absolute shit. My daughter struggled with the drum kits in every grade because they were always falling apart. And our school district is considered one of the wealthier ones in the area.

    I would bet that one clarinet's pads wasn't the only issue in the school district. It's more likely that the pads went unnoticed because there were so many other more significant problems that no one ever got around to dealing with the pads.

    I'm not defending the band teacher. Just suggesting there might be a lot more to this.

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  • [โ€“] 3 points 9 hours ago

    That is very generous and understanding of you. But I'm sure if you casually mentioned to the band teacher that the saxophone was absolute shit, they'd probably agree with you.

    What OOP is describing would be the equivalent of a language teacher telling you that your child is illiterate because their pencil broke while they were filling out a multiple choice sheet.

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