ON THE DEMANDS OF MUSIC AND WHAT IT FOSTERS...
"One reason that I'm very happy to be involved in music and working with the young, is because of the degree of perfection that is expected in the music business. Public performance of music demands a higher percentage of perfection than any other public performance there is. You have a stage play, you've got people in the wings that give you the stage whispers if you forget your part, but these cats don't have anybody in the wings to play their notes for them. They've got one shot at it and that's it, and it's this way all the way down through the grade schools.
In sports, we've never had a person that batted a consistent .500 They try 1000 percent of the time, but nobody's ever got a lifetime batting average, that I know of, of .500. If a quarterback on a football team scores .500 on his passes, he's going to be a pretty good hero. Now, on a basketball team, if they shoot .500 from the field, they'll probably win the game.
In band, if you shoot .500, you'll flunk out of band, because it means every time you play an 8 note scale, you've got four notes wrong! So we expect like 99%. We expect 950% on sight reading, and it's no big thing except that I think that many students don't realize this.
Now when you go home I think you should tell your students this. Make sure they are proud that they are involved in music! And then make sure their parents know about it, and make sure the school board knows about it, and make damn sure the coach knows about it!" |
