321-hell

[2nd tenor]

I think that the parents of the kid these are issued to, should sign an agreement that they will pay ALL charges to repair damages while in possession of said kid. I simply can't imagine how that kind of damage occurs if a kid is being even quasi-careful with the instrument.

Ah, I think that I can see your point MA but there’s a few ‘buts’ to such a proposal.
# Here in the UK at least it’s hard to persuade people to play anything bigger than a Euphonium and young folk in particular are loathed to even consider it, they’re just going to play something else or not bother at all so when a child is willing to try Tuba you don’t put obstacles in their way.
# As a parent I simply wouldn’t sign a blank cheque for instrument repair, I’d need my liability to be capped and known and I’d need to be sure about what was down to my child, etc. My children all learnt to play something but sadly it wasn’t Brass - one of them had a few Brass lessons and could have been a fantastic Cornet player but had no interest; parenthood has many disappointments, etc. and only some joys. As an aside music tuition cost my wife and I rather a lot of money, if they’d played brass then my Brass Band would have loaned them an instrument without charge and have given virtually free tuition (traditionally that’s how it works in the UK).
# As a liable parent I would insist on a suitable instrument for the size of my child, those Yamahas (YBB-321) are far too large and heavy for the children using them.
# As a liable parent I would insist on a case plus safe and secure storage when the instrument wasn’t next to my child.

[bloke]

In the 1960's and 1970's (in my NOT affluent part of town at my NOT affluent jr/sr high school, ALL parents were REQUIRED to fill out such a form, because NO ONE was REQUIRED to be in a band class. Even people who lived in houses such as these (directly across the street from the school) whose kids had ACCIDENTS (there was NO malicious damage) ponied up for the repairs.
' different times...more honor...more morality...more responsibility...
We all repaired our own bicycles.
We would have gotten the hell beat out of us for tearing up stuff on purpose, and were chewed out severely for being clumsy and breaking things.
There were almost no accidents.
Instruments were NOT torn up; rather, they were worn out.

two small bedrooms each, one turn-around-in-a-circle bathroom, one small living room, a galley kitchen, no carport

I think that the parents of the kid these are issued to, should sign an agreement that they will pay ALL charges to repair damages while in possession of said kid. I simply can't imagine how that kind of damage occurs if a kid is being even quasi-careful with the instrument.

Ah, I think that I can see your point MA but there’s a few ‘buts’ to such a proposal.
# Here in the UK at least it’s hard to persuade people to play anything bigger than a Euphonium and young folk in particular are loathed to even consider it, they’re just going to play something else or not bother at all so when a child is willing to try Tuba you don’t put obstacles in their way.
# As a parent I simply wouldn’t sign a blank cheque for instrument repair, I’d need my liability to be capped and known and I’d need to be sure about what was down to my child, etc. My children all learnt to play something but sadly it wasn’t Brass - one of them had a few Brass lessons and could have been a fantastic Cornet player but had no interest; parenthood has many disappointments, etc. and only some joys. As an aside music tuition cost my wife and I rather a lot of money, if they’d played brass then my Brass Band would have loaned them an instrument without charge and have given virtually free tuition (traditionally that’s how it works in the UK).
# As a liable parent I would insist on a suitable instrument for the size of my child, those Yamahas (YBB-321) are far too large and heavy for the children using them.
# As a liable parent I would insist on a case plus safe and secure storage when the instrument wasn’t next to my child.

[bloke]

I've already repaired all of the non-huge instruments for the NEXT school - so I got some stuff done, today.

(In additional to that I also got on my hands and knees and placed riprap around the banks of one of the ponds (where it was needed...and we're not finished. Torrential rains - up until last month - sorta did some damage to the banks, and I'm not just going to let this pond grow larger-and-larger. Mrs. bloke helped. It's VERY hard for her...Some of that rubble probably weighs 20 lbs./stone.)

Anyway (again)...the small/medium stuff is done for the NEXT school, THOUGH I still have SIX sousaphones and THREE tubas to repair for them. (One is a FLATTENED YBB-641. I told them that I would do $300 and stop, and - hopefully - at that point it would "sorta" play...but schools can't be handing me stuff THAT bad in the summer, and expect me to spend dozens of hours on ONE friggin' tuba.)

I feel better that (at least) I got a START on the next school, because tomorrow I have THREE (would have been four...I guess there was an "outbreak" at the fourth one) toot-'n'-scoot nursing home gigs (I'll be gone from blokeplace for seven hours, due to the fact that the city - in which they are all located - is over an hour away, and there are also drive-times between the venues. It's mostly patriotic stuff (and some novelty stuff) for the old folks...and only netting $300 (after buying the gas)...but I'll enjoy the hang with some good folks. The trombone player wants me to play some blues duet with him "to give the trumpet players a break". me...?? I believe he just wants to play that duet.

After dinner, I might see about pulling the least-messed-up sousaphone(s?) for this next school, so (tomorrow, when not making any real money - but also NOT sweating and NOT *filthy as a pig) I can feel even better about about screwing around and not getting my work done.

whoops… I’m taking my F tuba, and I haven’t replaced the rotor bumpers in about a decade… Two of them have little pieces of toothpick or cut off little pieces of paper clip behind them. I think I’ll go out there and replace all of those bumpers, instead of trying to fix a sousaphone.
“cobblers own shoes“ type of issue, here…

I've already missed tonight's two Rockford episodes...I'm guessing that I'll probably also miss the two Hogan's Heroes ones as well.

Those "news" shills (network channels) sure take us for a bunch of suckers, don't they?
________________________________________
* https://kids.nationalgeographic.com/ani ... /facts/pig

[York-aholic]

' different times...more honor...more morality...more responsibility...

Truer words were never spoken.

[2nd tenor]

' different times...more honor...more morality...more responsibility...

I can’t speak of the USA but I think that the same might be true here in the UK too. That’s not to paint the past as perfect (IIRC it wasn’t) but rather to say that it set the course for where we are now which (from that time) is a mix of forward and backwards steps. Some things will chime with some people more than others.

Are children required or pressured to be in (School) Band? If so then some will resent it, some will have no interest and some who don’t have the abilities required will fail to do all that’s needed.

In today’s World a lot of children just get things rather than earn them. Money has no value to them because it just arrives and it’s some characters upon a screen rather than real notes and coins. We’re responsible for that change and we bring youngsters up. My own children are grown adults now and have their own children too; when they were in their teens I insisted that they did some paid work (‘Saturday jobs’) and that’s helped them to be more grounded than their peers.

[bloke]

‘ too many differences between better times and now, too many things to discuss about that, and too many things that we are typically discouraged from discussing on this site - in any of the forums.
Finally, all of those things that have degraded have done so due to being managed into a decades-long scheduled degradation (so as younger people aren’t made aware that they are being offered a worse experience than those who came just a few years before them), the people have willingly gone along with it, when a few people come along and stand up for a return to a better way they are shouted down, and - with such a tsunami of ignorance and misinformation – there’s really nothing we can do about it anymore.

Until I’m too old, I can duck in and out of population centers - having fun playing my instruments, repair their carelessly handled ones, offer some really good instruments to some enthusiastic people at some really good prices, and retreat back to my rural spot, here. There’s still a tremendous amount of good – and most people are searching for goodness, but the overall tone put forth by our rulers - more and more, during my lifetime - is a narrative that “many things are good, including evil“. Lately, their narrative has escalated to “good is evil”, and their constituents - from a young age to adulthood - are programmed into allowing them to stay in power.

[Mary Ann]

My one experience with a destructive kid:
Boy about ten came for piano lessons. Clearly did not want to be there, second lesson he ran a dime up and down the piano keyboard, and got literally grabbed (you could do that in the 70s) and told STOP THAT.
Third lesson, he ran his coat zipper up and down the piano keyboard. I instantly called his mother and said to come get him as he did not want to be there.
She said, "In THIS family we do what we SAY we are going to do." And I told her about the keyboard incidents and said, once again, to come get him.
She was going to have one hell of a time with her son if she did not learn proper parenting; that kid had never, from what I could see, received love or respect (you can't get back what you don't give out.) You don't MAKE a kid take lessons, but it was WAY more than that, with the mother being at least as big a problem as the son, and not likely to figure that out herself. The son was still young enough that, if he had miraculously been transported to a loving home with discipline instead of emotional abuse, could have recovered. The mother -- not so much.

[bloke]

You are reminding me of the Leave It To Beaver episode(s?) where he was coerced into wearing a suit, taking dancing lessons, and then attending a formal dancing party – with chairs along the walls, etc. with a little dressed up girls.
I am also now reminded of being in the first grade and having to do the same thing as a five-year-old participating in the “Junior Cotton Carnival” in Memphis - probably in 1961. No dancing lessons… We did the “twist”. My parents associated with some society people, but we’re not that. The little girl who invited me had parents who were in the real estate business and were probably about like my parents: connected but not part of the society Inner Circle in Memphis. I recall that girl looking like a little stick with a large nose. Often, the little super skinny girls end up being the attractive not overweight grown-up women, and she grew into her nose.

[York-aholic]

My one experience with a destructive kid:
Boy about ten came for piano lessons. Clearly did not want to be there, second lesson he ran a dime up and down the piano keyboard, and got literally grabbed (you could do that in the 70s) and told STOP THAT.
Third lesson, he ran his coat zipper up and down the piano keyboard. I instantly called his mother and said to come get him as he did not want to be there.
She said, "In THIS family we do what we SAY we are going to do." And I told her about the keyboard incidents and said, once again, to come get him.
She was going to have one hell of a time with her son if she did not learn proper parenting; that kid had never, from what I could see, received love or respect (you can't get back what you don't give out.) You don't MAKE a kid take lessons, but it was WAY more than that, with the mother being at least as big a problem as the son, and not likely to figure that out herself. The son was still young enough that, if he had miraculously been transported to a loving home with discipline instead of emotional abuse, could have recovered. The mother -- not so much.

I’ve been a 1-3 grade teacher for 22 years. I’ve said about plenty of kids: “if he/she is going to have any hope, they need a complete family transplant.”

Just yesterday one of the students that was in the next 2nd grade class over, made it into the news…at age 25 on drug and weapons charges. I can still picture him as a 7 year old. Heart breaking.

Yet, I recently ran into a 27 year old past student who has a masters in psychology and works as a mental health professional for the county working with school age kids.

As Bloke said, there is still plenty of good out there. You just have to look harder now to see it.

[2nd tenor]

A very interesting and informed insight from York-aholic, thank you. It brings back a recollection of a conversation with a well established Junior School Teacher maybe a decade or two ago. Their view - in a kindly way - was that they knew which children were most likely to grow into difficult or damaged adults and they felt that it didn’t need to be that way, just a bit of intervention ‘now’ was needed but there was no one to give it. The UK is not a Third World country and it is part of the G7, yet many Primary Teachers here run food banks and clothes banks for the children of those who for reasons various ‘haven’t got it together’. For some reason we don’t spend taxes wisely … perhaps US politicians are similarly ‘useful’.

Kids can be a lot of trouble to look after; I recall parenting being very hard work and can’t imagine how anyone teaches children, but the bigger problem by far is the inability of a seemingly increasing percentage of parents to care for and bring up their children. To an extent that might be due to the failure / loss of extended family support and maybe loss of community too.

Whatever, this is all a long way from the original thread - interesting but a lot of drift.

TLDR; I blame the parents and their parents too. Children are but clay that’s formed into teenagers and adults.

[bloke]

There are endless challenges to raising children, but - far and above - the most problematic and just about the most common ones are related to mind-altering substances and addictions thereof, involving the parents, the children, or both.

In 50s into the early 1960s, proliferation and variety (regarding all of the various substances) was much smaller, but most “juvenile delinquents“ - during that era - were probably the offspring of alcoholic parents who beat (mercilessly, vs. an occasional righteous spanking) and neglected them.

[York-aholic]

Yes @2nd tenor

Many of us keep food in the room for those kids that are hungry to the point of not being able to focus, despite that the school provides free breakfast and lunch. If your parents get you to school late, breakfast is already closed and put away.

In years past I ran a yearly sock donation drive. Yes, socks. Often filling an 8’ pickup bed with a shell on it from top to bottom and always found enough needy recipients.

Many buy clothes, jackets, shoes, etc. and send food baskets home on Fridays for a few of their students.

Sad state of affairs.

But the upsides of teaching are tremendous. I taught Lego robotics to 3rd/4th graders for summer school (finished yesterday). Seeing kids find a novel solution to a building or programming problem then spontaneously giving their partner a high five keeps me coming back each day. Same with seeing the light bulb go on over a 7 year olds head with something in math, etc.

The sense of purpose is undeniable!


Uh, Yamaha 321 content…um… I played one once for about 5 minutes. It made tuba sounds.