Scott Allan's World

My son is attending Oak Mountain Middle School in the fall and they had “Instrument Selection Day” at the middle school where they got to try out all the instruments and decide which one they liked.  He has always wanted to be in a rock and roll band.  He loves AC/DC, Aerosmith, Boston, Ozzy, etc.  so a few years ago at his request, I got him an entire drum set for Christmas.  He has some fine motor skills issues so I thought this would be better suited for him than guitar or piano. I just assumed he would have selected the drums.  I guess we should have talked about it first.   Well wouldn’t you know he came home and told us his first choice was the trombone and second choice was the drums.  The trombone???   My first instrument was the clarinet so who am I to judge the coolness of the instrument, but the email that came from the band director confirming the trombone selection also indicated that I am required to rent or purchase a trombone.   I promptly called the music store that the school has an arrangement with and they told me that the cost of renting is anywhere from $31/month for a used trombone that barely works to $52/month to rent a brand new one.  They also told me that renting a snare drum was only $27/month.

I emailed the director and told him I was concerned about the cost and that my son already had an entire drum set at home.    He told me my son had “scored” a 9/10 on the trombone and a 3/10 on the drums, whatever that means.  He also said he told the kids that they must score a 9 or 10 on percussion to be allowed to select that instrument.   This is absurd.   Since when do we tell children what instruments they can and cannot play?  Yes I know my son went and selected the trombone himself as his first choice, but when I reminded him that there is no trombone in AC/DC, he quickly remembered why the drums would have been a better choice.  I don’t suppose the “testers” discouraged him from selecting the drums based on his “test scores” and steered him to a less popular instrument, do you?

When I was in high school, Mr. Antonolli (widely referred to as Mr. Assaholey) was my Basic Programming teacher.    He told me that I did not have the aptitude for computers or programming because I could not figure out how to do a bubble-sort.  As a consequence, I took no more computer classes in high school or college even though it greatly interested me. How reckless and irresponsible is that??   Not only did I have the aptitude for programming, my career is programming which I picked up after college.  And I’m darn good at it.  Mostly self taught thanks to Mr. Assaholely.

I think the school has some nerve dictating which instruments a child is allowed to learn. The band director is clearly more interested in having all his seats filled than having 1 flute and 100 trumpets.   I played in the school orchestra from elementary to high school and I love music.  I really want my kids to play instruments and love music, but it may look like I’m switching him over to the chorus.