Which Version of Band are YOU Teaching--1.0, 3.0, or 6.0?


School bands in the United States continue to be influenced by over 250 years of band tradi- tion stemming from the military, professional (Gilmore, Sousa, Goldman), and community bands. Tere was a time in mid- to late-nine- teenth-century America when wind band performances were considered popular music and their concert venues would draw huge audiences. Te literature played was oſten an assortment of orchestra transcriptions, original music written for band, marches, and dance music. Every town across the nation strived to have a band. A local band was a status symbol, and town bands were used to attract perma- nent residents.1


James Keene wrote, “Almost all


towns had bands to perform entertainment.”2 Bands were formed by anyone who wanted to participate: Tere were women’s bands, family bands, immigrant bands, school bands, school-military bands, stringed- and-fretted instrument bands, and bagpipe bands, among others.3


approximately 1870–1920 the Golden Age of Bands.4


Jill M. Sullivan, Ph.D.


came to influence more democratic offerings in America’s high schools. Tis situation of- fered perfect conditions for the launch of high school music programs.8


Some of the original


band teachers came from the ranks of military musicians.9


Tese bandsmen established in the


school the military traditions of marching and concert bands, along with high expectations for developing outstanding musicianship. Today, we are grateful for their insight in securing a place for the ensembles in the school curric- ulum. Unfortunately, in many modern class- rooms, some of the drill-sergeant behaviors of the military still exist, evoking teacher-centered rehearsals instead of today’s more desirable student-centered music education.


Band historians call the periods of So popular were the bands that in 1921,


the state of Iowa passed a band law that would allow city taxes to be spent on local municipal bands. Tis law was copied in thirty-three other states.5


wrote a march in its honor called the “Iowa Band Law March.”6


Te end of the Golden Age coincided with mil- itary bandsmen returning to the United States aſter serving in World War I. Many of these men had served in Navy or Army bands and had been trained by the Lieutenant John Phillip Sousa of the Navy or orchestra conductor Wal- ter Damrosch of the New York Symphony So- ciety. Sousa alone had trained over 3,000 Navy bandsmen at the Great Lakes Naval Training Station near Chicago, and Damrosch trained bandleaders for the U.S. Army in Europe.7


By 1920, public secondary education was beginning to flourish as the Progressive Era


Band composer Karl L. King even


With these band traditions that continued to grow throughout the twentieth century comes some seemingly inflexible baggage: standard in- strumentation, gender stereotypes, military-like uniforms, accepted and limited types of festi- vals and assessments, and a whole host of other outdated traditions embedded in our school- band culture. Questioning these traditions is a risky undertaking, but as a music-teacher educator, I strive for balance by encouraging learning about traditions while encouraging progressive change. In 2008, Randall Allsup and Cathy Benedict deconstructed the band tradition in their article “Te Problems with Band: An Inquiry into the Future of Instru- mental Music Education.”10


Tey critiqued our


embodied traditions, suggesting, for example, that words like “directorship” imply that teacher expertise is a “highly prized commodity, ... and custom” never allowed to be called into ques- tion publically or allowed to be negotiated with student decisions or musical tastes.11


Allsup


and Benedict questioned for whom the band classroom is “highly passionate, inventive and imaginative.”12


Who operates at the creative


level—is it the students, or is it only the direc- tor? Allsup and Benedict pointed out that in band rehearsals, “We don’t ask our students to


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Instrumental


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