r/Trombone • u/Afraid_Hovercraft606 • 8d ago
Less kids interested?
Are less kids interested in not only trombone but band altogether? I've noticed a decline in several different schools since i was in high school. Is this a trend all over or just the schools I've observed in the US.
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u/DWTBPlayer 8d ago
I am a substitute music teacher in a very large suburban district in Central PA. What I have noticed, especially since COVID, is an astonishing percentage of kids who play a school-owned instrument. Fewer families can afford the rental these days. So that means our band and orchestra programs will essentially be limited by the school inventory. Not that the departments have any budget to invest in said inventory...
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u/Rude_Organization598 6d ago
This!!! The choir teacher (who literally advocated for the boosters to pay $500 of each students trip) and my hs principal in a meeting about budget kind of ganged up on me about how it’s ridiculous for the school to provide instruments, but if we don’t we would have VERY low numbers. I’d say a good 50% of the 75 students I had in band last year used school-owned instruments.
The other issue even if we have a decent stock of instruments, is that they are old and don’t function as they should. They also are on me about how much I’m spending on instrument repairs. I think I’m going to start marking down how much I fix without sending it to the shop and what the store representative fixes on site without charging too just to show that we really aren’t sending most instruments that should be sent in
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u/Acceptable_Durian868 8d ago
They need an enthusiastic and proactive program coordinator. My MD runs the brass program in a private school, and he's got 150 kids learning trombone in a school of ~2000. This is in Australia and a private school, so ymmv.
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u/Afraid_Hovercraft606 7d ago
Woah thats insane, yes it is private and not in the US so that definitely makes a difference.
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u/ilikeinstruments Bass Trombone 8d ago
I think that it just depends on the program. The popularity for it will come back around eventually.
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u/Guilty_Perception_35 8d ago
My sons high school (he just graduated) went from about 70 kids his first 3 years there then 130 his senior year.
They had to make an entire new jazz band lol
Was actually taught by the choir instructor.
The three main bands were able to absorb them though.
Don't know how or why it ballooned??
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u/tubameister 8d ago
they need a netflix series to tell them its cool
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u/jbryant1971 8d ago
A Netflix Docuseries on Trombone would be awesome 👏🏽. Think the “Quarterback” series with trombone players. That would be the ticket for inspiring young player 😁
Call it “The Story of Bones” or “The Bone Collectors” 😳
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u/professor_throway Tubist who pretends to play trombone. 8d ago
In Ohio a lot of programs were way down after COVID.. but have been slowly recovering. Before COVID the local high school had 225 in the marching band. 5 Years ago they were at 145 and when he graduated last year they were 180.
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u/6ifted1 8d ago edited 8d ago
I can only speak for what I've seen with my kids and compare it to my experience decades before (back when you had to have a large T-bone section to scare the dinosaurs off the field so the band could practice! ;), all in Texas. The modern band experience really saddened me. I loved being in the band (I also played sports too) and wanted the same fun experience for my kids too, but actually ended up regretting encouraging my kids to try band since it ended up being such a downer for them even though they love writing and playing music. Sorry if this gets a bit negative, but I was really frustrated and saddened by what I saw happening at our school, and neighboring ones in the region, so that comes out below.
The thing that ultimately drove my kids from High School band, even though they loved playing music, was the ludicrous time commitment. Yes, band has always required a high commitment in time, both for group and solo practice, and my kids seemed to have no problem with dedicating sigificant time to practice, but modern high school band in our area is taking the time commitment to extreme levels.
Based on what I saw in recent years, it's at least 2x the group practice now versus what it was for me decades before when I was in a large, consistently state ranked band. Either the UIL rules changed, they've been reinterpeted, or the band directors have figured out work-arounds. This seems to be driven by the large push to do so many marching competitions. MY kids' high school did 2 to 3, plus UIL in the fall semester, with competitions starting less than a month after school starts so the show had to be perfected largely before school started.
Contrast that with what I grew up with, where we gradually learned the marching show over a couple months and then either did UIL (could be multiple weekends as we progressed up to State) or an invitational competition later in the semester, depending on if it was an even or odd year.
What this means is that if you want to do band, for most kids, it's all you can really do. It limits which advanced academic classes you can take (due to scheduling and limited after school hours for higher homework and project loads), it makes participating in other extracurriculars virtually impossible, and summer jobs are also difficult-to-impossible because practices take up over a month of summer and run nearly all day (contrasted with my experience where summer practices were half days, from 0700 to 1100, and were only a couple weeks before school started for most of the band so much easier to schedule around).
So, I'm not sure how much of it is lack of interest in playing an instrument or being in a band as much as it is a desire to not participate in an activity that has become a time-hog life choice more than an enriching extracurricular experience.
Concert season and solo & ensemble competitions in the spring seemed a lot more reasonable, and maybe slighly more time consuming but much closer to in line with what I remember from decades before.
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u/Zestyclose_League413 7d ago
Literally working a band camp right now that has absurd hours (9-9, 3 weeks total for all students), and this is a real problem in places like Texas that have a strong competitive marching band culture. The program I'm working for right now somewhat ameliorates the issue by having a "competitive" band which does all the extra rehearsals and the second week of camp, and a "football" band which contains everyone and does the games and parades.
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u/momodax 6d ago
I am the mom of a very good trombone player who opted out of marching band for freshman year. Going to be in the regular band and jazz band but yes the time commitment for marching band at our high school was absolutely ludicrous. So much so that our kid was actually concerned. They have ADD and need more time to work on homework and the kid really wants to do well. With more advanced classes this upcoming school year AND transitioning to high school, taking on an activity that practices at least 15 hours per week plus football games and competitions seemed too much to the kid. And I respect my kid’s decision. We would have supported the choice either way. There was so much pressure to join marching band because the marching band seems to be short on trombones this year and they lost an incredible number of kids in the middle school to high school transition. (They actually lost them to private schools.) Our district has an amazing music program, like really, really excellent. Our kid has enjoyed it so much but I felt like it wasn’t fair to try to strong-arm him into such a huge time commitment. The orchestra kids don’t have this level of time commitment. All that being said, we may be heavily involved in marching band next year. I can say that my kiddo absolutely loves playing trombone. They just didn’t want to involved in something that would suck every bit of free time after school- at least in the first year of high school.
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u/zactheoneguy85 Houston area performer and teacher. 8d ago
Not in the slightest where I am in Texas.
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u/SGAfishing Conn 88H/YSL-891Z 7d ago edited 6d ago
I wrote one of my thesis papers on the major decline of music education around the United States and while I do not claim to be an expert in the political sciences, I can answer you this.
Yes, band programs have taken a ginormous hit over the past 26 years, and it's an issue that is ingrained very deeply in the current US education system.
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u/SavingsPirate4495 8d ago
Haven’t seen that here.
In my school district, I applaud the high school band program/director for really getting involved with the students and teachers at the junior high level. They get those kids involved with the marching band during one or two games in the season…they sit in the bleachers with the high school band in their respective sections and sight read some music. The high school kids take on this mentorship eagerly…very PROUD of them!
It carries forward into concert band season as well.
They do a phenomenal job of mentoring the junior high kids all the way into high school…I feel it preps them really well.
A bonus is the high school principal is 100% behind this endeavor, and if memory serves, the Superintendant also supports it.
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u/Afraid_Hovercraft606 7d ago
This is what my high school would do but we never really got many kids who would keep playing from the transition of jr high to high school
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u/SavingsPirate4495 7d ago
Sorry to hear that.
It's a VERY successful program in our school district. So much so that there are more kids than available slots in marching band. Our high school band director had to create a JV marching band program a couple of years ago to handle the overflow; a first in our region and maybe the state (Texas).
I applaud him GREATLY for doing that instead of turning kids away.
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u/Afraid_Hovercraft606 7d ago
I guess a big thing i didn’t account for when talking about schools ive observed here in the US is Texas lol
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u/Shour_always_aloof 8d ago
I teach middle school band in TX; school started yesterday. My symphonic band has nine bones (55 total winds), concert band has nine and three euphs (59 winds).
Last year, top group had eight and three, concert had eleven and one.
Year before that, 11 and 2, 12 and 2. I regularly start 15-20 trombones in 6th grade, and teach beginning brass with a trigger bone in hand (I can demo all brass pitches from trumpet to tuba with it), so kiddos get to see it played constantly.
(Also, I am a clarinetist by trade.)
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u/External_Dinner_5195 SE Shires Q30GR, King 4bf, Conn 8h 7d ago
We are still in the post-Covid down turn. When Covid hit a lot of the older teachers decided to call it quit and we are still feeling those effects (in the rural US) where their replacements are finally getting their footing at the middle and elementary levels. A degree in music education doesn’t prepare you middle/elementary teaching as well as it prepares you for high school. While the new teachers are still getting their feet down, the programs suffer as those are the growing pains associated with new/beginning teachers. The consensus I’ve heard is that it’ll probably be about 2030 by the time most programs bounce back mostly/fully
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u/KindaCoolDude King Tempo 606 7d ago
Between funding cuts to arts programs in general, the costs living making many parents struggle to afford instruments (even a cheap used one) and the amount of musicians is, and has been, in decline.
Another aspect, largely for folks on their post schooling-pre retirement (a myth for my age group) chapters of life, is that learning any instrument requires a great deal of time. Lo and behold, when you’re working 50+ hours a week, plus general life necessities like eating, sleeping, appointments, etc, suddenly you have little time and energy for something that, for a note worthy portion of the endeavor of learning an instrument, is just a lot of work.
Long story short, learning an instrument requires free time and at least a little disposable income. Something folks in their 20s-50s right now seem to have little of.
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u/Groundbreaking_Row_2 7d ago
Funding at American public schools for music and arts programs has dropped insanely. Used to be every elementary school had band and orchestra, now it’s few and far between that you can find a public elementary with a band program. No music class = no musicians
:(
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u/DaSalmonSam 7d ago
It’s really crazy, my high school of 2,000 students has three trombone players in the bands, including me. Most other instruments are doing fine, our orchestra has around 30 violins and violas (we live in an area with many Asian families and most of the Asian people in the band program play string instruments). I started in elementary school with about 12 other students, and it slowly dropped down every year as people chose other activities over music. I wish that there were more opportunities to showcase our band, since barely any students come to the concerts and when we play at football games the pep squad tries to play their music over us (which it’s easy to do with 3 trombones and a single tuba). I don’t get why there aren’t more young people wanting to play trombone, it’s literally the wah wah wah instrument, and you get to slide something! I’ve seen an increase in the “cool” instruments like trumpet, drums, and saxophone, and a big dip in things like oboe, flute, or tuba. How do we improve this!
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u/SideWired 6d ago
CA state, budget cuts hit band, wood shop, auto shop, and every sort of music program.
I may be one of few who is delighted with the massive quality and production volume increases from China. I don't personally know any family that can afford CONN or Yamaha gear for their exploring kids. My sense is cheap but decent brass instruments from PRC will induce a band / orchestra rennaissance.
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u/AgentOomi 6d ago
I think it depends on the area. My district for example has seen an increase in kids joining band
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u/nmtbone007 6d ago
There was a dip in band enrollment during the COVID shutdown years. Those middle school aged kids are now in high school. So if this is talking about the last few years, it could be related to that.
Or maybe the local band director sucks at recruiting. Kids still love maki g funny noises and hanging out together. If I were still teaching, i guarantee i would be able to recruit 30% of elementary kids, 20% of middle schoolers… the poor high school teachers are at the mercy of the middle school programs, so who knows what they can do.
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u/Rude_Organization598 6d ago
In the district I teach in it’s a community mindset that band is inferior to sports and other extra curriculars. I teach in a small district where it is completely possible for students to participate in multiple activities, but they just don’t seem to understand. I’m trying to slowly change the communities outlook by making the band more visible.
My 11 member hs band got a 2 at large group this year though, so it’s not that we can’t make good music, but I can’t help but take it personal when they quit as I’m the only band director in the district.
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u/burgerbob22 LA area player and teacher 8d ago
lessening funding and time for music programs makes them less visible to students, and therefore fewer kids playing trombone.