Jason,

 

I can assure you that ALL states and ALL school districts are facing drastic cuts, and we'll be lucky if panicky administrators don't start cutting music programs indescriminately. This is, unfortunately, nothing new since my parents fought exactly the same battles decades ago, but it's worse now because of the general recession we're all experiencing. Things are NOT going to remain as they have been. I'm at the college level, but our university is facing a $26 million cut in state support, only partially offset (and only for THIS academic year) by economic stimulus funds. We simply cannot treat our past policies as entitlements any more.

 

So plan to survive the coming cutbacks, which ARE going to happen. Textbooks can be reused instead of buying new sets, and they will be. The same is true for octavos. If you have 5 years worth of repertoire on your shelves, it may be time to start planning how you'll recycle them.

 

 

 

Jason,

  Our county music educators' organization has a libray of music by the organization for festivals during the year. The music is that chosen by the clinicians so there is a wide range of music available Some good, some not. If your county doesn't have such, then your suggetion could be a way to hedge in the future.

  Indeed, take advantage of the CPDL site. Many, many things to choose, download and photocopy. Free.

  For the near term and the future, chose only music that you can use in the future. I would never buy a piece that I knew would relevant next year.

so, the newest thing on the radio was out. This music, anyway, requires the production which, I presume, you do not have. You have you, the singers and a piano for which there is much written.

  My funding goal was to have $20 for each singer. Most of the time, I did not, but, still, I built a substantial library over 20 years which I could have, but not chosen to, use for the next 20 years and beyond if I had had to.

S

Jason,

 

You might consider doing away with your uniform fee entirely, and change concert dress to something they already own ... or can get with relative ease. Then, charge them a percentage of the uniform fee and apply it to music purchase. They will probably pay (much?) less overall, and your problem will be solved.

 

I'm guessing that the students pay some kind of fee in at least one other class, right? (Whether it's a lab fee, a book fee, or a materials fee...) And even if they don't, the fact that their outgo will be (greatly?) reduced will be a point in your (and their) favor.

 

Plan B might be to get your boosters involved, or have fundraisers to raise money for music purchase.

 

All my best,

 

Tom

I'm not an educational choral director, but I think there's a subtle underlying issue to this which can work to our advantage.  I'm now going to write some politically incorrect things at the end, so brace yourselves, folks.  The truth is, we all know that music programs are the first to go when money gets tight - fact of life.  So, that means we have to rely on what is otherwise available elsewhere.

 

Your idea of sharing music is good, with a caveat:  the borrower must be accountable for the borrowed works.  I know, you will be - except that you have a factor outside your immediate control - the student.  If that piece of music enters the "bottomless abyss" of their bookbags, you'll never see it again until - maybe - the end of the academic year.  How to deal?  Hand it out at the beginning of class; get it back in 5 minutes before the bell rings.  Assign each student a number (sopranos 1-20; altos 21-35; tenors 36 + 37 (oops!), basses 38-43).  Section leaders are responsible for handing out; and responsible for getting back in.  No exceptions.  Sorry; you want them to practice at home?  Not gonna happen - but you'll (and your colleague you borrowed them from) are likelier to get it back.  Another extension of this idea (and you have to be a salesman for this):  everybody submits an on-line listing of what they have, with voicing (SA, SSA, SATB, etc.) with numbers.  Doesn't do to have a need for 43 copies and the only other place you can get them has only 25.

 

Fees?  Not a bad idea - and the idea of eliminating the uniform fee (and then facing down administrators who are too much into the look and not enough into the doing and the learning can deal with the consequences of this society being ALL about looks and NOT about substance) is another possibility - but I wouldn't rush to do it unless it's either/or.

 

Boosters are all well and good, but need two things:  an energetic leadership team (teacher/president) AND an understanding from parents that if this is really important to them and their kids, they've got to swing.  Band boosters usually seem to do fairly well (and it's because bands are out there for football games - rah, rah) and they compete against other places with equally glitzy outfits.  (I could say, "Those of us in the choral world don't NEED glitz" - but I would be lying!  Please check out the sopranos and their bling and the poofy hair and....ooops!).

 

CPDL - ah, here's where I get to be politically incorrect.  Don't know how many of you know Steve Budiansky, a free-lance journalist who's been writing periodically about music issues at the high school level.  For those of you on ChoralNet, I would STRONGLY urge you to look up some articles (and Google or Bing or Yahoo them) in a Choral Blog a couple of days ago - and go through ALL the articles mentioned - follow them through.  I urge you to do so, because it's time for a little confession from us all:  we haven't lived up to the best in our traditions.  I know:  educators in the music field are now so circumscribed by administrative policies that mandate forms of political correctness that they are almost encouraged to avoid "dead white male" composers in the interest of avoiding lawsuits to the school district (which is the REAL reason some of this dreadful dreck is being written and sung).  So let me suggest a radically different approach.  Let's use this as a time when we introduce our students to music of enduring value, not cranked out by the educational music publishing industry (and you know what they are and who writes them - those of us in audiences have been listening to this stuff for years and you've been reviewing this stuff for at least as many years).  CPDL's listing of composers is magnificent - and there are some really neat and unexpected gems in this stuff, not all of it Renaissance or Classical or early Romantic - and it's GOOD stuff that the kids will know immediately is really challenging and worthwhile.  The beauty of CPDL is that it's free - except for what you have to pony up to print it off - and it's copyright-free, so you don't have to worry about performance permissions, yada, yada, yada.

 

Why should we avoid stuff being cranked out by the ed music publishing industry (and that's not too strong a word - INDUSTRY)?  (In the choral world we're a little luckier, because while there are shills out there cranking out "stuff" of minimal or no value, there's a lot more material that has been published for voices previously of great value, unlike the world of the band - or so the band teachers would have us believe.)   Because as educators you (and those of us in the church world) should be insisting that only the best be submitted to publishers to print off.  You should be insisting that political correctness not be the sole criterion of whether or not to publish a piece.  Parents need to be fired up to insist that administrators allow the teachers more opportunity to choose music of enduring personal and educational value, not this "stuff" (which is the mildest I can come up with) that gets forgotten after a year and is written ONLY to address technical issues.  My son is a voice major/computer science major at University of Mary Washington in Fredericksburg.  When I asked him before the Christmas break what were the pieces his top vocal group (in which he is) was preparing, one of them was "The Seal Lullaby."  Eh, what?  When I asked further, he was almost embarrassed by the banality of the words (oh, yeah; that's a whole 'nuther issue!).  I already had heard it elsewhere once (and I emphasize - ONCE) before in the 15 years I've been to a bunch of educational concerts, so I knew about the piece - but I wanted his reaction.  Teachers, the kids aren't fooled, and they know when they've got good, meaty stuff in their hands.  YOU have the primary responsibility to put it there.  So, we've now got a bucket of lemons.  How about turning this into some lovely lemonade?  It's gonna take some work, and some imagination, and some really outside-the-box thinking - but this could be the time that, for the educational choral music world, meets the Allstate commercial point:  "Will we remember this as the Great Recession, or the recession that made us great?"  Tacky, but oh-so-true.  Let's use it as an opportunity.

 

Ron Duquette

Catholic Music Director

Fort Belvoir, VA

 You might try to access your school's textbook budget for your choral music...  Also, your local choral federation might have a library of titles to borrow...  Our provincial organization builds a library of quality literature by purchasing the music for our yearly Junior, Women's, Men's, Senior, Adult and Jazz choir honour experience, and then that music is available for the membership to borrow after that.  If your local organization (I guess it would be ACDA in the US) doesn't do that, maybe you could organize an honour activity in your area, and combined with the other participating schools purchase and have access to new quality titles each year.  Parents might also be more willing to shell out a fee for a special experience like an honour choir...

 Have you looked into DonorsChoose.org?  This is a non-profit that allows teachers to register "projects," and allows "citizen philanthropists" (ordinary folks like me) to peruse the registered projects and fund the one(s) they choose.  As a project is registed, a member of the DonorsChoose staff "vets" it, sources the needed materials, and posts it with the total $$ amount needed.  Donors then visit the site, look for projects of interest, and fund part or all of the project(s) they choose.  As soon as sufficient funds are received for a given project, the materials are ordered by DonorsChoose, and then shipped to the teacher.

 

I've been funding music projects of various kinds since 2003, impacting over 14000 students in all, including a number involving the purchase of music for choral programs.   Early on, there were few music projects listed, so I funded projects supporting other arts or literacy.  Now that DonorsChoose is nationwide, there are usually music projects in the list somewhere.

 

DonorsChoose has won a number of awards, and has some significant corporate and artist backing.  

 

http://www.donorschoose.org  will get you there.

 

(No, I don't work for them -- I just think it's a great idea ... )

 

Lana Mountford

Bellingham, WA