2006/05/29

[Music] Jochen's concert


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Originally uploaded by LeJyBy.
I worked all Saturday with our guest Conrado. We made some progress, but on Sunday I really needed a break: Jochen suggested to go to the concert of his saxophone's teacher, in Guelph. Jochen was invited on stage among the other students. He played a standard, Doxy, and got congratulated by several parents in the room afterward. We agreed that I should bring my clarinet sometime, we would play together "Summertime", or "Baby Elephant Walk", which sound particularly well when we play together at my place. I was under the impression that in France most academician play of some musical instrument, while in Canada (or in the US) it is kind of rare. Maybe it has something to do with the greater pressure of the tenure-track and so on. I thought that it was due to the lack of musical education in primary and high-school, but stand corrected by Jochen: it seems that Canadian students have mandatory music lessons. His girl-friend taught in primary school here, he should know ;) Anyway, it was a good break, back to work this morning after uploading the pictures for Jochen: a long week is starting!

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I remember playing the flute in grade 7/8, I never played well nor cared to improve myself. In high school, there were no required music courses, so I never took any. If you are serious about playing musical instrument, you'll have to learn most of it away from public schools.

Tyler

dot said...

In France, it is mandatory up to junior high school, so most people have at least a minimum knowledge of music. In the same range, I had courses for how to build things in wood, how to solder electronic components, but also how to cook, how to sew, how to draw and paint, all mandatory. Most people don't ever do it again, but I think that it is good to offer this knowledge to everybody: it opens a window outside of the education you receive from your parents.

Anonymous said...

We do some of that too. I remember in grade 7 I took this course where we had to solder, and build things from wood. I didn't really like it because I wasn't familiar with working with my hands and doing that.

And there was this other course called Family Studies where you had to cook, learn how to sew, wash dishes, learn dietary info, etc... I (with the help of other people) made this stuffed dinosaur which was cool. It was a useful course.

Oh yeah, and physical education was mandatory, which is even more important to get through nowadays. At the end of the school year we went to track and field meetings, I did well in 100 dash -- I was able to run it in 12.6 or so seconds.

But yes, like you said, less and less in our knowledge based economy do we need aforementioned skills, and this is rather unfortunate because we are losing part of the traditional human life skills.

Tyler