If you’ve had the (mis)fortune of hearing this commercial, you may harken back to your own days of sitting through children’s band/orchestra performances. Having never raised any children myself nor had a reason to attend such a performance, I have to ask: are they really this bad?
My daughter’s high school had a string band. When they were little, it was pretty bad – they were all sawing at their instruments and the whole thing was painful to hear. But as time went on, each concert was a little bit better until they were adequate for an amateur performance.
My oldest grandson played cello in middle school and high school. Yeah, when kids are first learning to play their instruments, and play as a group, it sounds pretty much like the commercial. But they do get better. I have an audio file on my phone of his high school orchestra playing Led Zeppelin’s “Kashmir” and it’s pretty damn good!
Here’s one that plays well in the dark (okay, calling 13-14 year olds children is really stretching it, but worth a view.)
My niece is a high school junior, and has played cello since she was about 10. I agree with prior posters – when the kids are just learning how to play (grade school level, mostly), it can be pretty excruciating to listen to. By the time they get to high school, I think that most kids either (a) have gotten much better at playing, or (b) have given up and moved on to other things. And, once they are at that age/level, if a kid still just can’t play very well, they may well not “make the team,” as it were.
Also, that ad gives my wife flashbacks to our niece’s early concerts, and she always mutes the TV when it comes on. 
Dreadful ad! They should stick to water.
The cute is the enemy of the good. I’ve been dragged (or more cooperatively taken) to many a recital or performance involving the young. From that experience, I can say that young people (even very very young people) can put on a beautiful, amazing performance. But expectations and standards are often low, out of some belief that putting the kids through the hard work of becoming excellent is going to take away their fun and make it, well, hard work. What gets lost there is the fact that working hard and then getting to be excellent, and knowing it, it a lot more fun than being trotted out to do something mediocre or worse and being applauded pro forma by a wincing audience of parents and siblings.
My parents laughed about my elementary school’s band’s incompetence for decades after hearing it. It was the stuff of lore.
Yes. Yes they do.
Yeah, kids the age in the commercial have been playing 2-3 years at best. They’ll be awful, especially playing a difficult piece like Also Sprach Zarathustra. A wise music teacher will pick an easier piece for the concert that’s more appropriate in difficulty for the kids.
ETA: I have my last student string orchestra concert next week, as my youngest will be graduating high school. I’m really, really looking forward to never having to listen to a 5th grader torture a violin again.
Out of curiosity, what would be a good choice for such a performance?
Turkey in the Straw is pretty popular, though played at about 1/3 the speed as here:
It’s not all about how enjoyable the performance is. How else are kids supposed to learn how to play in front of a big group of strange people? It’s more important for them to have fun than for adults to enjoy the performance.
I don’t deny that they (and adults learning a new instrument etc etc) need to go through a period in which they aren’t very good yet, and still need encouragement. And that the kids (far more so than the adults) need to have the experience of playing in front of an audience and should not have to postpone that until they’re excellent.
My point is, though, that playing music excellently is a lot more fun than just doing a mediocre-or-worse job of it, and that therefore being rehearsed and drilled and inspired until excellence is attained does not wreck the fun. It makes the fun possible. And too many people are wary of expecting much from children and just smile at them and tell them they’re doing a great job when they’re off-key or off-tempo instead of working to improve the quality of what’s being played.
And too many people don’t tell 6th graders that their writing is not excellent! We should be motivating them by truly making them know how far they have to go to achieve even mediocrity.
Don’t even get me started on kids who think they’re good at math when they can’t even calculus!
Different levels of skill are appropriate for different ages and degrees of commitment- I don’t think the fact that grade or middle school orchestras are not performing at a more advanced level is a sign that instructors aren’t expecting enough of their students.
I have heard elementary aged musicians produce music that I’d pay for and add to my playlist. That sets a baseline. I know it can be done.
“Someone somewhere has accomplished X under Y paramaters” is a pretty arbitrary and not so useful way to set a baseline for expectations. Doubly so when it comes to nine year olds.
Yes. Yes, a thousand times, yes. They mainly suck.
Around here, music instruction in school starts in 4th grade, so mostly 9 y/o. When almost anyone, but especially kids are learning a new skill they aren’t that great at it. when you watch/listen to them all together it’s painfully obviously how not good at it they are.
Doubly painful is the fact that Hot Cross Buns is a good teaching song/easy to learn. Every group at the first concert plays it, the band, the orchestra, etc. Ice picks to the ears, I tells ya!
My junior high orchestra sounded pretty good. We had class 5 days a week. It was primarily rehearsals. We also had after school rehearsals for a couple weeks before a public performance. Lots, and lots of rehearsal made the difference. 
Our teacher selected music that matched our ability. It was challenging enough to keep our interest.
High school orchestra was harder. We performed more often without as much preparation.