When do youth bands start sounding good?

I went to my sons schools Christmas program last night.

They have bands with kids from 6th grade thru high school. Its interesting to listen as how the bands improve with age. The 6th grade band was … well… all I can say is at least the kids were trying. But the high school band sounded great. The director made the comment “as a parent of a 6th grade band student it helps me to see where this will be later on”.

I think part of the problem is they dont start band until 6th grade wheras other schools start in 5th or even younger so the kids get pretty good.

So I’d like to ask those of you all who were in band. When do you think you all were sounding good?

As with most endeavours, the earlier you start, the more time you have to practice to get it right. In Japan, music curriculum for children start as early as kindergarten. At that age they use mostly percussion and basic wind instruments like the pianica. Once the go on to elementary school, woodwinds and brass are slowly introduced.

There was a show on tv a couple of years back that featured this elementary school’s band because they had won the prefectural (not national) top elementary band award for something like six years running at that time. And this is not even a music school. It is a regular elementary school just with a great music program. I forget how old the youngest band member was but I remember they interviewed a grade 3 alto sax player.

Starting earlier wouldn’t necessarily translate in to better bands in the long run. I think whether you start band when kids are 9 or 11 won’t make much difference by the time they’re 14.

The reason is that, unless you have classes grouped by talent, the first two years or so are spent with about 1/3 of the kids holding the rest back while they learn to squawk something out on their clarinet…and beginner bands are full of clarinets… and another 1/3 of actually talented kids deciding if this is worth it because it’s not challenging enough.

By the time freshman band rolls around, the kids who are untalented or uninterested have (mostly) dropped out and the more talented ones have found satisfaction in either a higher level band, jazz, ensembles, or solo work etc.

Now, the above only applies to the organized school music program…if you start a kid on private piano lessons in grade school, that’ll translate to another instrument later and they’ll be ahead of the game as an individual.

Wanted to add for a point of reference, my high school had the best music program, overall, within a pretty fair-sized radius. Our district didn’t start band until 7th grade, though orchestra started in 5th.

Honestly I remember thinking we sounded great in 5th grade. And 6th grade. And 7th on up.

You don’t think you’re sounding bad from the inside. The bad sound comes from being able to hear the whole band at once!

Our high school bands were really amazing, we won all sorts of awards. I remember a few years after high school watching the videos of a couple of our marching band state competitions, where we got high marks, and being able to hear and see all the problems. yech!

Anyway, I remember just always feeling like we sounded great. I sounded great, my section and the trumpets next to me sounded great. But I was in the way back (trombone). I can’t take credit for how the rest of the dummies played.

The age where the students are invested enough to care about what they’re doing, and the conductor cares what they do. I’ve seen college bands where people were just there because they were music majors, and it sounded awful. I’ve seen junior high school groups with kids who were psyched to be there and a conductor who was over the top happy about what she was doing, and it was phenomenal.

But, on average, I’d say you’re looking at 2-3 years into the system, so if everybody in the district who wants to study music starts in 6th grade, the 8th or 9th grade band/orchestra/choir is going to be pretty listenable.

My three kids started with music in 4th grade; two of them stayed with it through college, so I’ve heard every level of youth music imaginable. The big change is when kids go from middle school to high school. The options for extracurricular activites become more varied, the time demands increase, and the less motivated kids quit the program.

In my kids’ high school they actually had two levels of band, one for those who just wanted to play, and one students had to audition for (and could get cut from.)

I thought you meant rock bands and I was gonna say usually when the clarinetist quits.

Great observations. Especially the part about the clarinets.

On brass instruments I think kids have trouble getting their mouths to form the tight seal needed for the mouthpiece. I had trouble because I had braces.

Your right though that around 9th grade a kid will decide whether they want to or even can play the instrument and those that want to will go on.

Now something else, bands after awhile get to be more of a social group and it doesnt help when you had movies like “American Pie” where kids are bragging about all the sex at band camps.

Band as a social group doesn’t make it any better or worse. Would you say a football team or soccer team would be bad because everyone hangs out together on the weekends?

People don’t join and stay in band for funsies cuz they might get felt up at band camp. It takes money to go to band camp and to be in band. And a ton of hard, physical work.

Are you serious?

I was going to say high school as well. I’m not a band person (actually was some weird hybrid of a jock and nerd), but lots of my friends were band people, and I do remember them stressing over band tryouts when they got to high school. Middle school band would take anyone who signed up.

I suspect that some combination of the uncommitted dropping band and the truly awful being cut from the program as freshmen, combined with 3 higher grades who’ve always gone through that process makes the average quality shoot up very quickly.

Everything in high school is a social group, and high school kids will have sex no matter the setting. If they’re lucky.

Very true. I shoot concerts by various locations of the School of Rock and the directors tend to steer kids into different programs depending on the kids skill level - beginners are going to play Black Sabbath or Punk, the more skilled kids are going to be playing more technically challenging stuff. And they’ll stick the really hopeless ones as a second rhythm guitarist (that probably won’t be turned up very loud, and may not even be plugged in). And in the very worst cases - that’s why they invented the tambourine.

I was talking to one of the chaperones when the very best kids in the School of Rock program played Lollapalooza. Most of these kids are 18 or just under, and he caught some trying to sneak into each others rooms. He had to lay down the law - anyone tries that again, they leave the festival right after their set, and nobody gets to hang backstage with the rock stars. Pretty cold, playing their two principal drives - music and sex - against each other.