Clarke Egerton - on the importance of music education (clip)

RG: Did you feel that the students gained more than a musical education from being in the band?

CE: Oh certainly. There are so many lessons to be learned being in the band situation, because you work together as a family, and so many of those students that I taught actually looked to me as their dad. Later it was Big Daddy, and then I guess it was Little Daddy because I was much smaller than I am now. (laughter) But then a lot of the parents would come to me and say, Mr. Egerton, talk to little Johnny or talk to little Mary Jane - I won't call any names - because they have so much respect for you. They just love you and so forth, and they're not doing well in their subjects at all, but they love the band. Lots of times I had to be the middle person there to get little Johnny back on track. Make sure that he's gin' to his classes and so forth, and getting the education that his mom wanted him to have. And there were some cases, I guess you've found out, that there may not have been a daddy, a father at home. So I played the role of that father frequently for many of those students. I'm sure they got a lot out of it. Many years later, you know, you may hear some come back and say, you did so much for me, and how much they enjoyed the program, and what it meant to them. Even though some of them were not in the band, they were also under my tutelage for social studies and my social studies class, which was small, that first part, first semester I think it was. But during that time, I didn't just teach social studies. I came back to Durham and I bought a little can of fried baby bees. I also bought a bar of chocolate covered ants, and escargot or something. I've forgotten now, it was one other thing that we got, but we didn't get to that. But I carried that back and introduced it to the students, and we opened that can of fried baby bees, and started a little taste thing there, and the students just loved it. I mean, they'd Ooh! They didn't enjoy it at first, so naturally I was going to be the guinea pig, so I tried one of those fried baby bees (laughs). It had a nut-like quality. But I went ahead tried it, and then some of the others tried it, and that second semester my classes were running over with students because I was doing something different. It wasn't just writing in the book. We ventured out and did things a little differently. Naturally it got back to the principal. He says, "What's this about fried baby bees (laughter) in your classroom?" I said, "Well you know, in many countries, they do that. I mean, this is a staple." So they really enjoyed that. And the same way with the band, we didn't always do things like the white high school band. We lifted the instruments and had them looking' a little flashy for marching. Did little steps and things, which the crowd always appreciated. And yet and still, at the end of the marching season, we were able to go in and take the same music that the white high school was using for concerts, we could take that music and also play it, even though we had some inferior equipment. I was able to make adjustments. I remember once entering the band into a contest, and it called for French Horns. I didn't have any French Horns; we had what they call mellophones. So any time I found something that mentioned music or instrumental music, I read it to them. And I found out that you could get an adapter for this mellophone that you could put a French Horn mouthpiece in, and get that French Horn quality of sound. You know, I took two of those mellophones, got the adapter, of course this one was coming out of my pocket, and the French Horn mouthpiece, and worked with those students on that. When we went to contest, the judges said, "Nice French horns." Those are mellophones. (laughter) The judges were just so impressed, they said "Oh, good French horn sound." I said "Ok, right." They were playing the French horn part using the French horn mouthpiece, but it was actually E-flat mellophones that they were using.

RG: Fascinating.

CE: Oh yes.