State of TSA Banding - Part II

Note: This is a continuation of a blog posted on May 14.


4. Developing young players hindered: Young players are hindered in a variety of ways. In some Corps the youth are not allowed to take instruments home to practice. Little progress is therefore made.

Another hindrance is that we have few of skilled players to take our young people beyond a grade two level. Even when skilled players are available, I have seen too often promising players between the ages of thirteen and seventeen not being mentored and left to learn on their own and via group rehearsals. The best band programs rest upon skilled players intentionally giving individual lessons to their teenagers.

Related to point four, few Corps have a consistent mentoring program that foster musical development. By the way, staff bands holding clinics and music camps are not mentoring, they are momentary teaching moments.

For far too many of our youth hit a glass ceiling between the ages of thirteen and sixteen and their musical potential withers. Sometimes it is due to a lack of mentoring. For some, the ceiling is created because their participation in the adult groups is delayed. For others, the ceiling has to do with adults not accepting their questions or adults expecting young teens to behave older than their years.


5. Nature of Salvation Army music: In college there was a debate over the nature of Salvation Army music not being at a level that challenges our strongest players. The most challenging music within the Army is found in the General/Festival Series and even then it is contained within a handful of parts. One of my friends from college, who went on to play in two Staff bands, argued that those who seek challenging music throughout all parts would have to look outside the Army.

At the time did not accept that evaluation. In the last fourteen months my view have changed because of a question I asked Josh last March as we returned from the NYB All-Star weekend. He enjoyed the weekend but when I asked him how the music compared to what he was playing at school I anticipated hearing him say that it above what he played at Oakton as they were playing items from the NYSB repertoire. Instead he said it slightly less challenging than what he was playing at school. Last year Josh was playing mainly grade 5 music in Concert I. This year he is playing exclusively grade 6 in Symphonic Band (grade 6 is college).

What is interesting is that an event intended to help instill greater interest in TSA banding was one of two triggers to cause Josh to move away from TSA banding. Following that weekend that Josh started to take greater interest in other music. Looking back, Evie and I can readily see that between March and August 2005 was the period when our son’s interest in playing in TSA groups beyond the congregational context died. One of the greatest indicators of the shift was when he stopped working on a TSA composition that was close to complete (it was a demanding item that needed only the percussion part added and would be ready for a first play). He stopped working on it because he tends to write for the type of groups he foresees himself playing in. Hence, setting the item aside was the indication to us that he had no interest in playing in the Cap Band or DYB. We do not see his interest beyond the local Corps changing for years to come. In February the subject of the Army banding came up and he stated that the Army is part of his heritage and he values it but he does not see it as a significant part of his future. He has no intent in playing in the Army outside the congregational worship experience.

While the chances are higher now than in the past that Josh will be lost to the Army within ten years, his parents primary goal is to help him to remain a faithful churchman committed to Christ regardless of what tradition to which he attaches himself. The Army is secondary to being a committed churchman.

We cannot unduly fault Army for Josh’s progression. He is more the exception than the rule. We cannot fault the Army’s music for its lack of challenging strength across all its parts. Only a handful of Corps bands have the depth to have demanding music across all parts. The Army’s music appropriately allows for broad participation and that should not change. The downside is that some of our strongest youth will need to look for challenges outside the Army sphere. We must accept this weakness or risk diminishing musical participation.



The challenge for the Army is to encourage our young musicians to develop musically and as people of faith. Given internal shortcomings this would mean encouraging our strongest young people to participate in outside groups, groups that would help stretch and hone their skills. At the same time we too need to intentionally make a systematic effort to keep them bonded to the Army, to foster their spiritual and musical development through an intentional mentoring process. We need to make them to have a sense of ownership of the Army’s life and that they are part of its vitality. We appreciate our COs for their sensitivity on this. They both recognized the significance of Josh not playing in DYB this year and Josh has valued their support and interest. The encouragement of the COs and two other band members have helped to keep Josh bonded to the Army as his faith expression.

Such encourage and sense of belonging must not be done with words but also given by providing them opportunities to grow. It means pushing them to the next level and including them sometimes in a group or activity before they fully meet the standard that we as adults set and expect for ourselves. We will be surprised to find that when such opportunities are given that they will rise to the challenge and that their growth increases. I only have to look at what took place in Brampton during my youth to see the effectiveness of mentoring and bringing young people at an early stage into adult groups and given leadership opportunities. Without intentionality in dealing with our youth, many of our young people will drift away from us in their mid teens to early twenties. We must remember that often we loose a person within the heart and mind long before we loose them in body. We have too few young people with leadership and musical potential to not taking an intentional and invested interest in them.