I recently found out from my brother what my old high school was playing for District Music Contest, and for their spring concert. They are playing a couple of classics, like Trombone King, and a couple of newer ones like Synergies and the movie music from Pirates of the Caribbean. Now, one piece that they are playing, Fall River Overture, pushes the limits a little bit as it is a slower ballad type song that really needs focus on intonation. But here's where I get to my point...none of this music is very hard as far as technique goes. Sure each has its own challenges, and you have to know what to program for your band. I can't help but think back to when I was in band with the same band director though. We were pushing the limits and playing grade level 4 music then, which for a local high school band in my area was doing pretty good. Now, with the same director, the band has regressed back to its old self and has stopped trying to perform to their best abilities. My brother is about fed up with it. He says that they have high school drummers that can't read 6/8 time. These same drummers have been taught by the same band director from 5th grade up, so to me it seems that somewhere along the line they are not getting all of the education they need. To me, this seems to be a serious problem, and one that we hear about all the time. What we need to think about as future educators, is that eventually we will be put into these same shoes and have to take over a band. Don't get me wrong, there are many great directors out there that have outstanding bands. But there are also many that have mediocre directors and students that just don't care. So I think it is up to us future music educators to take the initiative. We need to turn around this problem that is starting to spiral out of control. We need to do our best to practice, and become the best musicians that we can be. We need to set high standards, not only for our students, but for ourselves, so that we don't fall into what Dave called the "homogenous cesspool of mediocrity". I think I can speak for all of us when I say that to us music means everything...so why should be allow ourselves to expect less than perfect? Music is the one subject in the public school system that expects perfection. You can get a 94% on a math test and still pass the class with flying colors, but if you only play 94% of the notes in a piece of music correctly, it will sound horrible. We need to impress this idea on our students, as well as ourselves, that good enough is never good enough. Otherwise the critics will be right, and there won't be a place for music in the public school system, because its meaning will have diminished to a point that will become unrecognisable. And it all comes down to how much work you are willing to put in yourself. Cus lets face it guys, we aren't all signing up to be music teachers because of the great pay check, so we need to look for something more for fulfillment. And it all starts now, by putting in as much work as possible on ourselves, so that we have the skills necessary to later in life teach those who haven't developed them yet.