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> Meanwhile I know people who look at analytics and numbers to decide what sports and activities their child (who is still in elementary school!) should be doin
by Kon-Peki 3y ago
> Meanwhile I know people who look at analytics and numbers to decide what sports and activities their child (who is still in elementary school!) should be doing in order to maximize college admissions chances.
Those people are dumb; ignore them. They're "fighting the last war", so to say.
Seriously, an orchestra needs 30-40 violins per tuba. There has to be a lot of violin players, or there is no orchestra (the Harvard orchestra is short on violin players right now [1] - they certainly aren't going to be taking many more "unusual" instruments without more violins)
The injury rates for young athletes keeps increasing (as in younger than 25-30). Plenty of research shows that specializing in a single sport at a young age is a strong contributor to this. Of course those "elite" coaches want your kid to give up everything else; when your kid burns out or get injured the coach just moves on to the next kid in line.
Just opt out of this system, your kids will be fine.
[1] https://www.harvardradcliffeorchestra.org/current-roster https://www.harvardradcliffeorchestra.org/current-roster
- floren 3y agoThey're not trying to optimize so the kid can be a profession violinist -- god forbid, there's hardly any money there at all! No, the idea is to just do things which make the kid look different on a college application. That's it. Once the Harvard letter comes in, the cello can be sold, it's served its purpose.
- Kon-Peki 3y agoYeah, I totally get that :) But you know, just about every single good university has an orchestra - lots of them have multiple (symphony, philharmonia, etc). There are way more kids playing music for their school than will ever be professional musicians. And there is a need for 2-3 times more violin players than cello players. If your kid enjoys playing violin and wants to play in college, that will count for a lot more than someone who plays a cello just so they can write it down on their application.
- Der_Einzige 3y agoMost school orchestras are not chamber orchestra, they separate band and the strings into separate classes with separate performances.