Band Geeks

I am a band geek.

I claim that title despite the fact that I’ve not touched my cornet / French horn or any other band instrument in about 30 years. They’ve been toted from home to home over time and finally hit a garage sale a couple of years ago and are presumably taking up space in someone else’s closets now.

But I still claim the brotherhood of bandgeekdom. Like the Masons or the Mafia, once initiated you belong for life. I don’t think anyone belongs wants to go through the indoctrination again, at least not if it’s anything like it was in the 70’s.

So I support all things band. Not all things musical. I didn’t get that gene, and probably have the only iPod in the world that has not a single song on it. Mine is full of audio books instead.

Band, though, is the alternative to sports programs for the kids who want to do something besides run or catch a ball. It teaches a lot of the same life lessons, albeit a bit more gently at times. I’ve shown up at the Band Booster Booth in towns I lived in – when I had no kids and hadn’t been in that band – and helped cook burgers for hours to fund their upcoming trips. It was a debt of honor and I was glad to “pay it forward” that way. I support just about any band program out there.

At least, I did until yesterday, when I was listening to NPR (which is where I get most of my news). They had a guest on All Things Considered named Walter Pincus, who is a journalist for the Washington Post. He’s written a series of articles on the cost of “military music”.

I won’t go into the details here, but you can find the first of the series at http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/08/23/AR2010082304711.html.


Pincus was at an event where Secretary of Defense Robert Gates had said that there were more musicians in the military than the Foreign Service has officers – a dubious distinction at best, and probably not one that I would have said in public, had I been in his position – which lead to some investigation by the journalist.

So he asked the military how much the bands were costing.

This would seem an easy enough question to answer. After all, one would assume that the military keeps track of who is assigned to what job, and then from that we could chase records and extrapolate how much was paid to them, what their benefits cost, how much was invested in equipment, travel, housing, etc.

Quicken can track this for me; I imagine that the US Military has a slightly more sophisticated program that would be able to spit out a ledger or a pie chart or something that would give us an idea of how our tax dollars are being spent.

Nope. The Marines (the oldest of the bands, incidentally, and the one led by John Phillips Sousa for many years) were the only ones who came back with anything close to a number -- $50 million dollars.

A year.

Now, as you try to wrap your brain around that number, consider the fact that the Army was the only other branch of service to offer a guesstimate as to how much money they spent.

$198 million.  Every year.

Of course, the Navy, Air Force and Coast Guard are not to be outdone. They just didn’t answer the question.

The military argues that the bands are essential to recruiting and goodwill efforts. I might buy half of that – it’s nice that the President gets waltzed in to music, and it’s appropriate for the office. The choirs (and remember, the numbers above are just for THE BAND, they have nothing to do with the choirs that perform with them at times) and bands do some great holiday concerts and you walk away from them tapping your toes and feeling a bit better, so they do build goodwill -- but recruiting efforts?

What do they recruit besides musicians to be in the military bands?

Traditionally, they’ve brought music to the masses by going to rural communities and playing free concerts, providing an exposure to a variety of musical types that those in the hinterlands would have been otherwise denied. This was championed by Mr. Sousa when he was in charge of them.

In 1890.

Since then, there’ve been a few changes. There’s this nifty thing called an iPod – or any variety of knock-off portable music players that can be bought for anywhere from $20 to $500 -- that allows someone in even the most remote areas of the country – or the world – to get whatever type of music that they want. Plug it into a few more electronics to run the sound through some speakers and SHAZAM – you got music exposure to the masses for a one-time fixed cost. You MIGHT need 3 personnel to handle those events – one to drive the truck and a couple of guys to set up the speakers (they are big and heavy, and we don’t want anyone to get hurt), but that wouldn’t seem to be skilled labor that would draw a high wage.

One band – let’s even be generous to say we need a dozen of them, spread among the various branches of government – ought to be enough to make a few recordings, put in special appearances and still provide the goodwill that is sought.

I am among the most liberal of individuals. We donate regularly to arts programs, Public Television and Radio, and any number of other cultural events. We by season tickets to local community theaters, even when we suspect that sitting through some of the productions may be pure misery (usually because of the uncomfortable seating in the municipal auditorium, not because of the particular play).

Supporting the arts is important, but with the economy and the budget in the state it’s in, is this REALLY the best way to spend our tax dollars to protect the United States’ interests?

Maybe we need a few less musicians and a few more Foreign Service Officers.