I don't have much to say, really. Unfortunately, I didn't know him. I am a young band director, and never had the chance to.
I am also, however, a very nerdy band director. I do a lot of research....
As a product of the 5A band system, I can't recall ever getting to play his music. I occasionally, but rarely, heard about him in my college studies. But in my student teaching, as I dug around the music library of my assignment and dug around online looking for band history, and influential band figures, it didn't take long to learn about him and his incredible music, and of course, his groundbreaking pedagogy (I knew of the pyramid of sound, of course, but didn't know until then that he was responsible for it).
I didn't want to write about him, per say. You can find plenty of biographical information on these pages:
Southern Music Company's McBeth Bio
Sigma Alpha Iota's McBeth Page
The Encyclopedia of Arkansas History and Culture
The closest thing I can say about him, regretfully, is that I have read his book, "Effective Performance of Band Music-Solutions to Specific Problems in the Performance of 20th Century Band Music". I've read as many books as I could get my hands on in the last few years. His was the most concise, while also being vastly more helpful and practical. I just found out he wrote another book, and I plan to read that, too. If I can find it.
I'm a band guy. And this is a band blog. It's not much, but I wanted to do something in memory of this hugely important figure. Normally that would be a post with some of his music, but I already did one of those pages after I read the aforementioned book: The Music of W. Francis McBeth.
So in lieu of that, I decided to use my modest photoshop abilities to make a memorial button. After I post this page I'm going to make it my facebook profile picture for a couple of days, and I'll leave it on the blog for a while I think. Anyway, please feel free to use it. You can save the image above, or right click it and "copy url".
Please keep his family in your thoughts in the coming days and weeks. Mr. McBeth - the band world thanks you.
Musically yours,
Chris Cooper
You're completely accurate in saying we lost a giant. We most certainly did. I knew him briefly as a freshman theory student. He was amazing. He was funny and kind and truly, truly loved the art of teaching. He gave out his home phone number to every one of his students and told us we could calileumidbight with questions. He was a brilliant man and he cared deeply about passing on what he knew. He knew he was great but believed his students could be great as well. He was a treasure of man. I wish you could have met him....
ReplyDeleteMe too! I bet he was an amazing theory teacher! I think at TMEA I might seek out a couple of people I've met online in the last few days and see if I can listen to some of their stories. Thank you for sharing that!
ReplyDeleteYesterday, I attended a performance of the First Coast Wind Ensemble here in Jacksonville, FL. It was during this concert that I learned of Dr. McBeth's death (they played "Caccia" in tribute)... I guess I'm just not as connected to the band world as I once was! When I was in HS, I had the great fortune of performing in an All State band under his direction. He was truly an amazing man, and his music endures in my musical psyche to this day. Thanks for you blog post!
ReplyDeleteThanks for reading! I wish I could have been fortunate enough to meet him in person, or even play under his baton!
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