Courtmartialed for not playing the clarinet.

[Kingfan]

Stumbled across this info. A WWI Navy musician was court martialed, dishonorably discharged, and spent time military prison for the crimes of not practicing his clarinet and mouthing off to his superior officer. If you think your bandmaster is strict, think again!

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[Gary]

When I came in the service, there was a guy in the band who wasn't a bad Baritone player but neither was he setting the world on fire. One day, we were just chatting and I asked him how he came into the band.
"To fill the square", he said.
"What?"
He said the Base Commander at his base at the time wanted to form a band and he asked for volunteers. He got enough guys to make a square but had one hole he couldn't fill and asked for a volunteer.

So my friend, who played nothing, volunteered to fill in the hole, given a Baritone without a mouthpiece and told just to look like he was playing but nothing more.

Later, he was given a mouthpiece, learned the horn and eventually became a bandsman but . . wow.




b

[harrisonreed]

There was a flute player in one of the Army bands that I was in who wasn't very good. They didn't practice, and would make obvious mistakes during important performances. Well, the command team had every right to give them a UCMJ punishment and remove rank or pay (jail time would have been absolutely ridiculous), but they had another option as well. They gave the flute player a few days to prepare for the standard AMPA audition that we all have to do to progress in our career or keep our positions, and they did a full assessment of that flute player's ability to perform their MOS tasks. They didn't do well at all.

But, at the end of the day they weren't really a bad Soldier -- they could pass the other physical tests and show up on time, and they understood how a lot of other processes in the Army worked. So they lost their MOS and got sent "needs of the Army" to the school that trains truck drivers. I met them years later and they had more rank than me and were genuinely happy to be running a motor pool.

No, they weren't mouthing off, but imagine pursuing the most strict course of punishment, rather than focusing on the actual problem. Overkill.

The hilarious part of the story in the OP is that the dude was trying to pull his liberty card at 1300 on a work day. I thought it was bad when people sneak home at 1530 to duck out, but this dude is trying to weasel out of learning a new instrument and follow orders .... at 1300!

[JohnL]

You have to wonder if Milton had a history of this kind of behavior. If he did, that might explain the response.

Then again, this might just be the way things were done at the time. That whole "while the United States of America was in a state of war" part...

Also, if this exchange happened in front of other sailors (particularly if they were regular crew rather than musicians), the powers that be may have felt that to cut Milton any slack would send a bad message about military discipline. The US had just entered WWI a couple months earlier, so everyone would have been pretty spun up.

[timothy42b]

And then, I've run across clarinet players who should be courtmartialed for playing the instrument.

[hyperbolica]

I misread this at first and thought the clarinet lessons were a punishment for playing the drums badly. Good story either way. When I was in they made oboists play clarinet, bassoonists play tenor sax, tuba players play electric bass, keyboard players play cymbals, and other crimes against music. These forced doubles were mainly to make sure everybody could play in a marching band.

In high school somehow I avoided marching band 100% of the time. I never marched. Never had to wear that uniform, never smashed my instrument. And then I joined a military band. Karma always gets you one way or another.

[harrisonreed]

When you're only MTOE'ed for three percussionists, but your band needs at least six on the parade field, you immediately gravitate over to the keyboard and guitar players. I've never met a guitarist who wasn't able to perfectly play the cymbals or bass drum while also looking completely offended the entire time.

Most if not all clarinet players in the bands I've been in double on sax really well. The oboes and bassoons usually start talking about the woodwind quintet being, erm, a real ensemble that can perform outside of a concert band setting and have an impact when the subject of doubling comes up...

Never met a trombone player who doubled on anything other than bass trombone, but I did meet a few horn players that are also great on trumpet. Euph players all think they can play the trombone but they really can't.

The tuba player also being an electric bass player thing is really interesting and I noticed that too. The best bass player I met was an outstanding cymbal crasher on the side, but the best tuba player I worked with had an even higher rating on electric bass then tuba -- he was seriously good at both.

It's good, but I feel like, aside from auxiliary percussion, it should be something that the individual has to do for themselves.

[CalgaryTbone]

You would think that someone would get a medal for not playing the clarinet. Congressional Medal of Honor for not playing the E flat clarinet!

The joke has just been there waiting for someone to say it!

Jim Scott

[robcat2075]

Court-martialed for not playing the clarinet.

One of those real-life situations that is never accounted for in the prison movie scene where they grunt, "Whaddya in fer?"

[Kingfan]

Court-martialed for not playing the clarinet.

One of those real-life situations that is never accounted for in the prison movie scene where they grunt, "Whaddya in fer?"

Would give a whole new meaning to the "Dirty Dozen Brass Band"...