At todays meeting the gauntlet was thrown down: too many ensembles for our students is effecting their academic progress. My view is that we are musicians and need to make as much music as possible. That is how we get better at it, and if the academics can be used more in the ensembles and studio all the better. I think what holds students back academically as much as anything is not going to class and not doing all of the assigned work. It is a scary day that we are starting to look at reducing the amount of music in ANY music program (kind of like the reduction of music in the public schools also). Music is a wonderful artform that I think the best students want to be as involved in as possible. If a student doesn't read well the more ensembles they are in and have to prepare for the better that skill will become. Tuning and intonation is another skill that can be improved with more, not less, ensemble performance. I believe these are all skills that every music ed. major needs to possess at the highest possible level to be an effective teacher. You also learn your rep. in ensembles (especially if you don't have a rep. class). It seems to me that sometimes the "music educators", in their attempt to get music more recognized as an academic endeavour forget that we all got into music first and foremost because we wanted to PLAY.