Del Schroeder knows how loud the sound of silence can be.
“I remember when there wasn’t a sound to be heard on the Point,” Schroeder said of the lack of music in local schools in the 1970s. “Not a note.”
It was 1971, and Schroeder, who had just arrived from Georgia, was a one-woman traveling band for the San Diego City Schools, teaching music out of the back of her car at Sunset View, Barnard and Loma Portal elementary schools.
When music was reinstated in 1979 at Correia Middle School, Schroeder was the first to volunteer, because, she said in her undeniable Southern drawl, “Music is too important to ignore.”
Today, music is key to public education in Point Loma. Successful music programs at Dana Middle School, Correia and Point Loma High School are taught by full-time teachers. Eager young students fill out orchestras, concert bands, jazz bands and marching bands. The students showcase their talents at concerts, through the sales of CDs and online at YouTube.
Band at the Beach, a summer music enrichment camp founded by Schroeder 20 years ago, keeps students sharp through the summer months. This year’s program will be held at Correia from Aug. 4 through Aug. 8 and is still accepting students.
For more than 35 years, “Miss Del” has maintained her advocacy of all things music by sticking to the basics. In an era where iPods, downloads and shared files have become more synonymous with music than Mozart, Schroeder instructs her students to sit up straight, keep count, don’t drop a note as the metronome keeps a steady tempo.
Budding musicians have been lugging their instruments to her Loma Portal home for more than 30 years to learn guitar, piano, sax, clarinet, flute and a variety of other band instruments. They always have a discerning audience, which includes Schroeder’s husband, Cart, six rescued cats and two dogs.
On the patio outside Schroeder’s music room, students are greeted by a laundry basket filled with small electronic keyboards. Flyers promoting every local concert, event and performance are taped to the patio door. Inside, surrounded by shelves and bookcases piled high with instruments, music books, sheet music and art, students pluck out their scales on the real deal ” her family’s 80-year-old baby grand piano.
Schroeder pulls her favorite book on music instruction from a shelf.
“This is my music Bible,” she said of “Joe Maddy of Interlochen,” which tells the story of the first national summer music camp formed in 1928 in Interlochen, Mich. The book is in mint condition and tells how Maddy’s summer band camp taught generations of students who wore uniforms, kept strict hours, spoke when spoken to and practiced daily without fail.
With a bachelor’s degree in music education from Florida State University and a master’s degree in music arts from San Diego State University, Point Loma’s “Music Mom” can play every instrument she teaches. Her unmistakable band mobile is a blazing red Jeep with personalized license plate MIZDELL, and the vehicle sports bumper stickers for Band at the Beach and the Florida State Alumni Band.
Schroeder’s involvement in the music arts is extensive and includes playing saxophone in the San Diego Concert Band. She founded countless area music groups, among them the Warren Walker Middle School Band, the Peninsula Wind Ensemble and Band at the Beach.
As she gets ready to teach a new crop of young musicians for the summer, Schroeder, who has no children of her own, laughs as she thinks about the number of “little tykes” she’s taught over the years. In fact, she points out, many of them are now adults who she sees around town and some of whom she performs with in a community band.
“I have more children than everyone,” Schroeder said. “I just didn’t have to do all the diapers and potty training.”
Thanks to her training, the sound of music can be heard throughout the Peninsula.
For more information on Band at the Beach or music lessons, call (619) 222-3065, or visit www.bandatthebeach.org.
Band at the Beach will perform a free concert for the public at 4 p.m. on Aug. 8 in the Correia Middle School auditorium.