Norman E. Smith
1921-1998
Norman Smith was a product of the weather as well as musical genes. When he was six years of age, the 1927 Mississippi River flood influenced his parents to move from his birthplace, Cape Girardeau, Missouri, to a wheat and dairy farm on the drier plains near Fairview, Oklahoma. The next move, to DeRidder, Louisiana, occurred during the Mid-West "dust bowl" days of the late 1930's. Except for a few years of military service time, graduate study, and travel, Smith lived in Louisiana from 1938.
Music was a part of his life since childhood. Experiences which led to a career in music included listening to the town bands in Missouri, Oklahoma, and Louisiana; singing in harmony with his brother, dad, and hired hand while milking cows on the dairy farm; playing trumpet in the Tri-State Festival Band in Enid, Oklahoma, under the direction of Herbert L. Clarke, Frank Simon, Edwin Franko Goldman, and Henry Fillmore; and a student aid job at the University of Southwestern Louisiana (then SLI) where he married Aline Jackson in 1942 and obtained a music degree in 1943.
After service time during World War II as a Air Force pilot and instructor, Smith taught high school band, orchestra, jazz ensemble, and music theory for three years at DeRidder High School and six years at Terrebonne High School before joining the faculty of McNeese State University in 1954. For sixteen years he directed the concert, marching, and jazz bands and also taught a full load of brass students and music education classes. He played trumpet in the community band and symphony, as well as violin in the university orchestra, and sang in his church choir. Smith received his MME degree at LSU in 1950 and PhD at Florida State University in 1968.
Smith wrote "Opinions of Contemporary European Trumpet Players" in 1976 and Band Music Notes (with Albert Stoutamire) in 1977 before retiring in 1978 to devote full time to a two year revision of the latter book (now published by his Program Note Press-11th printing) and a six-year period to research and write March Music Notes. In 1993 he compiled March Music Melodies and co-wrote the German Language Programmnotizen with international WASBE president Felix Hauswirth, Marianne Halder, and Winfried Gray. After ten years of full-time research, he completed the writing for Program Notes for Band in 1998.
Although his hobbies no longer included flying, water-skiing, and pontoon boat fishing trips, Smith enjoyed playing trumpet with the Lake Charles Community Band, walking a mile or two daily with his wife Aline; corresponding in English, French or German with other researchers in many nations; and, when possible, visiting, with two brothers and two sisters; daughters Linda Kay and Pamelyn Jane (Manhattan); grandsons Ted, Chris, and Jake; and great-grandchildren Ryne and Emily. Smith also enjoyed the stimulation of traveling to other states and nations to interview composers and trumpet players, research material in major libraries and museums, and attend music conferences. After thirteen research trips to Europe, he visited Japan in 1995 and returned to Europe in 1997 for a conference of the World Association for Symphonic Bands and Ensembles (WASBE) conference in Schladming, Austria.
Other major events of 1997 included a 55th wedding anniversary, a second heart by-pass operation, and acceptance of the Edwin Franko Goldman Award from Frank Wickes, president of the American Bandmasters Association.
Regarding his thirty-three years of teaching, Smith wrote "I hope I was able to help some of those talented students during that important time in their lives and mine. I realize now that I learned more from them than they did from me." He noted that he felt fortunate to have had a life of good health, wonderful friends, and fascinating activities.