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Do they have a class there where someone teaches how the old players used to think, e.g. Barry Harris style? Just so they could compare and contrast, or do they double down on teaching "their" way?
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05-07-2019 11:02 AM
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Groan. Looks like a high school band production where everybody gets to play, except these are all the good kids. Except when they graduate, there won't be any gigs like this.
For comparison, Princeton has an active jazz program, I've gone to a couple of concerts recently. Again, the music they're playing, well, there just aren't many bands or places to play music like that, even in NYC.
Princeton costs just a bit more than Berklee, but I don't think the kids who are participating in the jazz bands are doing it with a career in mind. When they graduate- hey, they went to Princeton, they can go work at a hedge fund or something.
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Been to college 4 times--two undergrad degrees, and two grad degrees--none of them music--math, engineering, management, and secondary education.
So I can tell you this: The job of the school is to get your there and keep you there.
Your job is to figure out what you have, and what to do with what you have after you leave.
It always amazes me how many students are great at doing the school's job, but never get around to doing their job.
So if you get the 4-year Jazz Performance degree, you're gonna be a competent Jazz musician, but will you still need a day job? If so, what's your minor? Maybe get the teaching credential? CPA? Something other than the music maybe? Something to fall back on if you find yourself not suddenly a "first call musician?"
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Bet the guitarists own a lot of sweet PRS guitars.
Originally Posted by JGinNJ
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Since I and my kids are out of college, I can't quite get up a strong opinion one way or the other, except about the high cost of education in general. Back in my day a kid could work in summers and parttime while a college student and earn enough to pay full tuition at a state school. That's not the case anymore. (My kids' tuition at state schools in MN and WI was ~$14K a year--not including room and board.)
As far as music education, it is what it is. If people want to pay for it, who are we to criticize? It would be nice to see some statistics on what percentage of Berklee grads have a career in music, but really it's irrelevant. It's like asking what percentage of fine arts majors at Princeton have a career in fine arts. Who cares except maybe their rich parents who foot the bill?
I didn't find the performance above too bad, though of course they're no Mothers. But then they didn't have the benefit of hundreds of live shows and Frank browbeating them for weeks on end to get a performance right.
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lol, You can bet on it. Originally Posted by BigDaddyLoveHandles
Apparently just about everybody at Berklee Online does too, but then most students are between 35-75. A couple of guys played different guitars in almost every weekly lesson and "sweet" PRS models were well represented.
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A thousand times yes! As a special education teacher who loves teaching as much as he loves music, it offends me to hear of teaching "as a fallback". Originally Posted by mr. beaumont
I had a private teacher who was a metal head burn out. He tried to teach me to sight read, and nothing else. That mf'er made me quit guitar when I was 13, I didn't pick it up again until I was almost 17 (and I started at 11--with a good teacher, but I moved out of the city).
I know several amazing music teachers. Let me just say this, since I've taught 5th through 12th grade, teaching music is really hard. Teaching music so that you inspire kids to study it on their own, that's even harder. Teaching privately is difficult, but nothing compares to trying to get a group of 5th graders to play their instruments together--that takes skill and a crap load of patience.
And, to add to that, you have to be a good musician to be a great music teacher. All my friends who teach music know their stuff on their primary instrument and then they had to learn all the other families.
So let's stop this nonsense of "if you can't make it in music, teach"
How about "if you want to perform all the time--great" but "if you want to teach because that's what you love and you also love music--great as well"
Let me add more.
Every person that I studied with was an amazing musician in their own right.
You know what they all shared, because being great musicians who've play with the greats?
They all loved to teach as well, and they took their lessons very seriously.
Shout out to Kenny Wessel, one of the best private teachers I've ever studied with--he's one of the best teachers in NYC. Kenny got me started with jazz guitar:
So let's not sully education by saying "those that can't make it should teach"
We already have enough people throwing stones at education.
***cough, cough*** Rick BeatoLast edited by Irez87; 05-07-2019 at 10:12 PM.
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So many guitar teachers suck. Just cuz you know how to play doesn't mean you know how to teach. They are two totally different things..
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Exactly! Originally Posted by cosmic gumbo
I was lucky, most of the guys I studied with were good teachers (except for that metal head burn out bastid)
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People from Scotland, like Annie Ross or Jim Mullen. Originally Posted by Jazzstdnt
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I graduated for the third time last week – PhD, architectural history. What I have is a huge debt. I would not wish a stay at a modern corporate university on any young person; it is about exploitation, not education. But it is now virtually impossible for anybody to go anywhere without a degree. If you want to play jazz, music school is where you get your chops and your contacts. Originally Posted by dickbanks
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You can be bored stiff playing music professionally too. Originally Posted by Lobomov
An economics degree will ensure that you're bored stiff at work every day, but it puts food on the table. Every year that passes the bored stiff part bothers me less.
My chops suck, but my PRS sure is sweet
It's all a risk vs. reward consideration. If you want excitement then you have to risk more, while other venues offer much less risk, but a pretty dull life too. Going to music school is the exciting way to life your life. ... Letting passion rule. (at least I hope it is, if you just want to nerd stuff then there are more profitable things to nerd)
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So what's a non-boring job? My job swings directly from boredom to terror.
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A bit like a pit orchestra gig Originally Posted by BigDaddyLoveHandles
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Originally Posted by Alter
music-related profession? maybe, but not to be a performer. going to Berklee for a year or two for networking and being discovered is the norm among those top-echelon players. the rest are wasting time and money unless they want to teach.
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I think it's worth mentioning that not everybody goes to Berklee for jazz performance. I know a young couple that met at Berklee, they were in music ed. They're into roots/acoustic music. Now they own a school/small performance space. None of my business, but I think they must have family backing.
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A lion tamer! Originally Posted by BigDaddyLoveHandles
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When I see these numbers where people are paying north of $5,000/year for to be educated in jazz I do give my head a scratch. That would equate to about 80 or 90 lessons a year with a top flight private jazz teacher here in Canada. With that you would get a one on one learning experience and, if the teacher is good, some tailored curriculum. Of course, it would be impossible to do that many lessons in a year and absorb it. You could probably do 40 tops and have tons to work on If you are dedicated and good your teacher will probably help you find gigs and people to play with eventually.
My gut feeling is that the value in the college experience comes from being surrounded by other learning musicians and getting to jam with them in combos with an instructor. I was at Humber College in Toronto in the 80s and it had a great reputation for jazz education. That said, the only memorable part for me was the 3 hour Monday, Wednesday, Friday combo run by Ron Collier. He didn't show for a third of the combos but we played anyway and had fun and learned. But... if we had available regular jam sessions we could have learned just as well without the need to lay out of $5K plus a year.
I have to agree with some of the pessimistic views of academia as it relates to music. I sometimes think it is where music goes to die after it has been dissected, codified and packaged into a "learning product"™. This is not a critique of teachers at all... I have more respect for them than any corporate lawyer, business person, plastic surgeon, politician etc but it is directed to the business that academia has become.
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Such a jaundiced view of education here. Whatever happened to studying something because it interests you?
I suppose taking joy in education is a decadent notion from a bygone age and now all we are meant to be interested in are job opportunities.
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It's possible to do both. People can't seem to get that through their heads though.
There's a real problem with the way education is viewed in America today. Heck--there's plenty of people here who think education at our nation's Universities only serves as an indoctrination into the radical left.
An uneducated populace is easier to control though.
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Me, too, cuz that's peanuts! Just what is Berklee's tuition? Originally Posted by Roberoo
That Berklee-Zappa medley? They should have done...
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Just go see Zappa plays Zappa
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You know Zappa, the enthusiastic capitalist who raison d’etre was to produce more work (and enjoy a comfortable family life) because it ... y’know .... interested him?
I have to say intuitively I doubt the music education system could produce another Zappa. It’s not talent per se ... it comes from something else. Zappa came from nowhere.
So Gumbo has something of a point in there, I feel.... the college system probably filters for certain types of individual.
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Maybe some are jaundiced but my point above is that it is possible to pursue what you love for far less than what academia demands. I quoted $5K per year and at a place like Berklee etc it is far more than that. That buys a lot of private lessons, theory books, CD' to lift parts from, shows to take in, instruments to buy... It is possible to self teach also with all the resources out there to help..say, a few basic theory books, some cds, a few technique books, time and some fellow musicians is all you need but, in a world of qualification inflation, that seems too far fetched for some. Originally Posted by christianm77
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To be clear, Zappa was largely self-taught, roight? He'd didn't go to a music school. Originally Posted by christianm77
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