Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Becoming a professional


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Posted by Rick Denney on September 04, 2003 at 11:21:15:

In Reply to: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Becoming a professional posted by You... on September 04, 2003 at 07:47:50:

Sure they are. But that isn't what the argument is about. It's about the most effective means of getting a full-time professional tuba job.

Right Answers has done two things: 1. He imparted the reality of just how hard it is to get a professional tuba job, so that the student and the student's parents know the challenges ahead. Anyone who knows the challenges will be prepared to assess their own determination to overcome them. If they don't know the challenges, they will be pursuing a dream under false pretenses, and this will often lead to disaster.

2. If the goal is the gig, and not to be a musical and educated person, then the focus on education should be on job training and not on general education. Is a strong musical education useful to job training? Of course it is. But it is subservient to the primary training. Jacobs talked about his experiences at Curtis in terms of what he learned about performing music (i.e., the instruction he got from Donatelli--who met Right Answers' teacher requirements, by the way--and the musical education he got from Reiner, Tabuteau, and others). I don't recall him talking about his history or English courses being fundamentally important.

But I think that except for the highly gifted prodigy, the goal should not be the gig. The goal should be a solid general education (which, of course, can major in music). After that education, then the student can focus on job training, and he or she will be enough older to have a better grasp on what they really want to do. If it takes six hours a day of practice for several years to attain the technical skill needed to be competitive, this can occur after the degree more easily than during it, and it can occur under the tutelage of a teacher with the reputation to open doors and the skills to present a superior example.

Any intelligent and educated (in the general sense of the word) person will find a way to make a good living if they are willing to work. Few do so in the line of study they pursued as undergraduates, and this is especially true in music.

Rick "not confusing education with job training" Denney


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