Berklee

[Ed Fuqua]

Originally Posted by Snarf

Okay, you're missing the point of music school, and that is to network. You can't do that with just a private teacher or just studying on your own, you have to be in that environment.

That's highly inaccurate, all you gotta do in NYC is show up and start hanging out at the jam sessions. Sure, you're already at music school, take a look around. Those are the people you're going to be playing with later. But the more I think about it, the more I feel that I would have been MUCH better off just taking my money and coming to NYC in 82 instead of Berklee. Especially if I had had enough sense to hook up with my teacher.


Oh, and KOALABONE, Wynton ain't gonna teach a class. The thing my buddy Dan (director of Academic Affairs at the New School) says is students get really excited about coming in and being able to study with Buster Williams or Kenny Barron or Jim Hall. Until it gets to the point that they have take incompletes or repeat a semester's work because whatever Big Name they got hooked up with is also trying to have a career and spent most of the semester out on tour. Not to mention those schools (like Berklee) that have a big name on faculty, but whose only "teaching" responsibility is one big masterclass a semester.
The other thing, even at schools where the "name" faculty does teach ensmebles, they're usually upper level ensembles. Which generally get populated by the better student players. Just something to bear in mind when you're assessing schools, you need to be thinking about where you would fit in at that school.

[fountain boy]

[quote=Ed Fuqua]That's highly inaccurate, all you gotta do in NYC is show up and start hanging out at the jam sessions. Sure, you're already at music school, take a look around. Those are the people you're going to be playing with later. But the more I think about it, the more I feel that I would have been MUCH better off just taking my money and coming to NYC in 82 instead of Berklee. Especially if I had had enough sense to hook up with my teacher.


Amen.

As someone who attended The Bass Collective in NYC and Jeff Berlin's Player School of Music, in hindsight, i would've been much better off directing my attention to developing my ear and trying to play with as many people as possible, than giving my devotion to these schools.

When you arrive at these schools, if your not naturally gifted musically (or have worked your tail off prior) or have extraordinary social skills/a dynamic personality, you'll quickly find out how click oriented these schools of higher learning can be.

The better players will naturally gravitate toward each other, form side projects outside of the class, get gigs and take off from there while you'll be stuck trying to play 3rd fiddle.