Re: Re: 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 12:33:08:

In Reply to: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Becoming a professional posted by At this point... on September 04, 2003 at 11:51:24:

I don't disagree with your conclusions, but I don't see where they differ from Right Answers' conclusions.

You say, the best path to "better served" is a good education. RA says that the best path to a professional tuba gig is apprenticing with a top pro, with doing so in a "trade school" being one way of achieving that.

I agree with both points of view. In my post, I suggest that the goal of being a pro tuba player (i.e., the goal is the gig) is premature for a high-schooler except for the exceptional few prodigies for whom there is obviously no other path. Those few should proceed directly to a conservatory or a private studio, it seems to me. I recommend the goal of being well educated first, and then seeking job training (in whatever field). As I said, a well-educated and intelligent person can always make a good living if they are willing to work. Isn't that what you said? Isn't Joe Robinson, as you describe him, an example of this path?

The only difference between what I am suggesting and what RA has outlined is that for most students I'd want to see the education first, followed by the job training as he describes it. I happen to agree that a good general education makes people better at lots of things, including the process for becoming better at anything.

The important point is not to confuse the good general education with the job training, as do most parents. They think that a BA in music will make their kid a pro musician, just as a BS in engineering will make their kid an engineer (both expectations are false). The job training may come sooner or later, but it is still the path to expertise.

I read the series of top pros in RA's line of pictures as being examples of those who took the path to the professional ranks that was straightest, at the time. Those who got picked before their orchestra had stringent requirements were a side issue, and even if nobody was willing to post their pictures, it wouldn't be part of the point RA was making. He was saying that those who want a paying gig must learn at the hands of an accomplished pro, by whatever means, and he presented a number of examples, some historic, of those who did so without any college degree or without a music degree.

Rick "who doesn't mind pulling an errant thread back towards the topic, at least once in a while" Denney


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