Bert,
Well certainly. And I said that in my mail.
You took out the following paragraph from my original which conceded
this point:
"I'm not saying that one can't improve on what other players do but
I think it's helpful to get some kind of reality check before
investing alot of time doing something. "
For me though the I think that students should be suspicous regarding
practice methods. Afterall, we only get one lifetime. We don't
have time to go down some path on blind faith and then one day
wake up and realize we've lost 5 years.
There is too much of "trust me" . They say practice x and y
and then you will be z. Well I did that as a kid and it did nada
for me. In fact the landscape is littered with the carnage of
people that love jazz, wanted so much to play and trusted their teachers .
When I was a kid, I assumed that the excercises that I was being taught
had been taught to my teachers by top players.
Whereas I now know that if I tried to explain those things to top players
their eyes would roll back into their head.
For example when you talk to alot of top players about what they
did (and do), some kind of pattern has to emerge and it did for me.
(You also find out what they didnt do!)
Top players are too busy to waste time learning circus tricks and on
things that don't work for them. If they had they wouldn't be top players.
One thing one of my teachers told me is that "the only person that
will ever care if you get any good is you".
Another thing he said is that "you have to take responsibility for
your own education (i.e. not expect someone else to "teach" you)".
Any serious aspiring musicians should take heed to these warnings.
reed
Reed Kotler
reed@justjazz.com
http://www.justjazz.com