Well you may find a mentor somewhere. Alot of top arrangers
teach at summer camps, Maria Schneider, Frank Mantooth, John
Clayton, ...
Having a mentor can really help things and at the same time
can totally cripple things. Teachers can mess you up in so
many ways and the from my experiences, the odds are in favor of
that happening .
Most great players and arrangers were essentially self taught.
I'm not saying this is the way to go. For myself, if I hadnt
had teachers I wouldnt have gotten past square one. I didnt
naturally have the right instincts and tools to approach something
like jazz on my own (whereas I did for other things like computers).
What I think is more practical is for you to find a great arranger
that will spend time working with you.
That has been my approach.
Rather than go to someone and say be my teacher or mentor (something
which never worked for me), I would go to them with something
very specific and practical that I am working on.
For example, if you take an arrangement to a teacher then they will
put on their professional arranging hat (instead of their teaching hat)
and hopefully make constructive comments.
Similarly, an arranger may show you one of their charts and explain
their thinking at each step.
What I do is avoid letting the teacher be a teacher. In other words
I try and keep them from putting on their teaching hat and instead
try and create a lesson environment which mimicks as close as
possible something that they do when they are working.
Alot of arrangers may be willing to work with you via
correspondence.
For example, consider someone like Mike Barone. He is in Seattle
area and I'm sure we can dig up his address somewhere. I'm sure
he is in in AFM (musicians union). Mike wrote for the tonight show
for many years and still does arranging for the grammy's, etc.
reed
Reed Kotler
reed@justjazz.com
http://www.justjazz.com