[Dixielandjazz] Marty Erickson's "Hire Education"

Dan Augustine ds.augustine at mail.utexas.edu
Tue Oct 24 12:02:05 PDT 2006


     Here's what Marty Erickson replied when i sent him Wynton 
Marsalis' advice to Juilliard's 2006 Graduating Class (thanks to 
Steve Barbone and Norm Vickers for sending it).  I wish that i had 
had such a great teacher and this kind of advice and training. 
Dan
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>>I tell my students all the time the line: If someone says "Can 
>>you......" that they must answer "Yes, I can" before they finish 
>>the sentence. I teach "Hire education", a word borrowed from the 
>>great Rich Matteson, meaning that by the time my students leave 
>>here they should be able to play the orchestral excerpts, band 
>>excerpts, play a walking bass line, take a little solo, play a 
>>Strauss Waltz or a Sousa march and generally, be conversant in 
>>every musical style; know how to talk to a sponsor, a radio 
>>station, a newspaper, a custodian who opens the doors to the hall 
>>and rehearal rooms, an agent, a recording engineer, a 
>>composer/arranger, a grant committee, a dean, a director of the 
>>school of music, a conductor, a contractor, a congressman, senator, 
>>governor, president, and most importantly, to their family and 
>>friends.  They must do this with respect, with humility, with 
>>confidence, with honesty, with courage, with pride, with 
>>understanding, with sincerity, with purpose, with a goal to make 
>>things better, or at least fun or more interesting, and with a tip 
>>of the hat to all those folks who went before us to give us the 
>>opportunity to stand on their shoulders!
>>Marty Erickson

-- 
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**  Dan Augustine  --  Austin, Texas  --  ds.augustine at mail.utexas.edu
** "Education, n. That which discloses to the wise and disguises from
**  the foolish their lack of understanding." -- Ambrose Bierce 
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