Quote:
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Originally Posted by Manny Laureano Sam,
Take advantage of every chance you have to play.
BUT DON'T GO INTO TEACHING AS A FALLBACK JOB OR PATHWAY.
Teaching, like the ministry, is a calling and you should only teach if you love doing it and have an uncommon desire to share what you know with others.
ML |
Excellent point. I remember asking Barabara Butler if I should take some education classes in case I might want to teach some day. She said no, just be the best trumpet player you can be and people will come to you and want you to teach them.
I would add the caveat that every trumpet player, hell, every musician is and must be a teacher at some point: you got it from somewhere and it is your duty at some point to pass it along to the next group coming along. Just remember what your teachers told you, and keep trying to learn always yourself. Every year I try to do something I couldn't the year before, and that's a beautiful thing about music, no matter how far you go there's always the next thing.
The only teaching philosophy you need is Einstein's dictum that anyone who can't explain what they do to a 12-year-old is a fraud.
Michael McLaughlin
"When I was young I was amazed at Plutarch's statement that the elder Cato began at the age of eighty to learn Greek. I am amazed no longer. Old age is ready to undertake tasks that youth shirked because they would take too long."
Groucho Marx