ecarroll

Sandy,

You make interesting points. Thanks for a thoughtful post.

The most compelling reason that I can put forward to pursue a performance degree is not for the lessons, course-work, and ensemble training that one receives, but to be surrounded by peers with similar skills and similar career aspirations. I suppose the same might be said about most any undergraduate degree. That said, a Juilliard degree (I have 2) hanging from the wall is useless. It's what you know, not where you trained.

Conversely, we both can name icons in our field that didn't study music in college and have done wonderfully. I suppose that it's safe to say that there are as many paths through life as people walking them.

Young trumpeters on the cusp of professional training should take a long, hard inward look and HONESTLY decide what's best for themselves. Bud suggested the same of me when I was a kid, citing the same traps that we see before ourselves today. It worked out ok for me (he says, nervously).

By the way, for those of you who mentioned them, I'm a BIG fan of music education degrees, but not as a fall-back. In my humble opinion, those who choose to teach should be encouraged on every level, and they must be the type of person that will follow it with single-minded passion if we're to regain a cultural foothold.

Apropos to the discussion, a quick story: my best friend in high school and during my 2 undergraduate years at Northwestern went on to become the bass trombonist at the MET and, later, the Minnesota Orchestra. He left the orchestra in mid career, became an Outward Bound trainer, a bartender, taught a bit, and later went to law school. He passed the bar in Cook Co. and is now a practicing attorney in Chicago. I think that he still practices his trombone as well. He should -- he's great.

Following my own path to Montreal in the AM,
EC