A seven time Grammy Award winner, Gary Burton was born in 1943 and raised in Indiana. He taught himself to play the vibraphone and, at the age of 17, made his recording debut in Nashville, Tennessee, with guitarists Hank Garland and Chet Atkins. In the 1970s, Burton began his music education career with Berklee College of Music in Boston. Burton began as a teacher of percussion and improvisation at Berklee in 1971. In 1985 he was named Dean of Curriculum. In 1989, he received an honorary doctorate of music from the college, and in 1996, he was appointed Executive Vice President, responsible for overseeing the daily operation of the college.
Starting July 1st, we’ll read a few chapters a week. Each week, we will be putting up summaries and discussion points for the chapters. (Please use the link above to purchase your book. If you use this link, you will help support DrumChattr.)
After we finish the book, we will put together a Google Hangout to talk about the book. I am also going to email Mr. Burton and see if he will join us for an interview. Thanks and enjoy the book!
It’s really easy to get caught up in the success and failures of your career.
It’s human nature to identify our worth with the ups and downs of what is immediately happening. Maybe you just performed a piece that didn’t go so well. The result of this has always been for me to feel like I don’t even belong in the percussion world. Or – on the opposite side of the universe – maybe you just composed a piece for your ensemble and they learned it quickly, efficiently and it sounds great. All of a sudden, you feel like you should be on top of the percussion writing world.
What’s important is for us to realize is that if you’re having these ups and downs, it just means that you’re passionate about what you do. Every career runs in to some hard times, and that’s only magnified in the arts fields. But, at the end of the day, we’re all fortunate to know precisely what we’re passionate about. Many people wake up and go to work on a job they don’t really care for because they don’t know what else to do. As percussionists, we couldn’t imagine doing anything else besides percussion. We’re lucky because of that.
Elizabeth sums this up much more elegantly than I do…
For most of us in the college ranks, school has started or starts soon. In 2013, Dr. Carolyn Bremer wrote an email that she sent out to the students in the Bob Cole Conservatory. Below is the email she sent out (posted with her permission). Some of it is specific to to the BCCM, but a lot of it is applicable to music students everywhere. Have a great year and please add your thoughts below.
One of the most difficult aspects of life as a music major is managing your time. We put a lot of demands on you in ensembles, academics, lessons, classes outside of music, concert attendance, and learning from your peers. The theme of this little tome is:
It’s All About How You Spend Your Time
Here is a list of suggestions for how to survive school, do well, and be happy. (more…)
It’s August, and that means we’re on the threshold of a brand new school year. For the first time in 22 years, I am going to be walking onto campus as a full-time teacher, rather than a student. Perhaps it was a bit of nostalgia that inspired this post, but I wanted to make a list of fifteen things I’d want a brand new freshmen percussion major to know and hear as they prepare to start school. Some of these are things that I did, and I am thankful for, and others are things that I never thought of, and I’m hoping that you can learn from my mistakes. Even if you’re not a freshmen, hopefully this list can offer some good suggestions of how to make the most of your academic experience! (more…)
“People aren’t owed jobs because of (possibly bogus) qualifications or credentials; they get jobs because they can do something valuable for someone else.”
This mindset is sometimes lost in the percussion community. Degrees (especially performance ones) won’t actually get you anything in the real world. The skills and assets that you acquire while obtaining your degree can be of great value to you if applied in the right way. But, the piece of paper itself, not so much.
This article sums up these ideas rather nicely. As everybody heads back to school, make sure to ask yourself “What skills am I picking up here?” and “How will I apply these skills in the real world?” and “Are these skills going to be able to make me a living?”
Enjoy!
Originally posted on DrumChattr on August 17, 2013.
It’s almost back to school time, so I’ll share something on education today. I don’t know any truly professional percussionist who isn’t in the world of education in some form. It doesn’t matter if you are a full time teacher, independent contractor, freelancer, blogger or whatever. The vast majority of percussionists teach somewhere in the professional lives. Even people who strictly perform/play for a living most likely have somebody studying a Youtube video of them somewhere. So, they’re teachers. (more…)
