I can't speak for Lindsay of course, but Bo this view on taking lessons upon specifics that you want to learn rather than attending some course with a degree would be my approach if I could starts all over again, this IMO is brilliant advice and would help anybody to reach exactly what they want to do as a drummer and as a musician.
Thanks, it was just a realization I had whilst attending college, and it sorta gets me in trouble with people who live life by the academic mantra. I think college is great, especially for things that are directly related to how you'd earn a living, like being a lawyer, or a doctor, or a teacher, but musician-ing? If you are going to teach music, which to me is a separate discipline from being a performing musician, that's just teaching anyway. When I looked at the money being spent on music degrees as opposed to the amount of money you make back after you have that degree, it just pissed me off.
At least as a lawyer, or a doctor, or whatever, there's at least some chance of doing what you went to school for (and believe me, they're not having an easy time of right now either. I heard at the beginning of this summer that the law schools graduated thousands of lawyers, but there were no jobs for them to go into). But if you have a bachelor's degree in sociology, or music performance, or clinical psychology....well, sociology and psychology is a doctoring degree, but you must go well beyond the bachelor's to qualify (think Ph.D) you're still outta luck on that job front.
Just think if you took that $50,000.00 per year ($200,000.00 total) you were going to spend on going to school as a musician and instead spent it on lessons with pros, and hanging out trying to network with real players - you'd probably be much better off playing-wise (and would have spent alot less). But instead I see alot of people go to music school, come out so racked-up with debt, that their only choice is to stay a little longer and get a teaching credential so they can hopefully get a teaching job to pay off the debt. All the while, this just perpetuates the cycle of getting kids to buy into going to college for music performance, ending up being teachers, influencing other kids to continue into music school, and they in turn become teachers, etcs.,...
How angry would you be if you went to McDonalds, bought a Big Mac meal, and then threw it away? That's how I feel about the prices for higher education. If I pay for it, I want it to do something for me. It needs to make me money, or keep me from starving. If it doesn't guarantee I'll at least live at poverty level (which I won't accept
now) I'll not pursue it. It doesn't make smart sense.
Like I said, my view isn't popular, so understand I'm not trying to piss anybody off about it, that's just how it is because that's what I've seen happen over and over. Yes, there are those that really excel and get what they want, but be reasonable and look at the odds of it happening to you. Are you
really the next Evelyn Glennie? Or the next Anthony Cirone? Or Chris Lamb?
I, of course, am none of those people. However, I'm not bitter about it because I didn't complete music school to have the piece of paper saying that I
should be. I discovered what I really want to do, which was just to play and be entertaining (not just musically), and I went out and hung out with like-minded people to see how well I would do, and I think I'm doing OK. But I'm not $200,000 in debt for it, either.