Well, I finished the five-week program at Berklee College of Music recently. Upon leaving, my heart felt heavier than ever. It's difficult to say that I learned anything significant from this program. If anything, it felt like I was downright talentless compared to the other musicians, most of which were just fresh to high school.
I took twelve courses during this five week period ranging from Advanced Music Theory to Beginning Sight-reading, from Funk/Fusion Synthesizer class to Musicianship, from performing in Jazz/Funk ensembles to taking a dance class teaching us on how to move on stage. Most classes were fun to some degree. There was no question that I'd rather have taken a class on how to improvise on piano instead of a class on just about any other subject. I really had no right to complain.
Nonetheless, I had several qualms throughout the whole ordeal. My teachers seemed so unenthusiastic about teaching a subject that seems to generate enthusiasm on its own. One of my teachers in particular, my Music Theory and Musicianship teacher, whom I saw nearly every day, rubbed me the wrong way. He looked identical to Bruce Willis in almost every way, except for the fact that he had a long ponytail and earrings (the standard cranial accessories for musicians). Okay, so first of all, he was the biggest hardass when it came to pretty much everything. You'd think a musician would be more nonchalant, especially one who appeared so unenthusiastic. He gave us mountains of homework whilst expecting us to practice obsolete exercises with our instruments. He even made us memorize an entire five-minute Miles Davis solo and be able to sing and play it. One slip-up and he'd freak out, and when we did anything that deserved recognition, we received none. His classes were frustrating.
The kids in my classes were on average about three to four years younger than me. I kind of felt like I was a tenth grader again except for one aspect: when it came to music, my classmates were frightening. Seriously, they'll be performing at Carnegie Hall pretty soon. I felt completely out of my element despite my advantage of extra years of musical study. Music seemed to just come naturally to them and I became jealous. One of the projects we did involved us listening to a famous musical solo of our own choosing and transcribing it by ear note by note and then playing it from memory. I chose a 45 second Keith Jarrett solo during one of his most famous performances of the classic "Somewhere Over the Rainbow." It wasn't absurdly hard but it was tedious to figure out. Other students chose some of the longest most difficult solos I had ever heard. They played them like they were nothing. They were the types of solos that would make my jaw drop when someone other than a seventeen-year-old played them. I wanted to curl up into a ball by the end.
This whole program has made me have some serious confidence issues, just what I need. At the end, I even sent a sensitive e-mail to Mr. Bruce Willis asking if I should even bother choosing a career in music and if it was a feasible option for me based on his scrutinization of my musical abilities. I have yet to hear from him. It's the icing on the cake. Maybe this whole music thing isn't the right thing to do.
