Essential Skills for Promoting a Lifelong Love of Music and Music Making.

This article discusses essential skills to promote music and music making among students in the U.S. No one can absorb everything they need for a successful music-teaching career while still in school. The ever-changing world we live in makes this impossible. And not every skill we acquire has to come from an institute of learning. Both of us have worked with legendary performers and teachers who do not have graduate degrees. There are more than a few who did not graduate from college at all and a not-insignificant number who had no high school diploma. No one can absorb everything they need for a successful music-teaching career while still in school. The ever-changing world we live in makes this impossible. And not every skill we acquire has to come from an institute of learning. Both of us have worked with legendary performers and teachers who do not have graduate degrees. There are more than a few who did not graduate from college at all and a not-insignificant number who had no high school diploma. One of the essential skills of success is to learn to view yourself as someone who can gain the expertise to overcome these often real problems. We live in a world in which information and training is often just a mouse-click away. You will never rise above your own lack of knowledge. And you cannot gain that wisdom and those essential skills if you do not think of yourself as someone who can learn and overcome in an academic setting or out of one. INSET: Gail Berenson Offers an Example of "Raising the Bar".