amazing technique and feel, check out the solo at 3:40

There are 15 comments, leave a comment.
she is, of course, a goddess...
but i prefer listening to her than watching.

my age, i guess, but over-emoting gives me the heebie-jeebies.  it feels too much like 'ove me, please, i'm a jazz musician'.

don't flame me for this - i'm a buttoned-up brit and was raised this way.

sid
sorry please delete extra copy
that's 'love me...'
terrible technique on all kinds of keyboard.
i went to bezerkly.  luckily my parents were paying otherwise it never would have happened.  and i went 20 + years ago when it was slightly more reasonable.  i often tell students and their parents today if they can deal with not having a college piece of paper that private study is the way to go.  much better education... much cheaper.
on the east coast i highly reccomend dave frank in manhattan ny... former berklee piano faculty, former lennie tristano student... and published author...  great teacher of all things jazz piano and more.
i know hiromi and she can't help making facial expressions. she gets carried away when she's playing. and i have seen many of her perforamces and that is the only one where she cried. it's because somebody close to her had died.  

i too make facial expressions and noises when i play. so does keith jarrett, erroll garner, and monty alexander. talk about distracting facial expressions, watch classical pianist michiko uchida.
yeah, get the best teacher you can and if you want to go to college, study something besides music.
i've been to one of hiromi's performances and she is just a very expressive, emotive person... i think her expressions are very genuine and one of the things i really enjoy about her.  what great energy.
you certainly do not need a music degree to make a living playing music.  however you do need one to teach in most school systems and i don't think it really matters where you get your degree.

i would think the main benefit of going to a notable school like berklee, north texas state, etc is the networking element.  a lot of talented and reputable people teach and study at those places.  

the benefit of getting a non-music degree and working in the regular world is that it greatly reduces the risk of burn-out.  if you do not need to scrape gigs to earn a living you may be able to pick and choose the types of gigs you want to do and therefore enjoy your music more.

i made my living playing for about 30 years and enjoyed most of it, but i admit i don't have a lot of money to show for it.  my friends that had regular jobs are sitting a lot prettier than i:)
so how much is berklee these days?
a google search retrieved this:

ranks 896th overall and 50th in massachusetts
  
   total cost
on-campus attendance
  $47,856
admission
success rate
  49%
student ratio
ratio of students to faculty
  16 : 1
retention
(full-time / part-time)
  80% / 50%
enrollment
total (all students)
  3,894
paul, i love your comment, i once gave the same advice to the mother of a high school student.  i told her that you don't need a degree to be a successful musician, but in other fields you do need a degree, so if she really wants to go to college, study something else.
all of berklee's textbooks can be bought by anyone online.

it is perfectly possible to get the berklee knowledge without the expense.

granted there are certain aspects of music that are best conveyed directly from human-to-human, but that human doesn't necessarily have to be stationed in berklee.

most everybody who really knows their stuff agree on the majority of topics. meaning that: information is to be had via any professional level teacher anywhere in the world.
i was disapointed to discover berkelee does not have any piano  proficiency  requirmnent.
i agree that it's not necessary to go to college to learn to play.  it's also true that, unless you want to teach music in a school or institution, a music degree as a qualification is a fairly useless commodity!

however, aside from the musical tuition, there are other aspects to college life that are worth consideration and getting a qualification is only one side of equation.  

i've suppose i kind of an insight into both worlds as my degree is classical but i have never had any formal jazz education, or even had lessons from any players so have studied music both ways.

firstly, as whacky pointed out, if you go to college you will be at there with a whole host of other musicians where you will make friends and contacts that will undoubtedly be of benefit in years to come.  networking is just as important for musicians as it is for conventional businessmen (possibly more so - even though most of us suck at it, me included!)

secondly, being around other players is a great learning resource in itself.  i learnt as much at college in practice rooms from other students than i did from the formal teaching sessions from the faculty.  i've never since been in a situation since where i am surrounded by musicians who have nothing to do all day but work on music.  

thirdly, the college years are as much about learning who you are and discovering your identity as they are about learning about your chosen subject.  

it's certainly not necessary to go to berklee (in fact i don't know anything about it being from the other side of the pond) but i would recommend to anyone that if they don't go to college, they move away from home and learn how to live on their own two feet in their late teens/early 20's.

getting a job as soon as you leave school and living with your parents is not really living, it's postponing adult life and simply swapping work for school.

as for your original post styles, i'm sorry this thread has got sidetracked from your question about alternative study options and turned into a general discussion about the benefits of college: the best advice i can give you is if you decide not to go to college, move to a big city where there are good players and take lessons from a several of them.

the final advantage of college i'll mention is that you will be introduced to a variety of different viewpoints on most things whereas if you study exclusively with one teacher, no matter how good they are, you are only getting one perspective.

if you do go down the root of studying privately, make sure you take lessons from a number of players so you get an 'all-round' education.

of course, there are other colleges in the world than berklee so pperhaps some of the east coast guys on here could recommend alternative colleges for styles?

let us know what you decide...
well as far as music goes there are two of the best in the world in boston.  other than berklee there is also "the new england conservatory of music"  the conservatory has a stronger classical dept. that berklee does but it also has a world renknowned jazz dept with such famous faculty as the recently deceased george russell.
  when you do a session with a top call player in the boston area who is not a berklee guy he often turns out to be a ne conservatory dude.
you can almost count on it.
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