Throughout most of my life when my Mother was alive, she hammered a point to me that I now feel so strongly about that I've come to repeat it to many people (especially young people). That point is: "learn something every semester of your life." The reason that it is so important is that with an education you have a ticket to the world and pretty much everything in it.
Over the course of a life filled with trying, crying and prying I know for a fact that had I not gotten my education, that world would be a closed book to me. This is not to say that getting that education proved to be the end all be all, but it definitely was better than not having it. It's also not to say that during the crossing of that path that there weren't many many obstacles.
I've had many arguments with people about getting a formal eduaction as opposed to getting a bandstand education which like it or not has definite merit, because sometimes studying with the masters can be as great an education as going to school, although, you have to see this and admit it: only once in a blue moon do you have a Charlie Parker, Steve Ferguson, or a Ray Charles, it just doesn't always happen like that. While there is no denying the absolute talent of people like those that I just mentioned, even they I'm certain would admit their lives could have progressed even farther had they gotten the chance to go to school and structuralize that talent.
One reason for that is that formal education will at least give you some form of disipline, if for nothing other than to get you in a mode to practice regularly to become ultra familiar with your voice or musical instrument among other things.
A case in point: some time ago The Carpenter Ants got together with our producer Don Dixon to record a song that Michael had written. It was decided that it would be fun to add a Tuba part to it, to give it a sort of Polka feel. Our bassist, Ted Harrison also doubles on Tuba; well he went home broke out his Tuba and started practicing really hard to get into shape to play it for the record. When it came time to record not only did Ted completely nail the part, he also played it flawlessly. You can believe this or not but it was so inspiring to me, I was as proud as if I had just witnessed the birth of my child... a testament to his self disipline.
In the TV movie "Roots," Kunte Kinte held up his newborn son to the heavens and proclaimed "behold, the only thing greater than yourself." I feel that way about education.
One of the greatest lessons that I learned from my Father was to be open to multi tasking; in that I should learn about more than the instrument that I chose to play, thereby gaining some perspective on the entire realm of music...it was from that standpoint that I became a singer as well as an instrumentalist. My Dad came from the same place that my Mom did as far as dealing with education. His thing though, was about eloquence. One of his biggest pet peeves was hearing someone who couldn't speak English well. No, not our foreign brothers and sisters, that's dialect, he meant people who refused to try and gain a feel for the language of the country.
He felt that slang was fine when you're with you buddies hanging out at the Yankee game, but when it really counted ( and for African Americans, that's all the time) you need to be able to communicate succinctly at all times.
As I garnered my musical experiences, my parents really helped by showing me how to know the difference between people who were just getting by and people who were truly all about their art. I've been fairly fortunate to be in the presence of musical giants and geniuses, and I have learned a great deal from both, I owe what I have to the fact that I could articulate, demonstrate and aggregate all that I have learned.
In this semester of my life I'm still open to being taught and I'm a willing participant.
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