Since the untimely death of Michael Jackson on June the 25, 2009 there has been a re-focus of many in our industry, on the process of making great timeless recordings. Just look through any young person’s iTunes files or any dj’s record crates and you will see that music has had a new teaching method for some time now. The great music that was born from the time of budgets, major record companies,  musicians, and charts has been passed down from friends, relatives and used record stores. That’s right- the combination of great records and technology has given birth to a new way to educate several generations of new music makers. Many never had a formal music lesson. While others took their love of playing records and built there own door into music thruogh the music of the past. Whatever the story, the fact is truly great music, and timeless recordings all came about because of a process that involved many dedicated professionals all working from intent. Part of what makes the music great was the individual stories of the group interaction while creating the original recordings.

Contained in our recorded music from the past are some of the new ways to reach the musicians of the future. While we can’t bring the old times back we can use the music as a targeted educational tool. I have found some success in actually looking at each musician as an individual and using my experience to feed them the proper information so that they can see, hear, feel and understand that they are improving in their mastery of their instrument.

Nurturing talent is the responsibility that all experienced professionals share. No matter what the genre, the fact remains that Music is so powerful on it’s own that it reaches out and brings the most unlikely folks together to do amazing things.