When I am done with this degree I will have an immense amount of satisfaction.  I can feel the level of intellect with which I write and speak and comment on music is rising, so I might even be able to comport myself like a civilized human being when this is all over.   At the very least I will most likely get paid more by the institution at which I teach, and if we wind up living somewhere else I will be hireable.  

I’m telling lots of jokes here to keep this interesting, but really I am learning so much in this program and I wish I’d done it sooner.  I hope to graduate before I am eligible for the AARP.   It’s making me a better teacher, too.  

So I applied.  Not to a whole lot of schools, just to NEC, my alma mater, where some people still know me, and if that didn’t work then I’d weigh my options.  I got some super recommendations.  I sat in a room and took 8 hours of History and Theory entrance exams (after reading music history books and reviewing German 6th chords for a few months).  When I went to audition it was for Ken Schaphorst and Frank Carlberg, who used to crash on my couch in J.P. when he was in town in the late 90’s...

So, I’ve spent the last almost 20 years spending my teaching income (I teach sometimes at University of NH, and I taught for a few years at the University of Southern Maine) on my creative career.  I’ve tried to produce records for a variety of artists, write tunes and arrangements for them and support them through the recording process.  I’ve played with lots and lots and lots and lots of singers, and that is often fun.  There have been peaks and valleys to this playing career of mine… 

So, I decided to go back to school.  My pal and frequent musical collaborator David Scott asked me to write about it for the BFU blog.

Either Albert Einstein or Mark Twain famously said (on their Facebook profiles) “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result.”