Berklee keeps the tradition going.

I'm a proud alumna of Berklee College of Music in Boston, MA. I am still a bit active with the college. I go to alumni events, I give money, and I try to see the college every once in a while. I love my "old school" not just because of the vibrant, youthful energy that's there, but because it is a great mix of the old school rules, and the talented students' contemporary applications (and discretionary breaking) of those rules to create great new work. But the traditions remain inseparable from the new creations.

When I was in school there, I got derisive comments from academic snobs along the lines of "How nice. I go to a real college.". From other, well-meaning people who didn't understand that it was a real school, I got "Wow, your school must be like [the movie and TV show] Fame!"

In my head, I'd respond "Yes, that's exactly what it's like. A vocalist has a dramatic moment, spontaneously bursts into song in the hallway, with accompanying music, and background singers that come out of nowhere; and people around her begin to dance for no reason."

At a recent event for Berklee alumni, I got to meet some graduates from the classes of 2006 and 2007 respectively. I asked whether they got the same types of comments today that I got "in my day". I was told that the big question the students of today get is "Are you going to try out for [TV show] American Idol?". The wiseass students today respond with something along the lines of "No, because I have some self-respect, and don't care to sound like Beyoncé or Whitney Houston (ca. 1985) to please some rich, spoiled, non-musician with power." I love that!

Sadder still is the fact that, in order to get discovered, American Idol (winner) Kelly Clarkson had to "sign her life away" to the producers of the show.

I had no idea how disgusting that show's setup is. But I should have known better, because (in that part of the music business) nothing's changed since my day. It's all a (disgusting) music industry "tradition"—"Pay For Play". (That is, paying a club owner for the privilege of performing on his stage. That's not just working for free..that's PAYING to work.)

Blues singers from 70 or 80 years ago had their intellectual property exploited by someone else, while the originators of the music got next to nothing; Little Richard took the the just-short-of-highway-robbery record deals that were offered to him early in his career. Black musicians were treated unfairly back then. Now there's less discrimination—musicians with any skin color can get ripped off equally by American Idol, and much lesser forums, media, or venues.

"Do it for the exposure" is the slogan of the exploiters in the entertainment industry. It's one of our emotional "hot buttons". "The Man" takes advantage of the creative artist's desire to express him/herself, and to be liked, and to have their work acknowledged, and to make a "living" doing what they love.

There's a slightly more dignified manner of "Pay for Play" today. They're called "bringer shows". The musicians (or comedians, for that matter) bring the audience. They ask friends, colleagues, relatives, and whoever else they can, to come to the show, and pay for drinks. Often there's no cover charge at "bringer shows". But the drinks ($5 for a small, watered down orange juice) subsidizes the comics' stage time. Getting up in front of people is the ONLY way to get better at it.

The really great performers who start out doing bringer shows didn't have to do them for long.

By college students' standards, I'm old—43 to be somewhat close to exact. And yet, Berklee has stayed the same, while progressing a whole lot. Tradition mixed with musical experimentation and creativity, along with a great sense of humor are part of what makes Berklee special. I love anything that has a sense of humor about itself—even a funeral.

Berklee's unique. It always has been, and always will be. The best way to illustrate how different and special Berklee is, would be to tell you about Christopher Guest's visit to the school. Christopher Guest was honored at Berklee with an honorary doctorate. He, along with a fantastic ensemble of Berklee faculty and students, performed arrangements and adaptions of selections from his body of music.

Over a hundred bassists accompanied Christopher for the evening's final number, Big Bottoms . "Bottom" is a musical colloquialism meaning the bass part. In musical colloquial/trade-speak, when one is "holding down the bottom", one is playing the bass (or bass guitar). If you read the lyrics , you'll see that's not what the song's about.

That one hundred bassists thing? That's unique to Berklee. It takes the "Big Bottoms" joke from the ridiculous to the absurd! The students are, on the whole, a very talented bunch. They're very dedicated, but they don't miss out on the good times.

My favorite teachers at Berklee were Ken Zambello and Bob Freedman—with a special honor going to Bill Leavitt—founding chairman of the Guitar Department. If all I'd gotten out of Berklee was my time with these three great musicians/teachers, it'd have been more than enough.

I loved Ken as a teacher because he took rock and roll seriously. He approached it intellectually and technically, and with great respect. He would dissect it, and show us—his students—that it, like every other great genre of music, was an outgrowth of other traditions/genres. Without understanding what came before, it's really hard to understand how to properly and professionally execute any given genre.

"A-Wop-bop-a-loo-bop a-lop-bam-boom!"???

What the hell was that? Well, Little Richard may have composed that lyric himself, but he didn't invent the phenomenon of singing non-lyrics. There was scat singing well before him.

Little Richard was an original. But, did he create everything he did out of thin air? No. There was Louis Jordan not too far before him. And before Louis Jordan? There was Louis Armstrong, then the blues singers, then Africa. Frankly, I know almost nothing of African music.

Little Richard, Ray Charles, and others developed their styles out of a mix of gospel, jazz, earlier popular music, and jazz. One of Billy Joel's biggest influences was Ray Charles; another great source of Billy Joel's inspiration was The Beatles. The Beatles were influenced by Chuck Berry and Elvis Presley. Elvis also loved black blues singers and gospel and took a lot out of it. Every great musician comes from some great tradition that came before they did.

I'm pretty sure the name of the first class I took with Ken was "Rock Analysis" He played Chuck Berry, Bill Haley and the Comets and Oingo Boingo. And taking their music apart, and understanding the elements of it was real work. Ken also directed an ensemble in which I was a student-musician. He had us listen to recordings of pop songs, and try to play the song as it had been played on the original, with a slight adaptation for the ensemble of the moment.

In that class he pointed out (and then we heard what we already knew was there, but didn't know it well enough to articulate it), that some of the instruments were playing straight (think the guitar, bass, and drums on Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band) and the guitars, the bass, and the vocal were playing swing (think Little Richard's Tutti Frutti). The elements of jazz were coming together with a more driving, set of rhythmic elements.

Did Bill Haley know what the hell all that meant? Probably not. Doesn't make it any less serious. Some of you won't get this, but the greatest thing I learned from Ken Zambello, is that we'd better learn music as a trade, and learn in depth about the styles that have already been successful, so that we can make it in commercial music. Although he said many funny things in my classes with him, my favorite was "Nobody's going to pay to hear your 7/8 Reggae version of Take Five." In English? He told students that there's a constant struggle between art and commerce. And while one shouldn't compromise on one's art, that's not always going to pay the rent. He also told students that if we are serious about music, we have to understand it thoroughly. Listening to a record, and being able to "copy" it is part skill, and part talent. After I took Ken's classes, I listened to rock and roll with "new ears". I was able to do things after his classes that I would never have been able to do without them. I had so much more respect for rock and roll. Since he released The Stranger, Billy Joel had always been my favorite pop music composer. Billy knows rock and roll as an art form, but also understands its forms, and its inner workings. He can dissect the songs he fell in love with, and that made him love rock and roll.

When he did an album in a particular style, he understood that style completely, and gave it his particular take.

That's reality. Imagine that! Liberal Arts colleges probably have lots of "Intro to Basket Weaving" type classes, and "Analysis of the eleventh notes in Arnold Schoenberg's twelve-tone pieces". How can anyone make a living from that? Ken was (and obviously still is) aware of the realities of art and commerce. He gave it to us in exactly the doses we needed.

And so, we are able to mix tradition with experimentation to make bold new work that has a solid, grounded foundation. What does this have to do with anything important?

In the Book of Proverbs we're taught that there's "nothing new under the sun". It's really true. The computer industry hasn't had anything new in a long time. It may seem new, but it's all been done before in cruder forms. The World Wide Web may come closest to anything truly new, but it's all just a big, complicated network.

With music? Hell, no. Ken Zambello said "Stevie Wonder didn't invent the II V.". Neither did Duke Ellington. Neither did Bach.

(I had a heck of a time finding a decent link to explain the II V (pronounced two-five. The first two chords to the song "Satin Doll" (Dmin7 and G7, in the key of C), also the first two chords to "Tea for Two".)