Among the many ways to motivate a young musician one of the finest ways is to take that young musician to a concert. It really doesn’t matter what kind of concert it is – it just has to be a concert of good music.

I remember well when I was probably 14 I was invited to see Errol Garner play at the Sacramento Memorial Auditorium for a concert and I barely knew who Errol Garner was at that time. He was the great jazz pianist who composed Misty and lots of other wonderful tunes but I had no idea what I was in for – it was just a piano concert and I thought “well, how can a piano without an orchestra or band entertain everybody for a full two hours?” To the surprise of my life I had no idea before that the piano could be played that well to make it sound like an orchestra and more than an orchestra – to sound like nature itself with the dancing keys in the high glissando and the deep bass chords – all the exciting stuff that the best of music has to offer. I remember he played “I remember April” a great jazz tune of that era and I just was so thrilled because I had no idea that music could be that exciting.

After the concert it was about an hour back to my home. I got home probably 11 o’clock or so but I remember staying up late and probably driving my parents mad but I just couldn’t get enough of what I had heard and wanted to try out all that on the piano. Of course what I played I’m sure sounded silly and continued to sound silly for lots of years and of course compared to Errol Garner it still sounds silly but I was inspired to really practice hard after that and learn my chords and to learn improvisation and so on. So that was a great motivation in my life – that single two hour concert.

A year or so later I was invited to attend another concert at the Memorial Auditorium of touring there in Sacramento on 16th St., (still there by the way) and this concert was called Jazz at the Philharmonic -a guy and impresario named Norman Granz organized this concert. He got a bunch of great jazz musicians together to play in this concert. I remember some of the musicians that were there were Illinois Jacquet, Sonny Stitt, Ray Brown the great bassist, Oscar Peterson the great pianist from Canada who greatly influenced me as well and again I had no idea the piano could be played like that. He was different than Garner but equally as exciting. I also saw Ella Fitzgerald, Stan Getz and many other of the great classic artists of that day and of course they are all in the Jazz Hall of Fame right now. So that was another concert that greatly motivated me to practice and to learn my my chords in and learn how to improvise and so on very very inspiring.

Still another concert that I went to when I was so probably 15 was a classical concert – an opera called “Amal And The Night Visitors” by Gian Carlo Menotti and it was a wonderful opera is based on the story of the of the Oriental Wise Men coming to see the baby Jesus from the East with very haunting music – exciting stuff – great singing, great music. That was another inspiring concert.

Then when I was about 16 or 17 the Dave Brubeck Quartet came to my high school auditorium in Auburn California to Placer high school and Dave had his whole Quartet there including the great alto sax man Paul Desmond and of course bass and drums. I don’t recall who was on bass and drums at that time. It was so exciting to see the interplay between Desmond and Brubeck as one would play a melodic line and the other would imitate it or play it back upside down or inside out – playing little games of cat and mouse – all off-the-cuff, all improvising and it was just extremely exciting and again it motivated me highly to start practicing and refine some of the things that I had wanted to learn.

So never underestimate the power of a concert to motivate a young musician. It has the power to make them excited and to get them practicing and to let them see that lessons are worthwhile and that some worthy goals lie ahead for them, and that these kinds of goals are achievable.