Starry Nights reaches into classroom

Sisters students already know how much the Sisters Starry Nights Concert Series has helped them financially.

This week, a group of Americana Project students got some extra help — in the form of music career advice and insight from Nitty Gritty Dirt Band multi-instrumentalist John McEuen and his son Jonathan.

Impressed by the number of students interested in pursuing music beyond high school, John McEuen told the Americana Project students on Monday to bear in mind that the term “Music Business” has two words.

“I have a long list of people I know who didn’t know the second word was there,” he said.

Many highly successful artists wind up broke because of that lack of business sense.

McEuen described his work scoring films as well as working with a band and as an independent act.

He urged students to develop their creativity, both because it is the most satisfying way to play music and because it is the creators who make the money on the artistic side of the musicbusiness.

“Nobody wants to hear somebody who does a really great version of somebody else’s music,” he said. “You’re the only person who plays like you. You don’t have to be great.”

Last Friday, McEuen’s son Jonathan visited the Americana Project class. He, too, shared his perspective on the music business. Jonathan McEuen is a rising artist, part of the duo Hanna-McEuen, which opened the Starry Nights show for the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band.

Jonathan connected well with the students, who are not much younger than he is. They discussed the way artists mix genres and cross over in collaborations between country and rock and hip-hop artists.

The classroom visits are part of Starry Nights’ outreach effort, a way of exposing students to the real world experiences of major artists.

The Sisters Middle School Americana Project class joined the high school group on Monday.

Author Bio

Jim Cornelius, Editor in Chief

Jim Cornelius is editor in chief of The Nugget and author of “Warriors of the Wildlands: True Tales of the Frontier Partisans.” A history buff, he explores frontier history across three centuries and several continents on his podcast, The Frontier Partisans. For more information visit www.frontierpartisans.com.

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