Agree totally with @bridgenail and @stiege , that with music there are a lot of variables. In classical music having the right teacher is important, but that in of itself has caveats to it. In general, the ‘great teachers’ bandied about often is a name, often someone who achieved as a performer. The problem? Can they teach? some of the best violin teachers out there were never superstar performers. And yes, it also depends what you are looking for, if you are looking to get into an orchestra, there are teachers and programs that aim at that, where the teacher is part of it, but the orchestra program or chamber program matters.
And yes, the other students matter too and that transcends the genre. The level of the other kids matters, being around kids who are really into it, and are playing at a high level, can make a huge difference. With Jazz, what Stiege said makes perfect sense to me with the little I really know of it.
And herein lies one of the condundrums of music, there is no perfect path, no golden path, because so many factors are involved. You can find the perfect teacher for you (or what you think is), but other factors at that program make life miserable, or you find the teacher doesn’t work with the path you want to be on. My son talked about that, there were things that he had been seeking out with his playing, that he thought a great teacher would do for him (and he had two fantastic teachers in their own ways, for different reasons), that in reality he said he figured it out when he started playing chamber with the people now in his group, it drove him to figure it out.
A teacher still looms large in many contexts,and while you may not get the perfect teacher, they still are important. In the end you can’t really see the future with all this, what will be important, what won’t. With a teacher, you are going by reputation (that may or may not mean anything), and what your exposure to them (if you had it) meant. You don’t really know what a program is like until you go there, and experience it. And a lot is going to be how well the music student can evaluate what is going on, and either using what is there as effectively as possible or perhaps transferring. It is about being able to see and take opportunities, coachings, master classes, the ability to do performances on campus and off.
The reason there is no golden path in all of this, not the school you go to, not the teacher you study with, or the summer programs or the festivals you do, creates a golden path, they all in reality end up being what the student does with it. There are summer music festivals that my son was told ‘he had to go to’, because high level students from big time pre college and college programs went to, that he didn’t do, and later on he felt strongly he wouldn’t hve gotten anything out of them, but did programs that more than a few people said were a waste of time, ‘a summer of fun’, that turned out to literally be life changing for him. Other kids could do what he did and say “it was a waste”. One piece of advice fwiw is that a music student has to evaluate what they want, and constantly evaluate where it is working and where it isn’t, and adjust. In the end it will be how well the budding musician is able to internalize their path, and have the faith and determination to decide what and how to do things to meet that path. It isn’t easy and at times it is downright scary because it is easy to see disaster around every decision bc it isn’t clear. Decision paralysis is one thing that can hurt a music student, being afraid to choose the path or paths for fear of making the wrong one. Have the confidence in yourself that you can make decisions and that you have the resiliency to adjust when the gameplan you had isn’t working, or maybe even changing the goal you are reaching for.
