Students Learn Music Biz Not All Fortune, Fame : Performing arts: Executives, stars gather at Hamilton High to discuss the wide range of careers. They emphasize it takes practice, patience, desire.

The most valuable traits for anyone considering a career in the music business?

Patience and passion.

That was the primary message given to about 1,000 Los Angeles-area high school music students by recording stars, executives and other music industry figures at the National Academy of Recording Arts & Sciences’ fourth annual “Grammy in the Schools” day last week at Hamilton High School, Los Angeles’ performing arts magnet school.

“You have to have a passion for it,” said Norman Pattiz, chairman and chief executive of Westwood One Broadcasting, a Hamilton alumnus and the namesake of the auditorium in which he spoke. “You have to be able to get through the tough times as well as the good times.”

Illustrating the point, Pattiz was followed by Real Seduction, a vocal quartet performing a hip-hop/doo-wop hybrid it calls “new-wop.” The group explained that its first album is just coming out next month after 11 years of working toward that goal.

The bulk of the day’s program consisted of a variety of student and professional music performances. But the primary message, and a reminder that the vast majority of career opportunities in the music business are non-performing, was repeated by a series of guests. Among those expressing the thought: 18-year-old R&B; singer Shanice Wilson, rapper Mellow Man Ace, and former Monkee and current record and video executive Mike Nesmith.

The focus during the all-day affair didn’t just center on contemporary pop music. Students also heard presentations by Hamilton’s ‘50s-modeled vocal jazz ensemble (a Gershwin medley with Wilson sitting in), a madrigal group and several symphonic pieces.

The young audience, though, seemed grateful for both the exposure to the music and any clues they could get about music careers--not to mention a day off from the normal school routine. And where else could they see a member of the teen-age Motown group the Boys introduce a classical concerto saying: “Check it out, I’m sure it will be dope”?

“I like all music, from Count Basie and John Coltrane to the Dead Kennedys,” said Carlos Ortiz, a 16-year-old sophomore at North Hollywood High School and a rock drummer. “This program shows that no matter haw many different cultures you have here, music is all the same.”

Perhaps the most dramatic note of impatience came from the academy’s national president, Michael Greene, who in moderating the program returned several times to the topic of arts education funding, which he said is a low priority for the Bush Administration.

Following the student symphony’s concerto performance, Greene told the crowd, “Since 1980 we have half the number of kids playing in symphonies. It’s important that this kind of activity is carried on in high schools.”