- As I said earlier,
it's important to get to know the people
in any given town who do the same thing that you do.
There are going to be some players in town there
such as the symphony players or the opera players,
who are several notches above where you are
and it might be good for you to get to know them
so then they could recommend you when the time comes.
Of course, the easiest way would be to call them up
and say, "Oh, can I take a lesson from you?"
Do a little soul searching as to why
you really want to take some lessons from somebody.
If the reason is you want to improve
and you want to get better
or you want to learn the style of how things are done
in that city,
and maybe it would be helpful to play for somebody
in the city,
I would recommend taking lessons.
I wouldn't call up and have a one-shot deal
and take a lesson in the hopes that this person
will then know you and then as a result of knowing you
they'll recommend you.
It would be better for it to be somewhat
of an ongoing situation, at least for six months or so
or until you felt like you learned what you need to learn.
If the reason for calling the person
and taking a lesson from them
is to learn from then, then that's very viable.
If the reason for calling the person
and having a one-shot lesson with them,
or two lessons with them,
is to use that person to get your foot in the door
then I wouldn't do it, because that's not fair to the person
and it also makes a bad impression.
You don't want to start out your relationship
in any given town creating bad impressions,
because bad impressions are very hard to rectify.