Guitar
 |
Shaun Michaud, Assistant Professor
DEPARTMENT : Guitar Department"Teaching has made me a better guitar player; it's taught me a lot of things about how people learn and how I learn. And it helps me learn things faster. Anytime I need to learn something quickly, I think, 'How would I teach this to somebody?' And all of a sudden it clicks for me. I try to approach it that way with my students, as well. I ask them, 'If you had to show this to your roommate, how would you go about explaining it?'"
Read More |
G. Andrew Maness, Assistant Professor
DEPARTMENT : Guitar Department"I'm trying to instill professionalism in my students. That means doing their homework ahead of time on whatever situation they find themselves in, and then being as well prepared as possible. Don't give your word unless you intend to keep it. Show up on time. You need to maximize whatever it is that gives you the edge. Playing well is not enough; there are a lot of good players out there. What gives you the edge? Professionalism. A pleasant personality. Intelligence. Maximize it all. Being able to play is the icing on the cake, it's not the cake. The cake is all the other stuff."
Read More |
Sheryl Bailey, Associate Professor
DEPARTMENT : Guitar Department"The ideals of being professional—being prepared, being on time, having a good attitude, being someone who's friendly and easy to work with—sometimes is as important about getting the gig as anything. Because there are so many great players, the more that you're prepared and the more that you're a good person to work with, you're going to move to the top of the list of people to call.
Read More |
Kevin Belz, Assistant Professor
DEPARTMENT : Guitar Department"I try to teach the way I learned how to play. I use more ear-type training than music and hand-out sheets. In the real world, on gigs, 90 percent of the time you just get a CD to learn tunes. I have the students transcribe songs, not necessarily writing them down, but a lot of learning by ear, a lot of call and response stuff, transcriptions off records and CDs."
Read More |
Sal DiFusco, Associate Professor
DEPARTMENT : Guitar Department"I'm very tough, and have high expectations in the classroom. But while my students think my classes are challenging, I don't really expect them to perfect what I give them. You can be introduced to a lot of things and not master them until many years later. I just whet their appetites with a lot of concepts so they can develop them on their own."
Read More |
Jack Pezanelli, Professor
DEPARTMENT : Guitar Department"Berklee students come to me for my harmonic approach to jazz guitar. Even as a kid, I was dissatisfied with the way harmony was broached on the guitar. So I started to learn more from piano players than guitar players, which has given me a comprehensive, pianistic approach to melody and harmony on the guitar. Guitarists generally are not taught harmony on the fretboard in a comprehensive way. Pianists learn harmony through systems of inversion; if you do that with the guitar, what you end up with is a deeper understanding of applied harmony on the fretboard."
Read More |
Jane Miller, Associate Professor
DEPARTMENT : Guitar Department
"In the labs I teach, the class chemistry feels to me very much like leading a gig or running a show. In this case it's the students rather than the audience giving me the energy exchange; there's a definite back and forth going on. In the performance skills lab, I ask my students to pair up to work on their midterm project as a duo performance. They have to interpret the music, work out an arrangement, and rehearse together, and then perform it for the class. The final is a similar format except that I'm everybody's duo partner. There are no rehearsals; they talk me through it for a minute or two in class, and then we play together. They know it's on them to be able to tell me what they need from me and have an arrangement prepared."
Read More
 |
John Marasco, Associate Professor
DEPARTMENT : Guitar Department"The guitar is one of the most popular instruments in the world. From its beginnings in classical music to today's popular music, the guitar is heard in a wide spectrum of styles. I've always liked to play in many different styles, which has served me well over the years. Being able to play in various styles has helped me to work in many different situations, playing everything from classical to jazz to blues to rock. The guitar is versatile, but it's also very hard to master."
Read More |
Randy Roos, Associate Professor
DEPARTMENT : Guitar Department"My classroom teaching is more in the production range. The Recording Techniques for Guitarists class centers on giving students the basic skills to record themselves and small ensembles, and then to be able to work with those recordings production-wise to flush them out; orchestrate them; and mix them really nicely, with effects and coloration, to get them to sound polished and really well produced. A lot of students really need the basics in terms of the technical things, and we try to cover that as completely as possible, but always with the goal to making a recording that is moving to listen to in some way."
Read More |
Bruce Saunders, Professor
DEPARTMENT : Guitar Department"In my classes and private lessons I always try to point out the importance of playing with other people, as opposed to (or in addition to) locking yourself away in the practice room. There are psychological aspects of playing music with other people that one can only develop through personal musical interaction. For this reason, I try to play with students as much as I can in all my classes and especially in private lessons. There is so much we can learn about ourselves and others by playing together."
Read More