Faculty Biography

"One of my classes is Introduction to Music Technology, which gets first-year students started using their new laptops. It's a required purchase that's their own personal recording studio and music production system. The class is very hands-on and interactive, because everyone's trying things out on their laptops. The sound of 30 people making music in a classroom—it's a great cacophony.

"I started teaching pretty early, at about 17. I just like to share what I think is cool with other people. For me, it's a basic, natural thing to want to turn people on to things that excite me. I'll try to show anyone anything about music. I'll sit down with my mom and say, 'No, no, Mom—look! Look—you just do this!' [Laughs.]

"The discovery of learning is very personal. Someone can show me the same thing over and over again, but it has to click for me personally. That's what I strive for. It's planting that seed and getting the person to internalize whatever it is we're talking about so that learning can happen.

"So I tell students that I can't 'learn' them something. I say, 'I can sit here till I'm blue in the face, show you how I do it, tell you why I do it, and give you example after example of why this is cool, but it's up to you to spend the time to get your head around this concept. That's when it's going to become yours.'"