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"I understand what skills a writer needs to survive, and those are what I try to teach. To make a living and have a high professional quality of life, one needs to be able to write good music quickly. In the Contemporary Writing and Production Department, we train students to deal with any situation they might encounter as professional writers. The curriculum is not focused on any particular style. Instead, we deal with typical situations in which writers may find themselves in the music industry, be it music for radio, TV, electronic games, or multimedia; arranging and production for live performance and recording; writing original music; or producing other artists."
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"At Berklee in general, and in our department especially, we strike the right path between the traditional composition and arranging techniques and the technological aspect of production. We teach the latest technology in terms of production, recording, and sequencing, but we also provide our students with the traditional orchestration techniques for acoustic ensembles, tools that are extremely valuable these days to any professional musician. I always strongly encourage my students to stay updated on new musical trends, new arranging techniques, new styles, and new technologies. Technology should be regarded as a tool to improve the quality of music and to help develop new musical idioms, but it is imperative for the student to sustain a balance that includes strong musicianship"
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Tsunenori "Lee" Abe, Assistant Professor
DEPARTMENT : Contemporary Writing and Production Department"I'm trying to get students to analyze the music all the time. For instance, if you're a vocalist you probably will not focus on where the snare drum is placed. But if you know what's going on behind you, you can sing better, and you don't have to hire an arranger. I think you can learn the most by analyzing what you like. Why do I like it? Let's try to imitate at first and then make it our own."
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"The Music Synthesis major, particularly at the elective course level, is diverse by design. We are teaching our students to be highly creative with a wide variety of electronic tools. That creativity could take the form of composition, production, performance, sound design for film/television/video games, software design, or a unique combination of several forms. For some musicians, their identity is with their instrument. For us, it is an electronic sound palette put to innovative and musical use."
Read More“I teach Arranging 1 and 2, which is really teaching students the tools they can use to express themselves. I want to hear how my students take the tools I’ve given them and the music they want to arrange and put their own stamp on it. That’s really what arranging is. You’re saying, ‘This is how I envision this song; I want other people to hear that.’ When I sit down and look at a blank piece of paper, I’m thinking, ‘What do I want to say? What do I want the people who listen to this to get from it?’"
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"I tell my entry-level students in Contemporary Writing and Production that we'll progress very quickly from 'this is a quarter note' to composing an entire score. I encourage students to bring in the music they love, and we learn how to write it. I have a really eclectic international mix of students with lots of different musical tastes and backgrounds. That's one of my favorite things about the class—it's really fun to delve into so many different styles of music."
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Sharon Broadley-Martin, Associate Professor
DEPARTMENT : Contemporary Writing and Production Department"Writing and singing, singing and writing—these are things I've done since I was very young. Now I teach vocal writing in the Contemporary Writing and Production Department. Here is the perfect place to give my students, many of whom are primarily instrumentalists, the inside scoop on writing and arranging for vocalists and vocal ensembles."
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"Over the years, the business has seen a paradigm shift, where often a budget only allows for a small or even one-person team to bring a song, score, or jingle to fruition. The CWP major is unique in that it provides the student the skills to become a one-stop shop: the person who has the ability to compose, program, produce, edit, mix, and deliver the product, and negotiate a good price for their work. I'm fortunate to work with students who are about to graduate from CWP, and I desire to leave them with a renewed sense of what is possible for their future, armed with the knowledge and tools necessary to 'live the dream,' much as I have had the honor of doing for so many years."
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"In Technology Tools and Sound Processing for Writers, I teach students to use more sophisticated audio tools to bring more sonic polish to their work. So much of today's music is being recorded in home studios and at personal computers—in hotel rooms, on airplanes, and in all sorts of places—and much of the recording process is done by artists themselves. So I want to give my students the skills to do it themselves as professionally as possible."
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"A lot of the music that I wrote at Berklee as student projects in the '80s ended up on my solo albums. Many times I have told my students that if you put a lot into your time at Berklee, you can get a lot out of it. It's a great place to begin working on your dreams."
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