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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."
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Garrison Fewell, Professor
DEPARTMENT : Guitar Department"Sometimes students are shocked when I see that they’re having a hard time playing something on the guitar and I say, 'Just sing it. Now play what you sang.' They probably already finished their ear training but haven’t yet discovered how it applies to the instrument. It’s using all the resources we have. So here in the lesson I try to be open to all these things. The students have so much to study here, sometimes it’s hard for them to make connections. I make connections, whether it’s through the ear or the intellect or the emotions."
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Jon Finn, Professor
DEPARTMENT : Guitar Department"You know the perception people have of rock guitarists—gunslingers and drug addicts. If there's one issue I get evangelical about, it's when I hear a lot of words from well-known rock players who say, 'Don't practice, be a rebel. Studying the instrument is bad for your creativity.' The mentality is that if you're too technically proficient, you're not rock 'n' roll; I'm not sure if I agree. My feeling is that it's possible to be a studied musician and maintain that primal energy—it's just not easy. I personally love players like Jeff Beck, Carlos Santana, Steve Morse, and Eddie Van Halen, the ones who can speak to my soul and challenge my intellect at the same time."
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David Fiuczynski, Professor
DEPARTMENT : Guitar Department"I'm interested in students finding their own voice. I start with teaching chord scale theory in the style that the student is interested in playing. It doesn't matter to me if it's death metal, jazz, or electronica. I want players to be able to analyze a composition, figure out what modes they can use to solo over or generate parts with, and learn how to comp with chords, riffs, or counterlines. I find this really stimulates creativity and helps students approach the music from a fresh perspective."
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Tomo Fujita, Associate Professor
DEPARTMENT : Guitar Department"In my private lessons and blues/funk labs, I teach fundamental techniques for playing good music—getting a good tone from the guitar and keeping a good rhythm. But I try to teach something more valuable for the future, so I really emphasize feeling. Especially in blues playing, I emphasize expression, tone, and time. Sometimes these simple things are really difficult to achieve with quality and detail. So I teach a lot of grooves and rhythm."
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David Gilmore, Associate Professor
DEPARTMENT : Guitar Department"Berklee has been a mecca for guitar players over the years. My first guitar teacher ever, John Baboian, still teaches here. I was fortunate in high school to have him as a private teacher. He came from the Berklee method—the William G. Leavitt method—which was really comprehensive. Later on, when I looked at other guitar books, I saw how unusable they were in a certain way. They dealt with tablature, not with notes. Piano players, horn players—most musicians—deal with notes on a staff. But a lot of recent guitar books are devoid of that. I've seen a lot of guitar players who can't even read music. They read tablature and they read other symbols, but not actual written note music. In a typical studio situation you're not going to find your part written in tablature."
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Mick Goodrick, Professor
DEPARTMENT : Guitar Department"I got started because of Elvis Presley. I was maybe 9 or 10 years old. I put a belt on a tennis racquet and would mime the records in front of a mirror. I told my parents I wanted a guitar because the tennis racquet didn't look so cool. They got me a ukulele, which looked even worse in the mirror than the tennis racquet. When they started offering music lessons at my school, my mother asked me if I wanted to learn music, and I said I wanted to learn guitar. So I started guitar when I was 11."
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Charles Hansen, Instructor
DEPARTMENT : Guitar Department"Playing the guitar is like anything that's difficult: It gives you a lot of satisfaction, and it also makes you learn about discipline. It's challenging, it's difficult, it's arduous sometimes, but the reward is that you develop certain skills. You're not just learning how to play guitar, you're also learning what dedication is and what discipline is."
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Robert Harrigan, Assistant Professor
DEPARTMENT : Guitar Department- Alumnus, Berklee College of Music and Boston College
- Active performer in a variety of styles
- Clinic, concert, festival, and radio appearances
- Commercial and educational recordings
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Richie Hart, Associate Professor
DEPARTMENT : Guitar Department"In the Wes Montgomery Ensemble, I stress the importance of listening and communicating. I want them to play as a cohesive band—to play with individuality, but not as individuals. And that involves the ability to listen, react, and respond to each other spontaneously on a very high level. The first week starts out with everybody playing their own stuff. I can always hear when they're not listening, so I'll stop them and ask, did you hear what that drummer just did? They stop and they listen, and start paying more attention. It's not something that happens overnight, but by the end of the semester they become one with each other: they start hearing what each other does, they know each other's strengths and weaknesses, and they work together as a team."
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