Faculty
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“Music production is almost like creative writing: You can’t teach someone exactly how to do it. You can give overall guidelines, but you have to let students learn by experience. I teach the philosophy behind good producing and the aesthetics of production—how to balance art and commerce. I particularly enjoy talking about the history of recording, which is really the history of 20th-century music—just a blip in the whole history of music. Recordings, and changes in the way we record music, affect the way we listen to and play music."
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Maeve Gilchrist, Instructor
DEPARTMENT : String Department“In general, the bar is very low for harp playing in contemporary music. It’s perceived as such a pretty instrument—associated with an ethereal, wispy kind of sound—so people are easily impressed. For that reason a lot of players stop at a certain level, or are satisfied with very little. I feel rhythm has a lot to do with that. I don’t want my students to play to low expectations. The contrapuntal, textural, and rhythmic possibilities of the instrument far outweigh its harmonic disadvantages, and it’s important that they are fully explored. I tell my students, ‘Don’t settle for anything less than the absolute best. And don’t be afraid of putting yourself over your head in musical situations. Making mistakes is your path to finding your own voice and your own way of navigating your instrument.’"
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