Faculty
 |
Tony Smith, Professor
DEPARTMENT : Percussion Department"I thrive on passion, and that's the whole thing. Everything's got to be exciting. I'm looking for a student to say 'What if I did this?'. I'm after the student to grab hold of it and just go. That's beneficial to them. If they can find the techniques, if they realize what I mean by basically playing the same thing only differently, we get into a conceptual thing. Most of my students already have it, it's just a matter of getting it out of them. It's ready and willing to come out."
Read More |
Valerie Taylor, Professor
DEPARTMENT : Composition Department"Even if a person never conducts any kind of ensemble after this, the whole notion of getting music incorporated into the body is just so vital. It's gaining that sense of how your body conveys, and not just simply responds to, music. As a result of my vocal training, I try to get people to sing things, because that is the clearest and simplest road to incorporating the music into their own bodies. If they treat it gingerly at finger's length, their musical mojo is not going to be involved. If they sing while they conduct, they can use their body to teach their body."
Read More |
- Music educator, clinician, author, and consultant
- Member of the Technology Institute for Music Educators (TI:ME) Advisory Board
 |
Phil Person, Assistant Professor
DEPARTMENT : Ear Training Department"Students' reading skills are sharpened in ear training because you do a lot of reading. They'll increase their vocabulary of melodies, intervals, harmonies, and rhythms, and it all goes hand in hand. It helps a person in a groove or ensemble setting be able to deal with whatever is thrown at them, be it complicated rhythms or harmonies—not only being able to perform them but actually hearing it in their head, hearing it and understanding what it is, recognizing it. Everything is intertwined."
Read More |
Jon Hazilla, Professor
DEPARTMENT : Percussion Department"Playing brushes is a dying art. Brushes are hard to play and even harder to teach, because there's no standard notation; for one thing, a lot of it is visual. The foundation is the patterns to specific tempos: ballad strokes, mid-tempo strokes, up-tempo strokes, and specialty strokes. Students need to be able to play steady time within those tempos before we can talk about soloing."
Read More |
Darrell Katz, Professor
DEPARTMENT : Harmony Department"When we study chord scales in Harmony 3, I don't so much want students to memorize a list of the scales they need to know. Instead I want them to understand why somebody says, 'This is the chord scale for this purpose in this time and place.' I really want them to get the philosophy behind it. I feel that if they understand how it's put together, they can come up with the exact scales later, as opposed to just memorizing the information."
Read More |
Ross Ramsay, Associate Professor
DEPARTMENT : Piano Department"Our students run the gamut from a 17-year-old right out of high school who's played in rock bands to someone who already has a master's degree in music and is a tremendous player in one style and comes here to learn another. It's the most extreme place I think that you can teach because of the variety of styles and the variety of students. I had a student who was 65 from Japan who just retired and decided that he wanted to come back to school and learn music."
Read More |
Winston Maccow, Associate Professor
DEPARTMENT : Ensemble Department"What I try to get out my class is leaders. Everyone’s supposed to lead, everyone. I put people on the spot just to see how they’re paying attention to things. I’ll say, 'Okay, next week, I want you to lead.' Or I don’t even say that. I just say, 'You’re going to lead today.' In my class, you’re always on your toes. It’s the only way to develop leadership. You’ve got to be on your toes in the real world."
Read More |
"When I was about four or five years old, growing up in the Soviet Union, I remember my parents listening to Enrico Caruso and Mario Lanza in one room, and at the same time my older brother listening to Blood, Sweat, and Tears, Chicago, and the Beatles in another room. I really had this kind of double music world from the very beginning, but it was so natural to me. And I think this was a really great thing—it opened my ears to every type of music."
Read More |
"I incorporate music into my Spanish classes. Each student brings in music twice per semester and talks about the music and the artist. My intermediate students write a music review in Spanish; and I use a lot of musical examples in grammar lessons. I try to present music as an aspect of culture, because there is so much Latin music. The music in Cuba is very different from the music in Argentina, which is very different from the music in Colombia. Students get to truly understand the diversity of the Spanish-speaking world through the lens of music."
Read More