Faculty
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Jeanine Cowen, Vice President for Curriculum and Program Innovation, Academic Affairs
DEPARTMENT : Music Production and Engineering Department"My teaching style has always been one that encourages self-reflection and discovery. I like to push my students to be self-motivated. For me, it isn't about the grades they will receive, but rather the knowledge and skill set they can build on. Assignments always have the capacity to be completed to the level the student is capable of, and by witnessing other students' work, they can see different approaches to the same task. I'm never expecting to see students complete their assignments in exactly the same way as their peers."
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Douglas Johnson, Associate Professor
DEPARTMENT : Piano Department"Whether it's in private piano lessons, labs, or keyboard classes, I want my students to come away with a solid technical foundation. Good technique is important, not just for fluency but also to avoid getting hurt. Good technique, by definition, is efficient motion. It comes not just from the fingers, but also the shoulders and all the way down to the feet. The old Russian saying, 'You play the piano from your feet,' is really true. It would be absurd to believe you can lift a 60-pound suitcase with just your fingers. It's equally absurd to think you play piano with just your fingers."
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Scott deOgburn, Professor
DEPARTMENT : Ear Training Department"The listening aspect of music is probably the most important part. Ear training is all about comprehending what you are listening to and knowing how to analyze it. The goal is to be able to look at a piece of music and know what it sounds like without having to listen to it; or conversely, to listen to a piece of music and be able to notate it."
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"Having worked in the music industry as long as I have, I don't want to necessarily just bring war stories. You've got to back it up with some good science and theory. One of the challenges is with new media. The tools are new. So I try to balance those with some real time-tested marketing strategies. You begin to realize that it's all sort of been done before, but now we have an opportunity to recontextualize things. I do try to find a balance of things, but the music business is changing every second."
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Nichelle Mungo, Instructor
DEPARTMENT : Voice Department"I teach lessons for the Voice Department where I focus on vocal technique, assuring that students are singing in a healthy manner. The students are aware of my philosophy for warm ups: the more relaxed and flexible your vocal mechanisms are inwardly, the better your voice will produce outwardly. If you maintain your voice, keeping it warmed up using proper technique, your voice will be one of great longevity. I tell the students to treat their voices just as an athlete would treat their bodies before a game or a race. You wouldn't just wake up one day and say, 'I want to run a 26-mile marathon!' You have to properly prepare for it."
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"Choral Rehearsal Techniques is a really fun class. I structure it like a lab. I give students scores that they would use in a typical middle or high school choir, and they prepare them to teach. They learn the parts, the text, the conducting; they plan the most effective and efficient way to teach them. Then they actually teach and conduct the work, over a series of weeks. They get up in front of their classmates and teach them as if they were teaching a middle or high school class. They need to think a little differently, to imagine that they are not working with their professional peers, but rather with developing musicians. For example, they need to think: 'How would I approach this particular piece with middle schoolers, who have some reading skills, but maybe not extensive reading skills?'"
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Stan Strickland, Associate Professor
DEPARTMENT : Voice Department"I'm teaching two unusual classes. One is called Musical Independence, which is basically a class for singers to develop some piano self-accompanying skills and to think about putting a song together. Then I have a liberal arts class called Sound, Body, and Performance. It's a very comprehensive class, looking at a holistic approach to performing. We do a lot of hand drumming, movement, meditating, and breathing. It fulfills a science requirement, so there's a lot of reading."
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Jason Anick, Instructor
DEPARTMENT : String Department"When I teach students jazz I always encourage them to learn from other musicians in their ensembles, or give them suggestions for records to listen to and solos to transcribe, or encourage them to play with different instruments. That's how I learned. That's what worked for me. I try not to overwhelm them with harmonic concepts at first but instead help them build a solid foundation and understanding of what the music is all about."
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Anne Peckham, Chair
DEPARTMENT : Voice Department"I want students to know that they can sing in a healthy manner in the style of music that they love. It's not like making cookie-cutter singers where everybody has a certain quality of tone or a certain sound to their voice; you can sound like yourself and still use vocal technique. Technique really has to be habituated so that it's almost invisible to the naked eye. That way, you're watching the singer perform, be expressive, and be him- or herself, while technique is the underpinning that's allowing the singer to sing freely, but with good stamina and good intonation."
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"One of the best classes I ever took here was with Mitch Halpins, his Nonstylistic Improvisation Concepts Ensemble, which was just incredible. It takes the stylistic thing away, so you are sort of stripped down to who you are or what you can offer. You have to be fully present to the other people who are there with you, to enter into this sacred space which has never come before and will never come again. It's just such an amazing concept, but you must be willing to really open yourself up to that, to receive and not just transmit only."
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