Guitar
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Joe Musella, Assistant Professor
DEPARTMENT : Guitar Department"I specialize in contemporary guitar playing. I played in bands from the time I was in eighth grade, and learned a lot just through real-world experience. I was a performance major at Berklee, and when I graduated, I played relentlessly four or five nights a week. It was tough at times, but I was in my early twenties and totally loving life at that point. I never felt I was particularly naturally talented or gifted; I just kind of stuck with it and worked hard. So I think it's not necessarily about natural talent, it's about working hard and having your basics together. If you have a strong foundation, you can pretty much go anywhere from there."
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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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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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Ken Taft, Assistant Professor
DEPARTMENT : Guitar Department"My approach is to teach the way real people play, not through rules and attitudes. It's not like a math or chemistry class, where you put this and this together and get that. The rules for playing are: if it works, it works. Younger students, of course, need to know theory. But as you become more proficient you can actually change the theory. To paraphrase Charlie Parker, 'Learn all that stuff, then forget about it.'"
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Jon Wheatley, Associate Professor
DEPARTMENT : Guitar Department"I feel that reading music has even more value for developing your improvising than we have previously thought. While reading and improvising may seem opposite, they are mutually supporting activities. Reading can be a way of thinking even more precisely about what you want to play. This is what an improviser does."
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John D. Thomas, Associate Professor
DEPARTMENT : Guitar Department"The way I teach, it's the music that is most important and not the guitar. Personally I think that looking at things solely from the standpoint of the guitar is kind of self-restricting and limiting. One of my goals is to get students to appreciate the universality of things musical. The instrument doesn't matter; what's important is the person that plays the instrument. After all, all true art is nothing more than an expression of the human condition. The instrument is only the medium to bring out what's inside of you, so the most important thing is what's inside."
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David Newsam, Assistant Professor
DEPARTMENT : Guitar Department"To walk out of school and have professional opportunities—that's what I want for my students. If I can recommend any of my students for performances I can't accept, then I've succeeded. The students who go above and beyond what is asked of them are the students I end up performing with or who have successful teaching businesses. They're the ones who possess that inspiration to go well beyond what I gave them. In a concert I just did, two of the four other performers were former students of mine, and both of them are successful performers and teachers."
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Bruce Bartlett, Associate Professor
DEPARTMENT : Guitar Department"The best thing about teaching or learning how to play music is the balance between technical information and whatever your heart and soul feels. Hopefully the technical information is only the vehicle for what you're really trying to do. I want my students to stay focused through the ups and downs, and to trust in what they believe in. I try to reinforce that they should learn as much as they can and be as versatile as possible, because the competition is very high. I also tell them to respect and learn from the past as they're trying to go forward."
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David Tronzo, Associate Professor
DEPARTMENT : Guitar Department"I started playing gigs even before I felt I was ready. But that's the beauty of the music business—there's so much on-the-job development. The constant discomfort from taking on things before you're ready can be corrosive, though—you need to be able to manage it. The balancing factor is when the task itself is exciting and inspiring, and you know it's right. Then it just becomes a question of how much approval you need, and in what form."
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Joseph Stump, Associate Professor
DEPARTMENT : Guitar Department"Since I'm kind of the high-tech metal specialist, I spend a lot of time demonstrating these techniques. It's really a player's approach. Rather than holding the student's hand and saying, 'Do it like this,' I'm showing them how it's done and fielding questions, making it clear how to execute certain things. Then they come back after they've worked on it a bit."
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