Mark Zaleski

"I try and make my class very much a listening and transcription-based class. Though I don't necessarily teach ear training, a lot of the things within harmony have to do with basically how to write lead sheets, and getting into the basics of composition." 

"I run my class in such a way that we spend most of our time playing music that I think applies to the material wthat we need to cover, and having students try their best to transcribe what's going on."

"Most of the time people are coming to music school to study because they have something to offer from day one that's really awesome. They just may not know how to label that, they may not know how to tell someone. If you're going to get together with a new bass player you just met from a different country or something like that, and you don't have an instrument in front of you to explain your composition to them, I want you to be able to scribble that down on a piece of paper and be able to understand it. The best thing that you can get out of music school is the ability to communicate with as many different types of musicans as possible."