Dave Pozzi, the new Dean of Academics, is busy nurturing a recently conceived trio of new classes: Styles and Analysis of Musical Composition in Western Music, Arranging and Orchestration, and Music Notation. These latest courses have materialized from the Academy's dedication to growing and changing with the professional music world. By attentively and continually refining its curriculum and resources, the Academy keeps its primary goal intact, and that is to guide students through a stimulating music education that prepares them for careers as modern professionals. Recently, Professor Pozzi found a few spare moments in which to describe the new classes and discuss his educational motivations from which these classes took root.

The music business is changing, in that many of the artists today and even many of the composers of TV and film aren't all that literate in music. Not that it's necessarily a bad thing. I mean, they're still talented and they still come up with some stuff and they hire the right people to fill in the gaps. But I would like to see our students have those basic skills together just to try to put as many kinds tools in their box as possible so they have a fair chance when they get out into to the professional world, or even an advantage. Maybe even instill a seed that might be a discipline within the music business that they really find interesting and pursue, just to give them more variety. This is still a performance-oriented school, so I just thought I'd create some more electives that gave them a more smorgasbord kind of a choice.

One of the things that I'm really trying to do is take existing courses — theory, ear training, sight singing, piano — and basically make them all one course in a way. I look at it as a way of linking all the classes so that you learn a subject in theory and then when you go to an ear training class, it's basically a theory lab. Or in a piano class, where it's not so much about learning how to be a piano player as it is about learning to apply and digest the material and theory. Say you're learning major scales and then you go to piano class and learn how to play it, and they give you a piece of music and you learn how to sing it. And I'm anxious to see if we can get the kids to retain it and absorb it and own it. It's so easy to forget what you've learned if it isn't used right.

Right. I wanted to create an elective class to help students apply the music theory they learn so it doesn't fall by the wayside. This class is about learning how to take a melody and harmonize it, and creating logical chord progressions by understanding different families of chords and how they're used. There are a lot of great musicians who play just by ear and by feel, a lot of great early jazz musicians who had really no idea what they were doing, a real talent for just being very musical and having a real gift for melody, so taking nothing away from them, everyone's got something to offer. But we're trying to help a student who's coming to a music school to better their musicianship. I couldn't even begin to accept the job of Dean of Academics if we weren't going to require a certain level and knowledge of music — being able to read, write — that sort of thing. Just being able to look at a simple song and understand it is so important.

Arranging and Orchestration is an elective that was basically designed for the higher level students that are ready for a bit more of a challenge. Students were coming up to me and asking for help with their compositions, and I just saw a need for the more advanced students to be challenged in a way that allowed them to put their musicianship to work through composition and orchestration, not just performance. Being able to say they have a group, and having the skills to write for the group. Constructing a score, knowing how to write for the instruments in a big band, and taking the knowledge of theory and beefing it up a little bit. Theory is the nucleus of music: from there you can go anywhere. Improvisation, composition, orchestration… I mean, you can't really do any of it without that knowledge. There are certainly some musicians who can improvise without knowing theory, but most illiterate musicians are just kind of winging it and going for it. If you have really good ears and you listen well and you have a great talent then it has been proven that it is possible to still be a great player.

Exactly.

It's just a short little required course to hip students to the proper way to notate music. It has nothing to do with arranging or composing. It's simply how you write a note so it looks right and not like a lollipop. It's true that most notation these days is done on computer programs like Finale or Sibelius, but that doesn't mean you can lose sight of the skill of printing by hand.

For detailed Course Descriptions, please click here.