| Berklee | This user attends or attended Berklee College of Music. |
This is the wikipedia page for user Gwmuzac as part of the Berklee College of Music Course "Towards a Vision of Music's Future" that is taught by Isaiah Jackson. I am in my last semester as Songwriting Major and have already walked the stage. Look out world here I come!
My Musical History
editI was born in Poughkeepsie, New York to a guitar-playing composer father and a mother who liked James Taylor records. Ever since I was very young I have been singing and making up songs. One of my earlier memories is singing an improvised song to the ocean that lasted a good half hour. So I suppose you could say that music was born into my genetics. My grandfather on my father’s side is Harry Woods. He was a tin pan alley composer who wrote some famous standards such as Ooh What a Little Moonlight Can Do, Try a Little Tenderness, and Side by Side. My father learned the craft of writing from him, and as a performer/teacher of guitar in New York City. Then he taught me how to play guitar.
My first instrument was actually the viola in the 4th grade. After I made the all-county orchestra I switched to guitar, pretty much because I wanted to emulate my father. I finally started to actually practice and study the guitar the summer before high school so that I could audition for the High School Jazz Band. During my time in high school I won 2 soloist awards at the Fiesta-Val competition in Virginia Beach. I was awarded with the Luis Armstrong Award for outstanding musical accomplishments, and have received several other recognitions as well as making the All-County Jazz Orchestra, and received a near perfect score on the NYSSMA Jazz auditions. During High School I was also the leader of a jazz/funk group named “Still Casting Shadows” (I know. It’s a horrible name). The group managed to produce one recording before the drummer graduated high school.
My first college was SUNY Oneonta in upstate New York. Over the course of one year I accumulated 55 credits, because of how many music classes and ensembles I was in. My Mondays would start at 830am and finish at midnight, just because of how many music courses I was taking. There were also a few times that I had 7 gigs over 3 nights just by being involved in a few too many projects. The time that I spent at Oneonta just barely managed to prepare me for Berklee.
Since coming to Berklee I have nearly completed the Jazz Composition major and am finishing out with a degree in Songwriting. I have played in several bands and met and played with some of the most talented people I have ever encountered in my entire life. I have sold 2 Jingles for a profit to local Boston businesses, arranged and orchestrated for 5 professional albums, worked as a session player, and side-man, as well as a band leader for my group “Birds in the Woods”. I am currently recording a solo EP entitled Technicolor Costs Too Much. I am a core music tutor at Berklee and I teach Guitar, Voice, and Bass lessons privately.
The Music I Write
editI am currently a songwriter by trade, which I realize is a rather broad term. However, I tend to have my fingers in several musical styles at all times. This makes me write the sort of music one might define as cross-genre; however, i would more describe it as accidental cross contamination. Either way you look at it though I've been told it has a particular and personal character. My main interests are funk jazz and pop. I like to write soulful music that still retains a hint of attitude and tells a great and compelling story. I'm not so good at the simple, dance bubble gum pop that a lot of the teenage market is leaning towards these days. I'm more of the sensitive cry if you leave them alone type of writer, but don't let that stop you!