Berkleemusic News

The University Continuing Education Association (UCEA) has awarded Berkleemusic.com, the online extension school of Boston’s Berklee College of Music, with its 2010 Best Online College Course Award for Professor Stephen Webber’s Music Production Analysis course. This is Berkleemusic’s sixth national award, having received the honor each year since 2005.

The award is the highest recognition possible for online curriculum from UCEA, a membership association that promotes excellence in continuing higher education. The competition judges courses from all colleges and universities nationwide, representing all disciplines. Online courses are judged on lesson content, assignments, student assessment, course layout, design, and the use of multi-media elements.

“Music Production Analysis is a visually engaging, beautifully designed, and masterfully constructed course. The instructional videos are stunning,” said Kay J. Kohl, Chief Executive Officer & Executive Director of UCEA.

Music Production Analysis joins past Berkleemusic UCEA award winners Orchestration 1 (2009 Winner), Concert Touring (2008 Winner), Guitar Chords 101 (2007 Winner), Berklee Keyboard Method (2006 Winner), and Getting Inside Harmony 1 (2005 Winner).

“We’ve taught over 25,000 students from around the world, from arena rock stars and music industry executives to hobbyists and developing musicians, and everyone in between,” said David Kusek, VP of Berkleemusic. “We’ve been changing musician’s lives for the past 8 years, and it’s fantastic that UCEA has continued to recognize the depth and content of our online music courses.”

The multi-platinum selling hip-hop singer, writer, and producer will use Berkleemusic’s online courses towards a Berklee diploma

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Wyclef Jean is going back to school to earn a diploma from Berklee College of Music. With a flexible program tailored for him to include on-campus classes and online courses at Berkleemusic.com, Jean will earn college credit while maintaining his active career.

Jean will take Basic Ear Training 1, Music Theory 101, and Guitar Chords 101 online with Berkleemusic, all of which will transfer directly to Berklee towards his degree.

“I left college after only the first semester to pursue my career and, after all that I’ve accomplished, going back to college was the one thing I wanted to do for myself,” said Jean, who was on campus this past summer to give a Performance Perspectives Clinic.

“Berklee was always where I wanted to attend. I would like to thank Berklee’s president President Roger Brown and chief of staff Carl Beatty and the entire faculty for making me feel welcome,” he said, adding, “I think it is important for young people to aspire to get an education.”

Learn More

Tonight (Wednesday, July 1), join Berkleemusic business instructors Dave Kusek, George Howard, and Mike King, along with Berkleemusic Dean Debbie Cavalier, on Twitter for a conversation about the state and future of the music industry and their online business courses. Dave, George, Mike, and Debbie will be taking your questions from 9:00-10:00 P.M. EST.

To join, just post a tweet with your question or comment and add the tag #bmusic.

All you need is a Twitter account to participate. It’s free and easy to sign up at twitter.com.

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Check out Berkleemusic’s online music business courses and multi-course certificate programs. Enrollment ends tomorrow (Thursday, July 2) at 5:00 P.M. EST.

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Hi, I’m John Mileham. I’m the CTO here at Berkleemusic, but like many (perhaps most?) of my colleagues here at Berklee’s online school, I’m also a musician. When I’m not busy trying to make our web platform faster, more powerful, and easier to use, I play keys and electronic percussion in a band called The Franklin Kite. If you spend as much time coding as I do, though, your geek side has a pretty good chance of coming through in the rest of your life. I am no exception here.

I’ve played electronic drum parts at a lot of shows using an M-Audio Trigger Finger, and it’s a very expressive controller, but there’s a disconnect between seeing a guy on stage tapping a rubber pad with one finger and hearing a huge chest-thumping kick drum. I was looking for something that an audience could really identify with.

Wii remotes have fascinated me since they came out. Thanks to the bluetooth interface, a lot of people use them as musical instruments, but I’ve yet to see a really flexible and musical drum controller using the Wii remote. So I set out to build one. The goal was to create a musically expressive instrument that’s as fun to watch as it is to play. It would be inspired by the way a drummer plays a standard kit, but not attempt to mimic a real kit completely. It wouldn’t use button-presses to emulate drum strikes. The audience should see a stroke for every note that they hear. And there should be more to it than a kick, a snare, and a hi-hat.

So I found some helpful Wii remote and MIDI libraries for the mac, dusted off my rusty high school trigonometry and proceeded to write some code that took accelerometer data from a wii remote and turned it into a real time stream of velocity-sensitive MIDI notes that could be sent to any drum sampler. I called it DrumChuk.

If you find yourself in Cambridge, MA on Monday, July 6th, you can see DrumChuk performed live at the Middle East Upstairs at the CD release show for our new EP, Explosions & Batteries.

And if you’re brave, you can download the source code for DrumChuk at GitHub and install it yourself. Note that the goals listed above did not include “easy to install.” Let me know what you think of it, customize it to meet your needs, and if you improve it, I’d be psyched to add your changes.

Justin Schornstein and Danny Morris perform

On March 11, Berkleemusic bass instructor Danny Morris hosted his annual Danny Mo’s Jam event at Berklee College of Music in Boston.

The event celebrated Justin Schornstein, the 2009 Wes Wehmiller Scholarship recipient, and featured Danny performing with some of his favorite students and faculty.

Several of Danny’s online bass students came out for the event and got to meet their instructor face-to-face.

L-to-R: Rich Appleman, Danny Morris, Russ Cooper, Jan Rounds, George Rounds, Kathryn Gorczyca, and Dave Ochola

It’s not too late to go back to school this fall. Our fall term begins next Monday, September 29th!

We’ve got some great new courses starting this fall, including our first-ever online voice course, all authored and taught by Berklee College of Music’s renowed faculty.

Check them out:

Jazz Bass by Jim Stinnett – Gain the tools and knowledge you need to improvise jazz bass lines like a seasoned professional. Learn to play great jazz bass lines, recognize common chord progressions in jazz standards, and study the work of jazz bass greats like Paul Chambers, Ray Brown, Ron Carter, and Christian McBride.

Arranging: Woodwinds and Strings by Jerry Gates – Gain a practical, real-world understanding of the sound and personality of woodwind and string instruments, and learn how to properly apply them to songs, arrangements, and compositions.

Jazz Guitar 201 by Bruce Saunders – Develop your jazz guitar performance skills by learning advanced techniques to improvise over chord changes, both in traditional “standards” and complex modern harmony.

Voice Technique 101 by Anne Peckham – Make your voice sound more powerful, use vocal technique to expand your range and expression, and learn to become more confident in vocal performances.

Guitar Chords 201 by Rick Peckham – Master Berklee’s approach to playing guitar chords. Improve your style, intonation, technique, time feel, and tone in this in-depth course. Explore open triads, seventh chord structures, open triadic shapes, and inversions in a variety of musical styles.

We’re only a week away from the start of our new semester. Get started today!

Hey there,

Welcome to the Berkleemusic news blog.

We figured we could use a dedicated spot where we could drop current events, new course announcements, site updates, and whatever else out to all of you.

We had the pleasure of interviewing Devo’s Mark Mothersbaugh a few months back in his Mutato Musika studio in LA. Mark is sensational – a great conversationalist, whip smart, and completely entertaining. And Mutato is like a wonderland of interesting gear – stringed instruments we did not know existed, unusual percussion devices, and tons of vintage keyboards and synths.

Take a look at our interview below.

Mark’s got some great thoughts on the business, on scoring films with Wes Anderson, and on being a Berkeemusic scholarship sponsor.

Enjoy!

Hey there,

Welcome to the Berkleemusic news blog.

We figured we could use a dedicated spot where we could drop current events, new course announcements, site updates, and whatever else out to all of you.

We had the pleasure of interviewing Devo’s Mark Mothersbaugh a few months back in his Mutato Musika studio in LA. Mark is sensational – a great conversationalist, whip smart, and completely entertaining. And Mutato is like a wonderland of interesting gear – stringed instruments we did not know existed, unusual percussion devices, and tons of vintage keyboards and synths.

Take a look at our interview below.

Mark’s got some great thoughts on the business, on scoring films with Wes Anderson, and on being a Berkeemusic scholarship sponsor.

Enjoy!