This episode takes a look at the Music Program at Lansing Community College, which stands as a beacon of opportunity for aspiring musicians, audio technicians, and those looking to learn more about music. Host Melissa Kaplan is joined in studio by LCC Music Faculty Jonathon Gerwitz and Steve Simonson, to give insights into the diverse degrees and musical ensembles available to students, as well as members of the community.

Program Information: LCC Music Program

It's time for Inside LCC, an inside look at Lansing Community College's academic programs. I'm Cassie Little and we've got you covered with programs that nourish creativity and exploration, cultivate your purpose, and guide you to your career. Listen as we explore some of the opportunities at LCC and learn from conversations with faculty members, staff and students.

Hello. I am Melissa Kaplan. I am the Arts Outreach Coordinator in the Arts and Sciences Division. And I am delighted to be hosting Inside LCC.

And today in the studio, I have music faculty. We're going to talk about the LCC's wonderful music program. So with me today, I have Jon Gerwitz.

I'm the lead faculty in the music program.

Thanks, John. And John's also the director of the

LCC Jazz Band and the Multi Instrumental Ensemble.

Yeah. And who knows what else?

Whatever needs to be done.

Absolutely. And doing it well.

And also, my name's Steve, Steve Simonson. I am an adjunct associate professor in music. Technology is my specialty.

And I know you also do a multitude of things here on campus. Lots of different things. Yes. Yeah. And I will say something. I've been at LCC. I think you were here 25 years. 25 years.

And we started right about the same time, John. And the music program is continually.

It just is a quality program, and it draws students who are interested in being musicians, and it draws students who are interested in teaching, and it brings in the community.

John, tell us a little bit about how this program has evolved and what distinguishes it from other ways that people interested in music might pursue it.

Well, I think one of the great things, as you already kind of just mentioned, was the community aspect.

Like with the jazz band and all of our ensembles, we have a separate section for the class that community members can participate and take the class and won't be for credit, but it's a much cheaper rate. And so it's been great for the jazz band because I get students coming back every semester, and I get a lot of consistency that way.

And there's some amazing talent here in the area.

And what's also great about it, too, is that these more seasoned members of the band often mentor the younger students that are coming through there, the more traditional LCC students that are right out of high school and maybe never even played in a jazz band before, but they get the opportunity to play with these talented community members. So that's one of the great things about. One of the things I love about the program.

Absolutely.

I mean, in community college, it's all about that connection, serving the students who want to Come and study, but then also building the relationship with the people who live here. And I think that's, you know, certainly with the jazz band, I've seen that over the years.

There are musicians that are like other bands in town that once they're in,

they're in, they keep staying. I'm just happy they do.

Yes. So tell me a little bit about the program itself.

And I know there are a number of different tracks, but for somebody who really doesn't know much about it, how would you describe it and what are the different areas that people could pursue if they wanted to come here?

Yeah, absolutely. We have about four or five different music degrees.

I don't know if I can name them all right now off the top of my head, but we have different degrees. Say like a music education slash music therapy, pre music therapy degree.

So those students that are maybe coming right out of high school or wanting to pursue music education, but want to get some of those gen ed classes out of the way and get their feet wet here at LCC, they can do it for a much cheaper rate and then move on to a four year school. We have a music industry degree which is very popular, and that's a two year track degree.

That music industry, as I try to explain it to students, is very diverse because it's a very broad term.

So this encompasses the students that maybe want to learn about their instrument or their voice and get some experience playing in a group and then just want to go right out and start performing in public, you know, around town or like getting maybe even national or wherever. They just want to take right off.

But then it's also the students that maybe want to go into the business side and be a manager or an agent or along those lines, work in a record company. And then we have this music industry students that also want to go into recording. So it's a very broad degree.

And that's the thing with music, Steve and I have talked about this a lot, is that it's a gigging economy.

Right.

I'm coining Steve's term there, but I mean, you just, you can make a career out of it, but it's. You got.

A lot of times you have to piece things together and you just have to be, as we've talked to the students about, you got to be reliable, you got to be responsible on time and you got to get the work done. You got to. And then people will see that and you'll get more jobs that way and never say no to anything.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

Maybe a few things but it's interesting you mentioned those.

Some of those things that people, employers may consider soft skills, but those things, they translate to whatever field you're working in because music's a gig economy. You may have a day job, maybe it'll be in music, but it might be in something else.

But nonetheless, what you're learning here in terms of teamwork, collaboration, responsibility, being on time, those things, they sound like a bunch of nice words, but they are incredibly meaningful for employers because if you can't bring that to a job, any kind of job, you know you're not going to be a good employee. So music technology is one of the areas.

So another one of our degrees is the music tech certificate, which has become really exciting the past couple years.

Steve and I took a lot of time and revamped the old degree and now we brought back a few classes, added some other classes that weren't necessarily in our program but now are. And I really think that there's a lot of potential here for. There's a lot of interest in the area with this degree.

And again, this is, we, it's only a one year degree potentially, but it is also diverse in the sense that it could be for that person that just strictly wants to be in the studio, or maybe that's the student, the person that wants to be out in the, in the public and doing sound for concerts. Live sound production is one of the classes that Steve teaches.

So yeah, we can, we can let Steve talk a little bit more about some of those classes for sure.

Music technology is a nice fancy way of saying sound reinforcement, recording technologies, all that type of thing, because that's what we do. We deal with the technical part of it generally. We deal with making the performers be heard essentially. And it runs everything from.

The mayor's going to cut a ribbon at an opening of a store downtown.

They're going to have a couple of mics and a couple of speakers, no doubt to the large scale concerts that you might see at Wharton or Breslin or Pine Knob or places like that.

So we try and focus on giving our students the basic foundations of that so they can then start to compete with other people in the industry and other people in town here. There's a need for it in town, quite frankly. I'm sure there's a lot, lots of folks out there listening, watching whatever that have been to a show.

And it's like, why did that sound so bad? And it happens, it does. And there's a lot that goes into it.

But the more that we can Educate our students not only on the foundational aspects of the technology and all of the Hertz's and amplificires and you know, I'm making up words now, but you know, that type of stuff. Then they can relax and do what they do.

Because I always counsel my students that what you're doing is you're performing on your instrument the same way the performer on stage is.

If you miss your cue, if you blow a line, if you don't push the button right, if you haven't got things properly gained staged and you get a bunch of feedback, nobody has a nice day or a nice experience.

So you really want to make sure that you are able to get it set up, make it operate as efficiently as possible, but also be ready and flexible to react to changes just like a performer. If you're an actor on stage and somebody blows a line, what do you do? Oh, stop. Let's go Back to line 15. You know, you can't do that.

You have to improvise and think on your feet. And it's also a very heavily involved, sort of a crew type of job in a lot of ways. A lot of times as a sound engineer, I'm kind of a lone wolf.

I'm out there often by myself. That's kind of how the industry, especially at a smaller scale, can operate.

But larger shows, there's tens of people involved in just the sound part, let alone the lighting, the electrical work, the carpentry work that goes into putting down the stage, as well as the musicians. And all of those people have to be coordinated and working together.

And all of those soft skills that we were talking about become incredibly important.

Because nobody wants to work with a jerk, you know, I mean, you have to be very, you know, aware of how you're working with other people and you know, you're in a service business is really what it comes down to.

Absolutely. And I love how you describe it as they're on stage too, and very much everybody has their cues, everybody has their role to play.

Exactly.

And again, people who aren't necessarily familiar with performance of any kind, you know, you're focused on what you're seeing on stage or what you're hearing. You know, the instrumentals, you don't think about necessarily people backstage, but they're magicians in a way too. And so absolutely essential.

I think it's incredibly marvelous that people can pursue so many different aspects of music here at LCC. I mean, for a community college, for a relatively small program, how many faculty are in the program?

So I do want to mention that in addition to the classes and the ensembles, if people are interested in specializing in a particular instrument, they can study here with professionals.

Yeah, yeah.

We have professionals like Ed Feedawa that plays with the Lansing Symphony, teaching bass here, people that are not only teaching here, but other areas, colleges and music programs, and performing quite frequently in the area.

Absolutely. We have a wonderful faculty who have, you know, a lot of depth of performance experience as professionals in symphonies and in bands such as.

I mean, I know you, John. You were in multiple bands, and there's always a gig on the horizon.

Don't say no.

Yeah, yeah. But it really.

I think that is incredibly important, too, for people considering to come here to know that the faculty that they're going to be studying with are current and doing this. Yeah, you're living it.

We are practicing our craft, definitely.

So tell me a little bit about the different music ensembles.

Sure. Currently we have four music ensembles. The jazz band, which we talked about.

We have the concert choir, which, if anyone is interested, we would love to have you be a part of.

And it's a really. It's a wonderful group. Nada Radukovich is the director of that. And. Yeah, yeah, she brings those voices together.

She sure does. Yeah, she does a wonderful job. And the students really relate to her, too, really love working with her. We have the rock band, and that's been.

That's just a great class. At the end of every semester, they put on the performance at the Avenue, or they've done it at Max Bar, too. I think lately it's been at the Avenue.

Chris Rollins directs that group, and he does a wonderful job with them. It's amazing because I just realized with him, he was telling me that all the music that they do from day one, the students bring the music.

He doesn't, like, program it. Yeah, he doesn't program it like I do with the jazz band.

I come into the semester bringing the music to the students, the students bring the music to him, and then he has to figure out what to do with all that music and then teach it back to them. So he does all, and he gets two sets worth of music out of these students.

And again, some of them have never really played in a band or played their instrument that much.

That's incredible. And I know with jazz band, that is the one ensemble that's auditioned.

All the other ensembles, multi instrumental jazz band or rock band and choir, they're open to anybody, no matter what level of experience. And then the director finds a place. And so with rock Band, you don't know until the beginning of the semester what the makeup is going to be.

You might have, you know, usually you have multiple guitarists, but, you know, and a few drummers, but you never know. There might be a flute player, there might be a couple vocalists. There could be, you know, whatever I

was going to say, yeah, we had a violin player last semester, so that's great.

And being at the Avenue, they used to perform at Dart, which is fine. Dart is a great place to hear music. But Rock Band at the Avenue, which is a venue that is on Michigan Avenue on the east side.

Everybody has a good time.

I've gone to their concerts or performances and parents are having a great time watching their kids, really proud of their kids in this cool environment with great lighting. It's like the perfect mix or match.

Yeah, I think they found their home there.

Yeah, it's very much the environment that these students will be performing in after they graduate. They will be trying to find jobs in bars and putting together demo tapes. Nobody uses a tape anymore, but you know what I mean?

And little biography, headshots, all that type of stuff. And then going and selling themselves to the bars, to the wedding clients to other folks who might need their services and.

And I think that that is a really great reason to have it there because it puts them in the environment that they're going to be in and you have to learn how to work in the environment you're going to work in, I suppose.

Well, I think that's ideal to not have it all be theory or all in a, you know, just a. I shouldn't say just a college facility because our facilities are used by the community too, and they're really wonderful facilities with. With great, great staff.

The other ensemble is. It's brand new. Well, it's not brand new.

It's been on our books for a while, but we had several years of low attendance in it or it just didn't have enough students to make it run.

But in the last couple years, I've been getting a lot of interest in the jazz band and again, the jazz band's been playing out in the community and been trying to do as much. Much as I can to promote.

Yeah, you go to high schools and

festivals and all around and we're starting to, I feel like, make a little bit of a name for ourselves and. And it's garnering a lot of interest. And so I've been getting calls and emails about wanting to be in the band and.

And the reason why we do have the audition for the band is. Because it's a very specific instrumentation.

And so a jazz band typically has saxophones, five saxophones, four trombones, four trumpets, and a rhythm section, which, you know, bass, piano, drums, guitar. And then outside of that, the rest of any other instrument wouldn't be considered a typical instrument like the violin. Yeah, but we can make it work.

Sure. In fact, we do have violinists this past year and we're able to make that work for them.

But I need to kind of know that going into the semester, like who I'm dealing with so I can properly prepare them for success in the class.

And so with extra saxophone players, extra trumpet players, extra guitarists that want to pursue jazz, but we don't have enough room for them, I thought, well, why don't we get this multi instrumental class going again? And it was really successful last semester. I was really proud of them. Like, we had it capped off at 18. I think we had 16 in the group.

Nice and very diverse kind of instrumentation. Like four guitar players. We had a violinist at least at the beginning of the semester, trumpet, couple trombones, sax. And we.

I kind of did a little bit of a mix of approach between the jazz band and the rock band, where I started them off. And we focused a lot on improvisation. And then I provided some music for them and then they came back with some of the music that they wanted to do.

I think we're going to kind of explore that a little bit more this coming semester. And they're really creative. It's been a lot of fun.

That's tremendous. And you know, one of the great things about the program that I've seen over the years is that there's fluidity and there's flexibility.

I mean, the basics are always there. You're always going to be offering rudiments of music, for example, but music technology has come in the ensembles.

There was an experimental ensemble at one point. There was a vocal, pop and jazz ensemble at one point. But it's a program that does not stand still.

And it shouldn't because, you know, you want to respond to community interests, you want to respond to student interest. And then, you know, changing technology and such. I want to. We just have a couple more minutes.

And so I want to briefly get a sense of what some of our LCC music graduates have gone on to do.

Oh, sure. Several of them have gone on to Michigan State and continued their education there. There's several LCC grads in the Lansing area playing music.

I play with them all the time. That's great. And yeah, that's really cool to see. We've had students not only just MSU but move on to other 4 year schools like CMU I think is even

Berklee School of Music. Audis.

We have that three in one program, the enhanced program degree, getting an industry degree and then switching to the enhanced degree on your third year. After that you go to Ferris for one more year and you get a bachelor's degree in music business.

Wow, that's great.

Yeah, so you can take care of three out of those four years just here and then your last year is at Ferris and you get the bachelor's degree.

That's nice. That's nice.

Because here, you know, certainly we are aware of tuition differences, cost differences and then all kinds of wonderful programs that exist for tuition coverage these days with community colleges, but also the attention that you get here at LCC with smaller classes and faculty that just you advise the students.

You are not only the lead of the program, but you're the advisor and Steve, I'm sure in your role and you're all advising, you're all guiding the students. And so some really, you know, you really build the relationships with students.

So yeah, it's really cool. Another time I've seen students is at a festival where I'm getting ready to play and then I see a student working sound.

We've got several of them out there doing it. Some of our students have gone on to. One of them is basically the lead technological manager down at, I think it's the.

Oh, it's one of the big casinos down, down in, down by Indiana or something. I'm really blanking on the name of it now.

Another one of our graduates has just recently assumed a position as the lead house audio tech at the Wharton Center. We've got a lot of people who just work around town gigging, you know, basically I've got a chance for you to do some sound.

I know you work over here, I know you work over here. What are you doing next Wednesday type of a thing. So our people are out there quite a bit. It's difficult to break into it. It really is.

You have to, you know, prove yourself. Essentially you have to show up ready to go and be there and perform, do your thing, otherwise you're not going to get called back.

And so that's what I really try to emphasize with my students is the soft skills. We are in a service business. How much more of this vocal do you want in your monitor? All those things down to how many mics, all that stuff.

So we have to be very conscious of making our clients happy. Otherwise they don't work again.

Yeah.

And both of you, and I know some of the other faculty, Chris Rollins, Tom Jones, who also teaches music technology, and then all the pros that give the lessons contacts, have connections. And so I know you work that for students, too.

I am going to include in the show notes information on how to get in touch with both of you guys, Jon Gewirtz and Steve Simonson, so that our listeners who are interested can follow up. And I'm also going to include a link to LCC's webpage and our Facebook because there are always events coming up that open to the community.

Everything is free, often here on campus, much of it here on campus.

And, you know, whether you're interested in pursuing music and want to learn more and come and hear something, or you want to be in the audience or as John, as you mentioned, our ensembles are all open to students in any major as well as to the community. And you sign up for a non credit and you get a lower rate and you're basically kind of auditing it. So you're not worried about getting a grade.

But it makes a great mix. I think we could Talk for another 25 minutes without a problem. But I thank you both very much for being here. Steve Simonson, thank you.

John Gewirtz, thank you. Yeah, yeah. Great, great conversation. And thank you all for listening. I'm Melissa Caplan and this is Inside LCC.

This has been Inside LCC. If there's a specific degree and program you want to hear more about, let us know by contacting us at LCCconnect.org. Thanks for taking a listen Inside LCC.