Instructor Profile: John Berry
Music Business Instructor John Berry
Learning how to survive and prosper in the audio/music industry is an important part of the training that students receive at the Conservatory of Recording Arts. We recently talked with Music Business Instructor John Berry, an industry professional himself, about what students can expect to learn from his classes.
What do you teach at the Conservatory?
The general heading is Music Business which includes: copyright, contracts, publishing and how to make money and avoid being cheated.
Tell us about your musical background.
I am the composer/arranger of several thousand works (mostly for Jazz Band), about 500 of which are published. I'm also a former member of the U.S. Army Jazz Ambassadors where I was chief arranger, assistant director and bass trombonist.
Where did you learn your skills as a musician and arranger?
I learned to write by writing, writing and writing some more. I started out by doing record transcriptions of dozens of Stan Kenton orchestra tunes. I learned to play my vile, evil bass trombone (the instrument with which I offended an entire nation) at Indiana University and privately studied with two lower brass players in the Chicago Symphony.
How long have you been an instructor at the Conservatory and what got you started in audio education?
I started about 10 years ago as a substitute teacher and it evolved into a full-time gig. I have always had my own private MIDI studio, where I compose jingles and so forth. I got into sequencing and other technologies in the 80s and learned by doing and reading every manual cover to cover.
From your perspective, what is most interesting about the business side of the recording industry?
Right now, what's interesting is the great battle between the big labels and almost everyone else (Napster, other infringers, artists, equipment manufacturers, consumers, webcasters, individual businesses, etc.). I think it's heading toward a big revolution. This will escalate once consumers (and everyone else) finally get a belly full of the Labels' heavy-handed attempts to commandeer the tech world they totally ignored until a few short years ago. Beyond that, the day-to-day events in this industry are interesting – all the dangers the biz presents to anyone who doesn't know the biz.
What are some of the things a student can expect to learn from your classes?
That's simple – how to protect yourself in this very dangerous business. How to keep people from ripping off your songs (wouldn't it be awful if you wrote the number one hit song of all time, but you never earned a penny from it?), how to avoid being sued for a million dollars just because you didn't know what qualifies as illegal sampling, how to reap the rewards this business can offer without suffering the pains and losses that so many others have. Said another way, I pity the poor soul that goes into this industry without knowing how the business works!
Tell us more about what you do when you're not teaching at the school.
I still write some 12 tunes a year for Hal Leonard (mostly for jazz bands . . . at all levels), and beyond that, I relax on my "Ranch-ette" with my beautiful (and brainy) wife Robin and our menagerie – 3 horses, 1 burro, 2 dogs, 10 cats, and probably, a rattlesnake.