Dr. Brad DeRoche Talks about the Interlochen Arts Camp

by Dr. Matthew Warnock.

Dr. Brad DeRoche is one of the hardest working guitarists you will ever meet. He is regarded as a world-class classical guitarist who maintains a busy performance schedule of concerts and clinics every year. DeRoche is also one of the most sought after classical guitar educators in the Midwest and he holds teaching positions at Delta College, Central Michigan University and the Interlochen Arts Camp. On top of all of these commitments, DeRoche is the co-owner of the highly successful company, Strings by Mail.

DeRoche holds degrees from Central Michigan University, Eastern Michigan University, and a Doctor of Musical Arts degree in Classical Guitar Performance and Literature from the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, New York. Aside from his scholarly studies, he has also participated in master classes with world-renowned classical guitarists David Russell, Raphaëlla Smits, Paul Galbraith and Fabio Zanon, just to name a few.

Recently, DeRoche has published articles in the scholarly journal Soundboard, performed, taught and presented seminars at the Eastman Guitar Festival, Interlochen Guitar Festival and Workshop, the Las Vegas Guitar Festival, and the Alexandria Guitar Festival. He has also recorded the works of a number of lesser-known Spanish guitarists, many of which have never been recorded before, in addition to maintaining a steady schedule of performances and lectures throughout the United States.

Though teaching in his second season at the Interlochen Arts Camp (a six-week long music program held every summer in Interlochen, Michigan) and gearing up for his fourth year at the Interlochen Guitar Festival and Workshop (a weekend long intensive guitar retreat also held at Interlochen), DeRoche took time from his busy schedule to talk to us about the many projects in which he is currently involved.

Matt Warnock: How did you get your start as a guitar teacher?

Brad DeRoche: My first teaching job was at a little music shop in my home town. I was 18 years old at the time and was working in the store as a salesperson when one of the guitar teachers quit. He had about six students in his studio and when the store owner started looking for a new teacher, I said, “Hey, I can help fill the void.” I ended up getting the job, though it was a strange experience for me at first.

Most, if not all, of the students were reading music out of the Mel Bay books, volume one and two, and I just didn’t read music at the time. I was a rock guitar player, and here were these kids reading notation better than their teacher. I was trying to teach them pentatonic scales and riffs and they’re reading "Mary Had a Little Lamb" with notes and chords out of these books.

It was a real awakening time for me - I realized that I needed to relearn how to read music. I'd learned as a kid but it had been years since I'd read music notation on a regular basis. It was slow going at first but I kept at it and over time it helped me become a better teacher. That was my start, teaching out of the Mel Bay books at a little music shop in the small town where I grew up.

Matt: After teaching at a music shop for a while you made the move to teaching at a local college. Can you tell us how you got your start teaching at Delta College?

Brad: That came a little bit later on. I was 23 or 24 years old when I started teaching at Delta College in Saginaw, Michigan. I was finishing my undergrad degree when my mom called me one day to tell me about a part-time guitar instructor position at Delta that she'd seen in the local paper. I didn't even have a resumé at the time, so my sister wrote one up for me and I sent it in. The phone rang and they asked me in for an interview - I couldn’t believe they called me! At the time I was thinking, “What am I going to do?”

I went and borrowed a suit, I didn’t even own one at the time, combed my long hair back and drove over for the interview. At the time I thought it was just an interview, but when I went in they gave me a bunch of paperwork, keys to my office and told me I'd start in three weeks. It was a bit weird because they never once told me I had the job, so when I left there I wasn’t really even sure that I had the position. I thought that maybe this is all just a formality, all the paperwork, in case they hired me. I had no idea; I was so naïve at the time. They probably assumed that I knew the ropes, but I certainly didn't.

Since it was only part time, the job had incredibly low pay. I started in 1989 and even then it was a small amount of money to be making as a college graduate. But, I did it because I thought it was fun, and it was better than working a non-music day job. None of my friends had a job like that. So here I am, this local rock guitar player teaching at a college, which was pretty cool, for me anyway. That was my first collegiate-level teaching position, and I’ve had it ever since.

Matt: You also teach during the summer at the Interlochen Arts Camp. Can you tell us how you became a faculty member at the Summer Guitar Festival, and how that led to you teaching at the Arts Camp?

Brad: I’ve been involved with the guitar festival since its inception four years ago. One of my former teachers, John Wunsch, is the director of the festival, and we have remained friends since I was his student 15 years ago. When he was thinking of putting together a guitar festival at Interlochen, he asked me for suggestions as I had experience in developing other, similar festivals elsewhere.

We discussed faculty and guest artist salaries, which performers and teachers to bring in, how to market the program, those types of things. He also asked me to teach and play at the first festival, which was a great honor for me to be a part of the festival in that manner, as well as a consultant. This year, John's bringing me back for the fourth time, and each year my teaching and performing duties have gradually increased.

I think that John is trying to increase my involvement with the festival because I was hired at the Interlochen summer program in '08. So he's trying to bring together the two Interlochen classical guitar teachers, John and myself, so people at the festival can get a sense of what it might be like to study here. I think it can provide a positive experience for all parties involved.

My prior relations with John, my involvement with the guitar festival, and my credentials were really my “in,” which led to me being asked to teach at the Interlochen Arts Camp. I'm really glad to have been offered the IAC classical guitar position because I absolutely love teaching here in the summer.

Matt: What is the typical daily schedule for a classical guitar student who studies with you at Interlochen during the summer?

Brad: Well, it’s a guitar boot camp. [Laughs] We start everyday with two hours of technical drills. Some people may cringe at the thought of this, but I love it. We do scales and arpeggios, slurs and tremolo, among other technical exercises, first thing in the morning from 9 to 11 a.m. The rest of the day is broken up into different classes including guitar ensemble, where we play together as a medium-sized guitar group, a transcription class where we learn to interpret lute and vihuela tablature, and guitar history where we learn about players, composers, repertoire, and instruments. Each student also receives a one-hour private lesson with me each week during the camp. In private lessons, we work on all sorts of concepts. It’s a one-on-one lesson where we work on solo repertoire, ensemble pieces, technique exercises and reading, among other things.

This year we’re also going to have a performance class where the students will be performing in front of their peers as soloists or as a member of the guitar ensemble. I really want them to increase their performance experience so when they leave Interlochen they will have six weeks of daily performance experience to draw upon in the future. It’s a very difficult thing to perform as a soloist, to walk up in front of people and play a piece of music, so I want to work on that throughout the camp.

Matt: There’s also a cumulative concert at the end of the summer as well.

Brad: Right. I think what I might try to do this year, but we’ll see as scheduling is always tight there, is to do two concerts instead of one. The first concert would feature each student playing a solo piece, while the second concert would feature the full guitar ensemble as well as smaller groups of duos, trios and quartets. I would like for the students to come there and be fully immersed in the guitar for the whole six weeks, which is almost an unavoidable consequence of their course schedules.

The students are in guitar classes from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., five days a week. Then most of them practice in their spare time after dinner. It’s almost non-stop playing and practicing for six weeks. Last year, I felt that all of the students really enjoyed the experience. The feedback I’ve gotten was very positive, and they all made huge improvements in their playing. When they're at home, they get a one-hour per week lesson with their instructors, which is wonderful, but at Interlochen they’re constantly working with their teacher all day, every day, and I believe this produces amazing results. It’s the old apprentice system that produced the great artists in the Renaissance and Baroque periods you know.

Matt: There’s a saying that people use for this experience: they call it the “magic of Interlochen” because even if the students are good players before entering the program, the vast majority of Interlochen students leave as totally different players, and people for that matter. It’s almost unavoidable that a student will get better after going through that much focused daily instruction, practice and performance.

Brad: I agree. I actually had a wonderful talk with one of the parents of a student of mine from last summer. He said that his son was transformed after getting back from the camp; he was a different person all together. Not only did his playing skills improve, but as a person he was much more mature.

Matt: Your students learn a lot of different skills besides playing at Interlochen. They learn discipline, time management. They learn to live in a cabin with ten other kids, be on time to classes. It’s almost like a college environment for high school students.

Brad: That’s right. The students are responsible for getting themselves to classes on time, to eat on time and to register for the right courses. In essence, they have to become responsible for themselves. I think it’s a great place for young people to learn music, and I honestly wish I had that experience when I was a kid.

To be immersed in all of this great music, not just guitar music, and not only classical music, they also get a jazz guitar master class every week so they’re exposed to that as well. There is also a wonderful orchestra and many different chamber groups for them to listen to regularly. Those kinds of experiences are really unique for the students at Interlochen.

Not everyone gets to hear a virtuoso violinist, a great jazz drummer or a future concert pianist on a daily basis, but at Interlochen these kids can hear that kind of thing and much more all summer long. It can be a life-changing experience for them. While it can be expensive, I believe that it’s well worth it for the growth that these students experience at the camp.

Matt: Let’s move on to your business career. You are a performer and educator, but you also own a very successful business. Can you tell us how you came to be the co-owner of Strings by Mail?

Brad: Strings by Mail was started by a former student of mine, Richard Cyr. It started as a mail-order business, and the company grew substantially while he was the owner. I think he got to a point where the business was getting busier, and he was getting close to retirement, so he was looking for a way to help out his retirement and selling the business gave him that opportunity. My brother Scott and I bought the business several years ago and have increased the offerings of what we sell since that time.

We’ve recently started selling sheet music, guitar accessories, DVDs and other types of strings for acoustic and electric guitar. Richard had been selling some of these items before, but we’ve worked on expanding our offerings in these categories. We've also expanded the range of classical guitar strings that we offer. We have most of the major brands from around the world and our acoustic line is developing along with our electric line. We’ve recently started to offer strings for many other instruments as well.

One thing that we do that separates us from other businesses is that we try and be accessible through email and by phone to all our customers. We try and help people with answering questions that they may have about string tension, action, etc. We do string calculations for people, so if they want to tune to an A on their high E string, what type of string should they use to withstand the tension. We do stock those strings by the way, people don’t often know that!

We got a call last week from a guy who had a guitar ensemble and he wanted to know if he could put a string on his guitar that would go beyond a high A, all the way up to a D, on a 650 scale length guitar. And sure enough, we had a string that could handle that pitch and tension.

Matt: Do you have strings that could withstand that tension on an electric guitar as well?

Brad: No. Unfortunately, we don’t have the materials that would handle that tension.

Matt: I’ve heard of guitarists, especially seven-string players, who use high tension fishing line on their top string and then tune it to the high A to handle the pressure.

Brad: Yeah, the problem in the past was that everybody thought that you couldn’t tune a high E string up past an F# or G because it would break. This is typical for a nylon hard tension string, or even a medium tension string, when you tune them that high they just break. What we have now is a number of different diameters of nylon string which can be tuned up to higher pitches.

Though, for electric and acoustic guitars the smallest size of string we have is the .007, and as far as I know, no one makes a string thinner than that. I’m not sure off of the top of my head how high you could tune that string, but I would think it wouldn’t be much higher than a G# or an A. Especially if you start bending the string, then it’s a goner! Easily to a G, but beyond that it’s pretty sketchy.

Matt: How did you learn all of this information about strings? Did you learn most of it on the job, or did you come into this position with a personal dictionary of string facts from which to draw upon?

Brad: No, not at all, though I have to say I’m a bit of a gear junky when it comes to the classical guitar. I had experimented with a lot of classical guitar strings over the years, in terms of how they sound on my own guitars. So, coming into the business I had a good knowledge of the sound of different brands of strings, but as far as the material and how to make strings, I had no knowledge about that part of the business.

When Richard Cyr owned the business, he focused his expertise more on the manufacturing side of these different types of strings. While I find that important, what I’m more interested in is the sound. What is the sound going to be when people play these strings on their guitars? Doesn’t matter if it's fluorocarbon, nylon 6 or DuPont 202, what really matters to me is the sound.

People want a certain sound quality or a certain feel, and I think I can offer them advice in this area because I’ve tried all of these strings on my own guitar. I can tell them, this one sounds brighter than that one, or this string is quieter than that one, or this one is more flexible, etc. It’s a combination of a lifetime of experimentation on my own, coupled with owning the business and the experience I’ve gained from that.

We do work closely with many of the string manufactures, D’Addario, La Bella and the distributor for Galli strings, for instance. We talk to them about their experiences, and I try to help them when I can. They often send me new strings to try out, and then I give them feedback on how the string performed in different situations. I have developed my own process that I go through to tell these companies how the string reacted on my instrument, as compared to other strings. It’s fairly detailed what I go into, I have almost 30 points that I test them on before I give that report back to the string companies for review. I guess I’ve become a bit of a resource for that type of thing.

Related Links
Interlochen Guitar Festival and Workshop
Interlochen Arts Camp
Strings by Mail

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