Music academy offers haven for young players

It started with a dream back when David Murphy was a student. Now, 22 years later, the dream is a fledgling reality with the Wasatch Music Coaching Academy, 959 E. 900 South, a place Murphy hopes will be a haven for young musicians.

"The competitive edge of college and things like that was such a shock to me personally," Murphy said. "I thought, 'Wouldn't it be neat if there was a place that younger people could go in preparation? . . . Where they could get improvisation classes and theory classes and play with small groups, ensembles and chamber groups — even before they got to college?'"

After teaching in the public-school system for many years and spending some time in the private-business world, Murphy saw things coming together in a way that started pushing him to fulfill his dream.

Even with his other obligations, Murphy said that for the past 30-plus years, he had always continued performing and recording as a professional percussionist/drummer. So he started talking with his musical colleagues about his ideas for the studio.

The response was not only positive, but he said that many of the musicians had already had a similar idea themselves.

Further, the Alan Weight Music Studios kept coming up as a suggestion for a location. "(Weight's) dream was very similar at that studio as to what mine has been," said Murphy, a place "where there could be a multifaceted opportunity for music education for young people."

Although Weight had passed away, Murphy said that Weight's daughter, Cheryl Herman, was happy to house a program that so closely matched what her father would have wanted. "Our goal is to offer the private lessons, but what makes us unique is to offer different types of clinics and classes — theory classes, both for jazz theory and legit (classical) theory, and improvisation classes, classes on the music business, history of music classes, classes on production, on recording."

Eventually Murphy would like to offer almost any class found at an accredited university and provide the necessary recording studios and equipment for hands-on experience.

In fact, he's hoping to put together a summer workshop where a student can come with a musical idea and see it through the recording process all the way to marketing.

Frequent ensemble-playing experience is another hallmark of the program. "We want these kids to perform, to perform with each other and perform with professional musicians and get out of just playing in their house."

In fact, Murphy even tries to get gigs around town for some of the kids, although he quickly clarified that they are "healthy gigs, places they might be able to play on a Sunday afternoon."