It’s a litle weird to step into a classroom and have somebody talk at you for an hour. Who are they? Why are they up there? Why are they teaching this specific course? Is there any reason to listen to what they have to say? I think this whole thing works a little better if you know something about me.

My name is Michael Lee. You can call me “Michael Lee”, or “Mr. Lee”, “Professor Lee”, or just plain “Michael”. I graduated from APU with a degree in Music Theory in the late 1990’s, and then took a year off from life to practice piano. I lived in a rented room with a Fender Rhodes, an upright piano, and a laptop loaded with Logic software. I spent as much time as I could practicing. I found a guy named Terry Trotter, and started studying jazz piano with him.

After that year, I started to work full-time as a keyboardist, composer, and programmer. While I was playing piano for a worship service at a small church in Orange County, a manager heard me, and asked me to audition as a pianist for a small touring vocal group. I played on the road with them for about 9 months, in small theaters and country churches.

One of the women in the group started dating a drummer. As it turns out, he was one of the top-call recording session drummers in LA. He was the Musical Director for Meredith Brooks, and asked me to come audition to play keyboards on her next tour. I landed the gig and went from playing to 200 people to playing for 20,000 seat amphitheaters, and live TV audiences in the millions.

After you get your first big call, if you do well, you start to get other calls. The gig with Meredith led to calls from Melissa Etheridge, Nelly Furtado, Avalon, Michelle Tumes, Jarvis Church, David Foster, and other artists and producers. I split my time pretty evenly between playing keyboards, producing records for indie artists, and working as a technical consultant for studios and tour producers.

In the midst of that, I decided to go back to school to get a Master’s degree. I entered the program at Talbot School of Theology at Biola University, and finished up in Spring of 2005 with Master’s degree in Theology, with an emphasis in Philosophy of Religious Thought.

In August of 2003, I was sitting on a tour bus, just coming back into town, and I got a call from Dr. Phil Shackleton at APU. The teacher for Intro to Music Tech had bailed out on them at the last minute, and they needed someone to come teach the course, which was starting in 3 weeks. I had never really been interested in teaching, but Phil was a mentor to me while I was in school, and I have enormous respect for him, and so I said yes … to one semester only.

I loved it. They offered me the course for another semester, and I said yes. They offered me more courses, and I said yes. In Spring of 2006, they offered me a full-time faculty position, and I said yes. To my utter shock, I’m realizing that I love being in the room with students more than being on stage with artists, more than being in the room with producers, more than most of the things I’ve done in my career.

I still work professionally, but I’m more selective now about the work that I take. I don’t do big tours anymore; I get to see my wife and two kids every day, which is more important to me by far. I still do session work as a keyboardist, technical consulting for Logic Pro, and writing for TV commercials and some low-budget films.

I've found that keeping my feet firmly planted in the music industry helps me be a better teacher. My goal is to draw the content for my courses from the practical experiences that have paid my bills for 10 years. I want to make sure that when you leave school, you’ve had the chance to equip yourself with the tools you’ll need to make a living in this industry.

So that’s me. That’s how I ended up here, standing in front of you and talking for an hour.

If you're the kind of person who likes to read through boring academic summaries, you can click to download my curriculum vitae, updated Spring of 2008.