Mr. Terry Pope

Terry Pope - professional performing and studio musician, teacher, composer, foley artist, studio designer, engineer and producer for radio, TV, stage, film, video, and music, starting professionally at the age of 16 and continuing that career for over 50 years.

Over those 50+ years, Mr. Pope's musical background and experience has covered lots of ground, both geographically and career wise, extensively traveling to and living in many parts of The Netherlands, Africa, Europe, Mexico, Canada, and all throughout the US.

His music can still be heard through radio and TV commercial and jingle packages, production music libraries, and album productions.

Education:

• North Texas State University - NTSU (currently known as UNT - The University of North Texas) - Advanced Theory with Robert Ottman (most noted author of courseware for teaching on Music Theory, site-singing, harmony, ear-training, and rudiments for most colleges and universities) - Music Composition/Lab Bands/electronic music exploration with world-renown Merrill Ellis - considered to be the Father of Experimental and Electronic Music - Understudy to John Haney, Professor of Trumpet Studies - studied composition under composer and professor Martin Mailman. Private trumpet studies with the late Don "Jake" Jacoby.
   

• Business Degree from University of Texas at Dallas

• Starting as a beginner trumpet player in the 7th grade band and later in high school with the formation of a private 6-piece band made up of high school and college students, he fronted the band that played some of what was known at the time as "Top 40" pop songs with brass instrumentation (Tijuana Brass, Al Hirt, etc.), as well as Big Band arrangements of old "standards", along with Dixieland tunes. The band (Delta 6) played country clubs and private parties, and was considered a novelty by the adults who hired them (young kids playing old songs). Many of the older song arrangements were done by Terry's first mentor, Sonny Claiborne - a former sax player and arranger for the Harry James Orchestra in the 40s and 50s. From Sonny, he learned how to arrange for small groups but make it sound like a Big Band. Other more current song arrangements were done by Terry and other members of the band.
   

• During that same time period he got the chance to play musicals at the Dallas Theater Center and Theater 3, which led to studio work while still attending High School. This was the "Bug" that bit him and started his love for working in recording studios. He continued working in the Dallas "Jingle Factories", which at that time had put Dallas on the map as a major recording center creating the majority of the radio and television station ID jingle packages heard world wide. This experience allowed him to learn and work as a studio musician, writer, arranger, editor, engineer, and producer while attending the Jazz Studies and Performance Divisions of the College of Music at the University of North Texas (formerly NTSU).
   

• Going to NTSU in the 60s and 70s, and being a part of the Lab Band program during that time, introduced Mr. Pope to and allowed him to work with future recording greats like "Blue" Lou Marini and Tom "Bones" Malone (both of whom were with Blood, Sweat & Tears, and Saturday Night Live for several years, and were the horns for the Blues Brothers Band with Dan Aykroyd and John Belushi), Gary Grant, Ed Soph, Marv Stamm, the late film score composer Dee Barton, Bruce Fowler, Dean Parks, Bill Stapleton, Jay Saunders, not to mention the legendary Big Band leader Stan Kenton himself, who would walk through the doors at NTSU at any given moment, and throw down new charts to see if he liked them well enough to have his band perform them. The Lab Bands were somewhat of a "test bed" for some of the biggest names in Big Band and Jazz. NTSU/UNT has been considered for decades one of the top music and jazz schools in the world, generating more professional musicians with album credits than any other music education facility in the world.
  
  Today you can see "Bones" on the David Letterman show - he's the trombone, trumpet, flute, clarinet, sax, piccolo player usually wearing the cheesy blue tux jacket in the horn section of "Paul Shaffer's Late Show Band". "Blue" Lou tours with many well known artists and can be heard on hundreds of recordings, and Gary is on just about everyone's album from Al Jarreau to Aerosmith to Earth Wind and Fire to Michael Jackson to Barbra Streisand (see his full discology HERE).
  
  Another plus, while attending NTSU, Mr. Pope got a chance to be an understudy for the highly acclaimed head of the Trumpet Studies Division, John Haney. At the same time, Terry took private lessons and subbed from the late, great Don "Jake" Jacoby - the President of the Musician's Union - Dallas Chapter, until his death in 1992.
   

• After attending NTSU Mr. Pope toured the world for over 6 years with an exclusive cover and warm-up group, well known in the high-society circles, Five-Star Hotel chains including Westin, Hyatt and AMFAC Hotels, and Las Vegas clubs, with original arrangements, unique instrumentation, and well known artists like Jim Ballentine (currently a professor of Music Theory, Jazz, and Composition at University of Texas at San Antonio - UTSA), Dallas recording artist and former member of the Woody Herman Big Band Orchestra, Pete Brewer, Mike DeLeon (who mastered the "Guitorgan" - a 'solid-body' Les Paul guitar with each fret divided into six independent sections. Each section of fret was connected to a wire that went down the neck of the guitar into the body where it fed the electronics of a Hammond B-3 organ housed in the body of the guitar and a foot-petal on the floor. Mike could just press any of the strings on his guitar and you would hear those notes being played as if there was an organ player on a Hammond B3 Organ. He would also string his top two strings (the lowest two) with bass guitar strings, tuned down to bass guitar range, and played those two strings independently with his thumb while chording with the other four fingers on the other four strings - a special pickup was also designed so he could run the top two "bass" strings through a bass cabinet and the other four through a regular guitar amp, while the organ output went to a Leslie Speaker, prevalent of the sounds of the 60s and 70s bands), and the Montgomery Sisters - Covers and warm-ups included the likes of The Carpenters, 5th Dimension, Sergio Mendez and Brazil '66, Spanky and Our Gang, Lighthouse, 3 Dog Night, to mention just a few.
  
  Many of the clubs and hotels made it possible for the band to meet and work with some of the most influential people of the time in the music and entertainment industry, including Clint Eastwood, Adam West (TV's Batman), Ron Ely (Tarzan), Hugh O'Brian (Bat Masterson), Desi Arnez Jr., Eddie Adams, comedian George Kirby, Elke Sommer, Natalie Wood, Robert Wagner, Bob Crane (Hogan's Heros), Gary Burghoff ('Radar' on the TV show M.A.S.H. - both Crane and Burghoff "sat in" with the band - both played drums), Harmonicats, Vince Guaraldi (composer of the music for the "Peanuts" TV specials), Tower of Power, Cold Blood, David Foster, and the list goes on.
   

• After the touring band broke up, Terry joined the US Air Force where he was put in charge as the head of Music Theory for all incoming recruits going into the AF Band system, as well as writing and producing music for the national Air Force radio and television commercials. During public school seasons, he would head the "Marketing Bands" - several smaller music "genre" groups designed to play for high schools and colleges for recruiting efforts. He also directed the Air Force's big band, "The Dimensions in Blue", and arranged specialty pieces for the "Tower of Rock", a 10-piece horn group that toured all over the Southwest. In all, he directed 7 different groups that help recruit for the Air Force. The bands were so good, that for the first time in the history of the San Antonio "Air Force Band of the West", many of the groups were being asked to play for high school proms by the students. He also had the chance to play trumpet for a tour with Bob Hope during his time with the Air Force.
   

• During the summer months, Mr. Pope oversaw construction, equipment purchases, installation, acoustic designs, and training for several recording studios built for the Air Force during his 4-year tenure - studios were constructed all over the US and different parts of Germany. During the day, he would help with the construction and intricate wiring, acoustic room adaptation designs, and oversaw the building process - in the evenings, he would train future arrangers, composers, engineers and producers on how to write and record for radio, TV and film. The efforts were driven by the desire for the Air Force to start producing its own commercials instead of ad agencies in New York.
  
  Even though he would have only a handful of people who he was supposed to be training, because the classes were in the evenings, more and more people from all over the Air Base would hear about the classes and come sit-in and listen - by the end of the training, instead of having only about 10 students, he would end up with over 60 who just wanted to learn how it was done.
  
  It was by doing this that he realized how many people wanted to learn what goes on in a recording studio and at the time there were no schools that taught that type of education - hence, an idea came to him just before he left the Air Force - to start a recording school.
   

• After leaving the Air Force, he moved to Tulsa, created and later expanded "Studio Production Techniques" - a private studio recording school with additional locations eventually in Nashville and Dallas. All of these classes were held in the evenings. With his Tulsa school he taught sound engineering, music producing, music theory and arranging for radio, TV, and film. To help feed students into his Tulsa studio school, he designed and instructed a credited course entitled, "The Recording Studio" for the Tulsa Junior College system and University of Tulsa. That course was later adopted by the Dallas Community Colleges after moving back to Dallas. He also was an adjunct instructor at University of Tulsa, Roger's State College, and Oral Roberts University in music theory, arranging, and jazz composition.
   

• While in Tulsa, he produced, engineered, played, arranged, and worked with contemporary Christian artists and ministries - (Stephanie Boosahda - one of the first artists to sign with RCA's Contemporary Christian label, "Carmen" Licciardello, Kenneth Hagin Ministries, Michael James Murphy, Joe Ninowski, Richard Roberts, and others), country artists (BoxCar Willie, Janie Fricke, Moe Bandy, Jana Jay, Shelby Eicher, Troy Klontz (steel guitar for Brooks & Dunn) and Gene Crain - both extraordinary steel-guitar players for Roy Clark and could both be seen on the old TV show, "Hee-Haw", with the late Buck Owens - both worked with just about every country great there was), Roy Clark, Gaylord Sartain, David Gates (of Bread), Leon Russell, Jamie Oldaker (drummer for Eric Clapton and Bob Seger), The Gap Band, Letha, and (among other great local and regional artists) he arranged and produced a three-song demo for a young up-and-coming talent to enter the talent search TV show, Star Search, the predecessor to American Idol - that young talent was Sam Harris - the first winner of Star Search who has gone on to be one of the most recognizable singers, actors, writers, and producers of stage, screen, and television of the past two decades.
  
  During that time in Tulsa, a venture between he and a partner led to the creation of "MusiPak" - a production music library of over 500 cuts, sold to broadcast production facilities all over the world, and worked on location-sound recording for films, Foley (the art of replacing sounds in films) and post production sound and music on films including "Blood Cult" (first 'video rental only' produced motion picture), "The Ripper", "Sucker" (USA Networks), and "Peggy Sue Got Married" and "Revenge", both allowing him to work with the late, great film legend "John Carradine, Sr." ("Revenge", also a video-rental-only film, was Carradine's 500^th film), Patrick Wayne (John Wayne's son), Jill Clark (one of the little red-headed kids in "Where the Fern Grows" - now a producer), Francis Ford-Coppala, Matt Dillion, and special-effects great, Tom Savini.
  
  Other projects during his time in Tulsa had Mr. Pope traveling to Nashville, Los Angeles, New York, Toronto, and Chicago, playing, writing, and producing for ad agencies and special project groups.
   

• Mr. Pope helped create and was on the Board of Directors for both the Tulsa Music Association and Texas Music
  Association - Dallas Chapter.
   

• He was a voting member of the Grammys (NARAS - National Academy of Recording Arts & Sciences) for over 12 years.
   

• Terry moved back to Dallas from Tulsa to run his "Studio Production Techniques" recording school at Dallas Sound Lab in the Studios of Las Colinas. Other locations included Charlie Pride Studios, Summit-Burnet Studios, and VoiceOver Studios. He also was asked by the Dallas Community College District to adapt the course he had created for the Tulsa Junior College system called "The Recording Studio" - after adapting that course from a credit to a non-credit curriculum, he taught that course for the Continuing Education department at Richland, Eastfield, Brookhaven, and Northlake campuses, as well as one for Collin County Community College system.
   

• Mr. Pope was subsequently approached by the Art Institutes International to develop and direct the flagship "Music & Video Business" program for their Dallas campus with plans to offer the program at their other 12 campuses. While developing the program, he designed the first ever multi-student recording mixing facility, allowing 20 students to simultaneously be able to independently mix their own stereo mixes from the same master, which was recorded by the same students in professional studios throughout Dallas. He also served on the Board of Directors for Cedar Valley College's Audio Recording program.
  
  At the facility he designed at the Art Institute of Dallas, Students had access to a room that was equipped with 10 pro consoles, each stocked with both analog and digital processing equipment, patch-bays, and pro stereo mix-down machines. A single 2" master playback machine would feed each console with all 24 tracks recorded at the studio, at the same time, allowing each group of 2 to mix their own stereo finals to their own 2-track analog machine. Mr. Pope received recording industry accolades for the innovative training design concept.
  
  His faculty was formed with the idea that if a newbie was going to make it in the Music Business, it was a known fact that it was 15% of What-You-Know and 85% Who-You-Know - so, he put the "Who-You-Knows" in the classrooms as instructors. The list of instructors he had at the Art Institute of Dallas read like a "Who's Who" in the music, recording, stage, touring, video production, special effects, promotions, marketing and post-production industries - an A&R rep with Sony/CBS Records, a special effects artist with Industrial Light and Magic (worked on several Star Wars films), well known road managers, lighting specialists, top recording engineers, and many others who could take those students who showed initiative and get them on the road to success quickly. Students were getting jobs after graduation like tour sound for Paul McCartney and Wings, Aaron Neville, Linda Ronstadt, Disney, all major networks, The Simpsons, every radio and television station in town, and a few made it to Hollywood on major motion pictures and major album productions.
   

• Just after leaving the Art Institutes, Mr. Pope taught music theory classes for a private casual adult educational school, having turned down a job to move from Dallas to become the Music Director for the late, phenomenally talented Andy Williams, at Andy's "Moon River Theater" in Branson, MO.
   

Mr. Pope currently resides in Richardson, TX with his wife Debbie and their daughter Celia "CeCe" Pope.

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