Time Machine

You could call music professor Dean Witten, who celebrates his 30th anniversary as a Rowan faculty member this year, a lot of things: the Prince of Percussion, the Duke of the Drum Set, maybe even Master of the Marimba. Or you could just call him Dean.

Witten, who started teaching at Rowan when he was just 27, plays or has played with some of the biggest names in modern music, from Frank Sinatra (they toured together for eight years) to Robert Goulet, Englebert Humperdink, Jerry Lewis, Liberace, Wayne Newton, Patti Page, Lou Rawls, Dionne Warwick, and Paul Williams.

He's also a highly-sought theater percussionist who's performed in dozens of Broadway productions including Les Miserables, La Boheme, Jekyll and Hyde, Beauty and the Beast, The King and I, and A Catered Affair (which just wrapped in August).

He's done movie soundtracks and soundtracks for television and advertising, big band gigs, orchestral productions and big city opera.

About the only genre he doesn't play is the one that seems most obvious for a percussionist -- rock and roll.

"I played in a rock band in college but I'm not a rock and roll musician," he said recently. "I don't play in bars. I play in concert halls and theaters."

Witten, who took his first drum lesson at age seven, never let up in the 50 years that followed. He still practices every day and feels he's still improving.

"I never get bored," said Witten, who performs up to 150 shows per year despite his full-time teaching schedule at Rowan. "My goal is for my instrument to blend with all the others around me. Sonically, percussionists color the music. Rhythmically, we drive it."

Though he's performed on some of the world's greatest stages, from Radio City to Carnegie Hall, from Atlantic City to Las Vegas, Witten said he's happiest these days on one of the smallest stages of all -- at the front of a classroom.

"If anything, teaching is more fulfilling now," he said. "I have more to offer and I can take a hand in shaping the young artist -- how they're going to be as performers or teachers."

Witten said students are often impressed with his still-growing portfolio of experience but his directions for getting to Carnegie Hall are the same as they've always been: practice, practice, practice.

"The most important thing for working musicians to remember is that music is not a hobby. It needs to be taken seriously and respected," he said.

Brandon Blackburn, a senior music major from Hutchinson, Kansas, who came to Rowan specifically for its vaunted music program, said Witten's career is nothing short of inspiring. But as great as it's been, his true greatness may be in how he's shaping the next generation of percussionists, Blackburn said.

"He pushes us hard but he lets us be our own problem solver," Blackburn said. "Dean uses a lot of metaphors in his teaching. One of his favorites is ‘everything is everything.' Whatever you learn you can use in whatever you do."