As a composer for Scripps Networks Interactive, Phil Fuson creates music that appears on HGTV, DIY Network, Food Network, Travel Channel and more. As a volunteer at the Joy of Music School, he shares that understanding of music and video with our students. He’s co-instructor, along with Manager of Volunteer Resources Ed Sublett, in our Music Production and Engineering for Teens class.

Bright, talkative, and absolutely energized by music, Phil is innately a teacher, with a big personality that captures his students’ attention. With the process dominated by technology, he teaches them on software that Phil says he’s worked with “since it was on the Atari, so I really feel ancient.” Today’s version of the software, Logic Pro X, is the industry standard, and Phil sees it as the best teaching tool for kids seeking a future in his line of work.

Phil is a native of Pineville, Ky., and a product of Jerry Coker’s University of Tennessee’s legendary jazz program. His early musical influences include the Beatles and the Dave Clark Five, introduced to him by his cousins; Louis Armstrong, Nat Cole, Basie and Duke Ellington, thanks to his stereophile dad; and Uncle Dave Macon, often played on his mom’s favorite radio station in Jamestown, W. Va.

For Phil today, service is a core value. He cites Herbie Hancock’s recommendation that while we are reaching up as musicians, we should also pull up those less fortunate. And doing good, it turns out, feels good! “The joy of music goes both ways,” Phil explains, describing his JoMS students as “interested, voraciously curious and wicked bright.”