Meet Chip Degaard, Owner of Chip Dee Music Academy

Welcome to Down the Boulevard, a new weekly feature on Hasbrouck Heights Patch where we ask the business owners in our town a few questions about their business and themselves. Get to know your business owners.

The has quite a long history in the borough. Chip Degaard, professional musician and educator, has been teaching in the borough for decades long before he opened the academy at its Boulevard location about two years ago.

Degaard began giving private lessons in the early 1980s. Before he knew it, things snowballed and he accumulated quite a number of students over the years. In the early 1990s he wound up moving to the borough and opened a studio in his home. He was waiting for the right spot on the Boulevard to open up and that was when the academy was born.

It’s no surprise that music has always been a major part of his life, as not only does he teach his students but he also performs in several musical projects, and writes and records music. 

The first instrument Degaard became familiar with was the piano, when he was 10 years old. Listening to bands like the Beatles inspired him to learn the drums. Growing up in Chicago he was exposed to a lot of Blues and Jazz music, which were his earliest influences although he plays and writes all styles of music.

Degaard plays keyboards, piano, drums, guitar and sings. He’s certified to play all instruments such as woodwinds but he prefers to teach the instruments which he plays professionally.

Degaard is actively involved with many musical projects. He currently plays keyboards with Kenny Vance and the Planotones, which has toured all over the country and locally as well. The band just performed an outdoor concert in Lyndhurst last week. Degaard also plays in a rockabilly project called Rockit 88 and a funk type R&B band called D’layd Adolescents.

He described his most recent recording project, a CD entitled “Songs From the Island” as a musical, a collection of songs inspired by the time he spent performing at a psychiatric hospital. His CD is currently available through his website. 

What is unique about his music school is they teaching all the fundamentals of an instrument and he believes in emphasizing learning to read music so students really get a full musical education. The academy trains its young students as if they want to be professional musicians whether the student plans to be or not. 

Students of all ages come to the music academy. Degaard said he has even taught people who are in their 80s. When it comes to adults, he will work with them to gear the education to their own personal goals.

Aside from Degaard, one of his former longtime students, Carmine Scordo, who is also a Heights resident, also teaches at the music academy. He said Scordo specializes in guitar but also teaches all instruments.

Although he already has  a recording studio at the music academy, Degaard is working at updating it with some of the latest equipment.