THE BEGINNING STUDENT

The Beginning Student

   What’s the quickest, surest way to get competency from the “rank beginner” voice student. These students are from all walks of life: children, high school kids, adult recreational students. They may even be professional actors or dancers who find they have top learn to sing competently for an impending performance. At any rate, the teachers at Utah conservatory have been working with the “community student” and the “professional track” student for some years. Yet, the challenges of the “community student” to the voice teacher are unique. Usually, they are “recreational singer,” that is, they are looking for enjoyment of a new skill that enhances their quality of life, reduces stress, and accomplished some personal goal, yet, their quest in not the central focus of their vocational goals. These students are part of our new “consumer mentality.” They are looking for maximum results from their “professional trainer” without a whole lot of leisure time to study at the “professional track level.” If they spend their time exclusively with vocal drills and exercises, they feel progress is too slow, as they have not “product” to show for it. Conversely, if they only work on their favorite songs, they may not experience the essential basics of technique that the drills and technique have to offer. At any rate, we usually find that they need to feel quickly that there is a change in their abilities for the better.
   These issues have brought us to put our heads together and pose the question: What have we, as a faculty, seen as the consistent methods, strategies and techniques that contribute to solid progress and competency for the rand beginning student, particularly the student who practices less that 45 minutes a day? And, when they do practice, they are usually double-tasking.
  We have noticed that the pursuit is in “synergistic principals.” 
   Here are some of our guiding strategies:

Insist on Perfect Posture:

Why?  Because perfect singing posture get the student out of his/her own way.  It will prevent the student from overcompensating in other areas.  This includes: feeling tall and loose; sensing broadness on both sides of the sternum with a high torso; teaching skeletal alignment, feet balanced and shoulder width apart, a feeling of “roundedness” and a “synergistic balance.”

Breathe with the Student in Solidarity:

Proper breathing can be led by example.  As we all recognize that correct breathing is foundational and synergistic to the rest of the singing process, the example of our breath with the student will help to re-pattern their habits.  We recommend the instructor put her on own hand on her own abdomen while the other hand plays the scales.  Let the student always see you breathe move and they will do the same.    Some basics: Keep the energy low, talk about the “pelvic floor” and the feeling of breath energy flowing through the body and into the floor, allow no tightness to come into the posture during the breath, practice long slow breaths, pant, “plie” with the inhalation, or prop the students entire back side, knees bent, up against the wall, and have them bend down while inhaling. Encourage them to practice low slow breathing while laying in bed with a dictionary on their abs, or when walking or driving.

Support!

The fastest way to get new students to progress is to really get them to support, even if the high sub-glottic pressures might cause them to over-sing a bit.  We find that the over-singing can be quickly resolved by just noting to the student that their voice is doing a little more work than it needs to, and that they can release their voice through more air flow.  We are so afraid of damaging beginning voice students with over-singing, that they go for months, even years, with unembodied, wimpy tones, never really finding out what their “real” voice sounds like. Conversely, teaching the student about the apoggio and its ability to build the voice is the key.  The sub-glottic pressure can first be felt with bubbles and lips drills, then a little feeling of pressure with arpeggios on “ZZZZZ,” followed by the [u] vowel and then some sirens.  Sirens get them to feel the way that the air pressure can raise their voices without any vocal work.  Last, and perhaps the most controversial, we find that the student who know how to shout, can transfer than sensation to the torso strength that it takes to sing on the breath.  We recommended lots of speech-to-singing exercises.  We even recommend that students monologue, loudly, their pieces, and then sing them.  

Lesson Structure:  A Balance approach in a small amount of time

Basic drills and exercises (5-10 minutes)

Sieber or Concone (5 minutes)

Classical Style Song of teacher’s choosing (5-10 minutes)

Contemporary song selected by Student with teacher’s approval (5-10 minutes)

Taping the lesson as a pattern for practice

Keep explanations concise so that the student in singing for the majority of the lesson

Keep focus on actual learning time (reference)

Stay Socratic and positive

Avoid critical evaluations

Attention:

Extrovert the student’s attention

Put attention on communication

Get the student to non-threatening performance opportunities: master classes, friends at lessons, rest home, etc.  The students who perform make the best progress.

WHAT IS ACTING?

What is Acting?? 

   For years people have been asking me What is Acting?? My customary answer is the same one the headmaster at the London Academy of Music & Dramatic Art told me over thirty years ago as I was a student who had worked professionally as an actor in New York for ten years and had studied with several well-known actors, Uta Hagen, Mira Rostova, and Bobby Lewis which had confused me and didn’t get right down to the core of the matter. So my answer is: It is knowing what your character’s attention on moment to moment, knowing what s/he is communicating, to whom and having a point to say, something of significance, something relevant and pertinent to the scene or song you are delivering. 
  That is what acting is.
  So the problem is: How does one do that?
  When I opened the Los Angeles Academy of Dramatic Art, I had to figure out a technique, something an actor or singer could do that followed a pattern, and guided the person through the treacherous process of interpretation, which itself is laden with traps, but that’s another article called the 4 A’s Worksheet. There is another article you might consult, Six Things Every Voice Student Should Do When Performing, but for now, I’ll sum up the technique I developed and have used as a performer over and over again. It’s called SRS,
   See Relate Signify, the three steps to assuming a viewpoint of a character.
   For that there is the SRS Worksheet, which you can ask for to help you discover the treasures that await you. Acting is mostly mental with some emotional and physical work attached, but the most important thing is to align your thoughts with the character’s thoughts so you can assume his/her viewpoint readily and sometimes not easily… The only way I know it to experience doing it, and the number of times you do that, the better it is.
   Have fun and above all Enjoy your work!!

AN ODE TO JOY

An Ode To Joy

    An Ode is a structured piece praising or glorifying a topic, namely what Joy does for us. It is normally done intellectually as well as, emotionally. It is somewhat difficult to write about joy without experiencing the effects of it. This is classified as an irregular ode as it is fashioned in prose rather than poetry, although it is written in three parts: an introduction of my history discovering the presence of joy, then examples of achieving joy in my experiences, and an explanation of how I discovered the ways and means of seeking, finding and sharing joy.
   Some time ago, due to certain events in my troubled life as a teenager, I started seeking ways and means to find joy in my life. It seemed like I was always struggling, absorbed in troubles and not involved in finding solutions. After high school, I realized that it was time to become a man, matured, more interested in good things, good people, and attempted to distance myself from negative, hostile influences. So, I joined the US Navy! I was seventeen and would be out by the time I was 21! Out of boot camp, I thought I would become a Navy pilot, so I went to Pensacola, Florida for training. I felt light, positive, and that there was a bright future for me. My first acquaintance was a student who had his first solo flight at the end of the week. Now, as an Eagle Scout, I had studied aeronautics, knew the principle of lift, how a plane needed its’ flaps down in order to take off, and I regret not bringing that fact up with my friend, just assuming he would have learned that six months earlier. Not so. I watched his plane taxi up to the runway, and watched him rev up his engine. I thought, okay, when will he lower his flaps?
He never did, and I witnessed the crash, watching him crushed by the engine, and felt utterly helpless. I tried screaming at the top of my voice “Lower your flaps!” Over and over again, until it was too late. I was a religious guy, brought up in the Episcopal Church as an acolyte, the cross bearer and candle lighter. But I was at sea after that incident, for a few years, and opted out of the flight school, studying aviation technology, becoming a radio operator in a P2V, patrol squadron, out of Norfolk, Virginia. It was apparent that I needed to create fun and experience enjoyment in my life, so I became a prankster, living a double life, one on the base, another in town. I rented an apartment, bought a car, and as soon as I left the base, I put my military sticker in the glove compartment. I volunteered at a local church to be assistant scout master, pretending I was a college student. It lasted over a year, until one of the parishioners saw me on base, in uniform! He came over to my apartment and asked why I had created a double life. I told him that it cheered me up, made life easier pretending to be someone I was not. He said I couldn’t help the scouts and would have to end the charade. This, after much thought and consternation, agreed to. I actually, enrolled in a history course at William & Mary College, which gave me more trouble, ducking out of the base without approved liberty, and finally, being brought up in front of a court martial!
    I continued my duties, being transferred to Quantanimo Bay during the Bay of Pigs nuclear standoff in 1962. Shortly after that, I was accepted to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, interested in becoming a history teacher, after reading many books on history and philosophy. My first semester started and a new drama professor met me in the lunchroom and asked if I was a carpenter? I thought he must be a psychic as it was the only trade my father taught me. He gave me a generous work scholarship which got me through the first two years of college, More importantly, he asked if I would act in an Elmer Rice play, The Adding Machine? I had done a play in high school, Where’s Charley ? But that was a one -time thing. But that little moment in time stuck with me. Why? Because it was 30 seconds of unadulterated JOY!
That was the moment I cherished. It lifted me out of troubles that came my way.
   However, it took me two years before I had the courage, will, and desire to change my major from history to hysterics, which is what the study of drama was presented to be, nevertheless, it brought me joy.

    After I graduated, I went to Europe, lived in Paris, London and Berlin, went to art galleries, like the Louvre and the National Gallery in London. I stood in front of DaVinci’s Madonna for two days, looking in her eyes and having her look into mine. At one point, I openly asked her to move because there were two roads behind her head, converging upon one another, and I wanted to know what was there! I discovered DaVinci’s purpose, which I understood as: “When a person’s attention is riveted to beauty in a person, we often lose track of where we are, what we are going for, and what in life brings us meaning.” I have come to the conclusion that JOY is the Glue in Life. It encourages us to love someone, share ideas, thoughts, and feelings with others. It demands that we place more attention on others than we do on ourselves. It bypasses the trap of having an ego. It focuses our attention on others, on communicating something worthwhile. Joy extroverts our lives as we experience, and share it with people.
   Years later, I was in New York, acting Off- Broadway in One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest, and Peter Yates, a movie director saw me as a character in his movie, The Hot Rock, with Robert Redford and Zero Mostel. I played Otto, a prisoner who enjoyed picking his toes, and got into a fight with Paul Sand, another inmate. The key to the scene was finding the joy the character had, and defending his right to do what he liked, no matter what. It was my first film, one which I will never forget. Because, once again it brought me joy. I went back to graduate school at Hunter College, to learn more about the industry. My professors were Harold Clurman, Arthur Miller, Lillian Hellman, and Joe Anthony, a Broadway director. I also studied acting with Uta Hagen, Mira Rostova from the Moscow Art Theatre, and Robert Lewis from Yale Drama School. I continued acting on stage and television in New York, and discovered the London Academy of Music & Dramatic Art was auditioning for a one-year Post Graduate Course in the Classics.
   In college I had performed several Shakespearean roles, and had prepared nine monologues for that audition. Why did I want to go to London? Because I felt there were things I hadn’t learned which would help me create a workable, reliable,
effective technique to approach each role, with a deeper understanding that I knew was available to me. On the spot, and believe me, I can count the times on one hand that I was cast or accepted for the assignment at the initial audition. They said, “Mr. Cook, you are why we are here, looking for performers who want to create wonderful characters.” I was ecstatic! Unfortunately, that summer I was cast as Ragnar in Ibsen’s Masterbuilder, at the Long Wharf Theatre in New Haven, Connecticut in September. I called the academy in London and asked if I could attend the following year. He asked how old I was and informed me that I would have to come next year, before my age would keep me out of the program. “I promise I will be there next year, without fail! So, after that Fall, I moved to Los Angeles, and did episodic work, and some theatre, but was dedicated to moving to London for the year.   The first day I attended LAMDA I went up to the headmaster and said, “My name is Fredric Cook, I am a professional actor in three unions, in New York, regionally, and in Los Angeles. The reason I am here is because, after all the training, education and experience, I have no clue about what I’m doing.” He smiled, and I asked, “ Can you tell me the basic fundamental principle of acting?”
(I had asked this question before without receiving a positive response). He was a true mentor, wise, compassionate, interested in my well-being, and exhibited a lot of joy as he said, “It’s quite simple, actually, it is knowing what the character’s attention is on, moment to moment.”
   I was stunned. Speechless. In my mind, I raced through years of coaching, years of ‘acting techniques.’ Finally, after what seemed an eternity, I thanked him and left, to sort out the meaning of what I had just heard. It is thought-driven. It is a process of overcoming my individual thoughts and ideas, and gaining the character’s viewpoint. I understood, for the first time, what it means to be an actor.
    It is a progression of thoughts, ideas, actions and feelings that capture a character’s attention. Emotion does not drive the character, it is the thoughts and reactions s/he has that propel him/her through the scene. Previously, I felt the emotions of the moment, not necessarily the accurate emotions of the character, but my emotions. And, I discovered that the misalignment I had created lessened the degree of joy I had as the character. A lot of the roles I had created came up to me, like spirits urging me to recognize the true nature of their viewpoints. Immediately, I began to slow down the process, rather than leaping to assumptions that propelled me into emotional states, the thoughts became dominant. I began to understand that the process of gaining compassion with the character is very similar to life’s challenges in relationships.    I recalled days in New York, as a young actor successfully active in theatre, I would bounce into the Actor’s Equity lounge, and attempt to have conversations with the older, wiser (I thought), balanced actors. Unfortunately, I was encountered by bitterness, blame, shame, and regret. Here I was, full of joy and my fellow actors were miserable and negative. I made a decision at that point in time, to never fall into that trap. I was dedicated to discover how I could avoid the perils of thriving on myself, being absorbed in me, me, me. Finally, after these many years preparing myself for this joyful work, I found where the light comes from. It comes by having your attention on others, giving support, assistance, acknowledgment, and sharing joy with as many people who will receive it. We all have choices in life. The secret is predicting the outcomes of each choice you make, and taking personal responsibility for making that choice and dealing the cards that follow. 
    I have been performing and teaching since 1975 when I opened the Los Angeles Academy of Dramatic Art. I have mentored many students following the principles taught at the London Academy. One of the most valuable lessons I learned was teaching is entirely collaborative, without criticism, opinions, declarations, etc. As a performer, I realized when I’m on stage, television or in front of a camera, I am responsible for every choice I make. I had brief encounters with a few bullish instructors, whose philosophy was to belittle, badger, and berate artists to toughen them up for the profession. I had the privilege to work with some of our best actors, all of whom were sincerely interested people. I remember on the film set of Gideon’s Trumpet, working with Henry Fonda, how he was open to all fans who wanted his autograph, and he even had conversations with some of them. There was nothing bullish about him, or Gregory Peck on the set of The Blue and The Grey. I worked with Robert Duvall, Ed Asner, Elizabeth Montgomery, and others, none of which were pushy, arrogant or aggressive. For the most part, they followed the policy, “if you don’t have something nice to say, don’t say anything.” That is not what they said, but how they behaved. Criticism leads to a dead end street. Criticism is an enemy to joy. 
   Whenever I see a documentary film that exploits people who are negative, critical, eager to blame others for their plight, I feel sorry for them, They have succumbed to the many traps laid and hidden in front of them. They have had many people steal their thunder, by making choices for them, rather than helping them make choices with someone.
   I have six children, all grown, some of which fell into difficult situations. One of them spent time in jail. Some struggled with addictions and the difficult recovery process. Whenever they called me, asking for me to solve their problems, I said, no. One thing to know is that your choices pave the way through life, and once you make a decision, positive or negative, the learning process begins. I was not cold, or indifferent. After I saw them make better choices, I supported them, mentally, physically, emotionally, and monetarily. It is extremely important that we provide opportunities for loved ones, friends, neighbors, students, parents to make well-thought out choices in their lives, because the only way we experience true joy is through the recognition and acceptance that, “I built that!” “My choices made that happen.” Personal achievement is far more valuable than the praise people give you. 
   Occasionally, my students are told, “You’re a Natural Talent.” Why, because they perform positively, honestly, without criticism, envy, bursts of reactivity and anger. Why people think a performer is natural is based on the fact that there were thousands of hours preparing for this work, which is much like the foundation of an iceberg. The Titanic went down because the crew couldn’t imagine the base of the iceberg below the water, which ripped the ship apart. Your results are the top ten percent of the iceberg, with ninety percent supporting your work, which people never see or even imagine. I encourage performers to thank people who call them a “Natural.” I also encourage them to know that the true result of their many hours monologuing, reading, rehearsing, understanding the viewpoint of their characters, contributes to the compassion they have in their lives. It is important for performers to know what they do, how they achieve results, and discover first, and foremost, what they like about what they do. Only after evaluating all the things they like, they are prepared to ask themselves, “What would I like to change?”
   I discovered this principle initially at the Louvre in Paris, watching student artists copy the masters. I looked into their eyes, and saw no criticism of their work, only evaluating what they liked, the colors, the shapes, the light vs. darkness, the message conveyed, and the structure of the painting. After reading their thoughts, I noticed them sit back, tilt their heads, and think, “What would make this better?” Immediately, a burst of enthusiasm took over, they put the brush to the palette, grabbed the color they needed and applied it to the canvas, with confidence and assurance. They built the picture by making positive decisions: thus they were filled with joy. It’s a heavenly concept, one of achieving serenity and peace.
    When Stanislavsky formed the Moscow Art Theatre, he collected workers from farms as his cohorts. He would pronounce to them, “Leave your toiling and troubles at the door. When you enter the theatre, you are living examples of
the best of humanity.” He encapsulated a truth about our native state: Everyone wants to be right with the choices they make in life. It is an act of justifying ourselves, each and every moment. No matter what they’ve decided to do, say, or think, they must believe that it’s for the greater good. Even evil people follow this unwritten, unsaid code. Now the performer needs to understand that joy can be achieved in the middle of heinous acts. I site Richard III, seducing queen Anne over her dead husband’s corpse, and the joy he takes achieving it. Even more despicable, is the joy he takes in killing the two little male children in the tower.
As actors, we cannot judge our characters, because we are representing their viewpoint. Much like a trial attorney does not have license to be critical of his/her client. We are supporting a viewpoint, and we leave the judgment up to our audience. If we are critical of our clients, they go to jail. (i.e. lose an ability to experience joy)    It is for each of us to decide the road we want to travel, and what our destination is.
I encourage you to adopt Einstein’s Thesis: “In the middle of difficulty, arises opportunity.” When you seize upon the opportunity, joy is the inevitable result.
Fredric Cook, Instructor, Actor, Executive Director

VIEW POINTE PROPERTIES (2)

Business Description

   View Pointe Properties, LLC began as a service oriented company dedicated to help clients who do not meet conventional requirements, having high FICO scores, excellent credit, clear of bankruptcies, excessive debt, histories of default, and often incapable of raising funds for the customary twenty per cent down. It was structured as a means of solving issues which prevent them from gaining ownership in real estate. We formed the service organization to help people gain equity through a lease option contract which gives them three years to pay towards ownership, accruing equity with each principal payment, which is deducted from their cost after three years, and makes it easier for them to refinance, building up their credit history and gaining ownership of their home. We realized it takes a team of professional people to make this possible, which is part of View Pointe Properties efforts to gather investor partners, which make their profit on the shared interest and initial consideration presented at the beginning of the lease option agreement. Our business is unique in that regard, that we offer a professional collaboration of time, talents, funds, and guidance to help them overcome past errors and mistakes. We formed View Pointe Properties as a 401K LLC, which is set up to reinvest profits into real estate acquisition, to establish a retirement fund for the members. Dr. Fredric Cook and his wife, Debra Cook have successfully built Park City Music for the last fifteen years, which brings in income day to day, but does not create a retirement income. View Pointe Properties 401K, LLC is the vehicle which will gain equity, income properties, and funds for retirement.   Although we live in Park City, where the average income is higher than our neighboring Salt Lake County populace, there are still individuals who need to overcome challenges, and as far as we know, there is no other group set up to help them at this point in time. This is our mission, to make it possible for more people to gain home ownership, gain self-esteem and confidence in their ability to be responsible for their condition, and not rely on government hand outs or bail outs. This is our way of assisting our clients gaining worthwhile values in their lives, and setting an example to their families, friends, and neighbors that it is possible. It is our dream that within the next five to ten years, we will have a strong, vibrant company serving less fortunate people, helping them to increase their self-worth, their innate abilities, as well as providing them opportunities to become self-reliant, self-sufficient and somewhat free of fears that crop up when we are subject to the will of others, employers, family members, and those of us who thrive by taking advantage of their weaknesses and naïveté.

Services

   Initially, we hold an interview with the client, gathering a brief history of their situation, how they came to be where they are, and what their current state of mind, health, and wealth is. This is not an interview designed to be critical of their situation, but rather gathering a view of what they understand, what challenges they are having, and what they’ve done to confront those challenges. We ask what resources they have, a job, an income source, some savings, some credit available, and if they have family members who can help them in whatever capacity they are able to. It is meant to produce insight into their predicament, not directed to making them feel bad, angry or in any way hostile to themselves or others. It is not an indictment, but an indication of what available solutions exist. We are not here to make anyone wrong, or blame anyone for their condition, but rather focus on positive choices which can help them recover, gain stability, and prosper in life. We are not psychologists, just interested, compassionate people who offer help, without draining their current resources. 
    Secondly, we offer assistance to landlords, investors, and private lenders by establishing a screening process suitable to their needs, guiding people to adjust to each individual’s situation. We have resources to set up rent collection services to collect monthly rents automatically from either a client’s bank account or credit card. The service we currently use guarantees protection against credit card fraud, and is accepted by major credit card companies.

The Market

Park City:    Demand is greater in a ski resort community for suitable housing, and therefore, there is less flexibility with market values, however, there are occasional owners who may have purchased properties before the 2008, 2009 bust in real estate values, who are interested in selling, even less than market rates. There are also distressed properties that come available which can be purchased at a discount. Investors are attracted to Park City real estate, but know they will ultimately pay more per square foot than Salt Lake County properties. The question is, “how much rent is customary?” We have sources to clarify and resolve that question. The best news is Park City has a wealth of industry professionals who are interested in helping one another understand and create solutions. Park City has been a magnet attracting innovative and creative people to our mountain resort, many of which live here year around. Although there are many realtors in Park City, they are limited by a variety of regulations levied by lending institutions, and by clientele who can afford luxury properties. They do not have the time or desire to focus their attention on buyers who cannot qualify for conventional loans. It is estimated that 25-35% of people seeking home ownership fall outside the parameters and will welcome our team to help them gain equity and ownership.
Salt Lake City:
   Supply is greater in Salt Lake County, and investors have been actively purchasing properties there, which make the area more competitive. Because the size of the area is much greater, they have more time to invest in securing and selling properties. As we expand our network of landlords and private lenders to Salt Lake City, we will supply them with resources and vetting services which will save them a major percentage of screening buyers and tenants.
    It may be possible that a greater percentage of people in Salt Lake City fall into the similar plight, not having sufficient means to gain home ownership. We will reach out to community groups to find these people, who like those who have given up the task of seeking work, may have reached a foregone conclusion that it is impossible to work out the problems of securing their own home. What has happened in Park City will eventually happen in Salt Lake City that the word will go out that View Pointe Properties, LLC is here to help you bypass the usual channels and find creative solutions to gaining home ownership. These are the people who make up our targeted market.
   When they come to us, we educate our clients in a variety of ways of overcoming the barriers that have surrounded them in this process.

Competition

   There are property management companies who address some of the issues, but take little time or effort to consult their buyer-clients in available means to that end. Often, the good managers have most of their attention on providing the best service to handle their properties, and so the client is left to his/her own devices. The concept is to place their emphasis on the quality of the work done, and exchanging that service for funds directly. Our concept is to question, collaborate and come to workable solutions. That’s how they get referrals, primarily on the healthy satisfaction from their clients. Their attention is directed to maintaining a viable facility for them to live in. Our attention is on creating a client interested in finding and discovering effective solutions that are exchanged by fees.    It places our clients in a positive mindset to be able to continue making positive solutions. So, in many ways, we have little or no competition, because of the emphasis and importance we place on our services. Unlike a tradesman whose sole attention is on exchanging a product or service, our attention is to help our client gain more certainty, belief and practical knowledge s/he can build upon to confront and solve problems and issues. Unlike the tradesman who collects for products delivered, estimates and fees for labor costs, installation, and finishing services, our service is complementary, and the only payment we require is not hourly, daily, weekly, but the compensation we receive initially, and the monthly interest charged over the three year period. We know we can help people make adjustments in their lives that are intellectual property that they can retain for the rest of their lives, and that, to anyone is priceless.

Operations

   Operations are defined as the processes used to deliver our services to our clients, landlords, and equity partners. At this stage in our development, we have no employees, only independent contractors, who work part-time for us and have other sources of income. We only provide 1099s for our contractors, professionals, attorneys, CPAs, Limited Equity partner investors and members of our LLCs. There are two LLC organizations, View Pointe Properties 401K LLC, which is our retirement organization that reinvests all profits back to the organization, and View Pointe Real Estate, LLC which handles the execution of Lease Option Agreements, Tenant-Landlord contracts, and member acquisitions and distributions of profit. They are separate entities, one for retirement only, the other for profit.    At the start up stage, we work both companies from our home office and Park City Music. We have secured legal representation from Robert Saunders in Park City, Utah for contractual agreements, adjustments to our operating agreements for each entity, and Landlord contracts, tenant contracts, Lease Option Agreements, and creation of distribution agreements between equity partners, landlords, and members of each LLC.

Management Team

   Dr. Fredric Cook has been a businessman since 1975 when he opened, managed and taught at the Los Angeles Academy of Dramatic Art, sharing his knowledge and success as a professional theatre, film, television actor and director. He founded and was the Executive Director of the Alexander Repertory Company from 1977 to 1982.   He taught as an Associate Professor at Hunter College from1982-1985 developing a cross-over curriculum between theatre and film. When his wife gave birth to their two children, they moved back to Los Angeles to raise them, and resumed his film, theatre and television career until 1997 when his family moved to Park City. Upon discovering that there was no music store, he and his wife, Debra, and son, Aaron opened Park City Music that year.   This drew in musicians who wanted to share their knowledge with students. Dr. Cook completed his PhD at Rochville University in Sarasota, Florida and became the Executive Director of Utah Conservatory which was formed in 2000 and has grown with 22 instructors and 350 students. The idea for View Pointe Properties came up in 2010 when students needed help getting their families relocated to Park City. View Pointe Properties, 401K LLC was formed March 11, 2011. 

   Debra Cook has been a teacher and entrepreneur since the mid seventies, and has successful private studios in Provo, Utah and Hollywood, California. Debra co-founded National Realty Counselors, Inc. in 1990 (through 1995) thin Fort Lee, New Jersey. NRC does negotiations to reduce real estate and personal property taxes for commercial, industrial properties throughout the United States. Debra was responsible for office management, initial evaluations of properties, and property analysis. She was involved in some negotiations with clients such as Lever Brothers, Lipton Tea and National Starch & Chemical. As a voice teacher and professional singer, she collaborated with Seth Riggs, a well-known vocal performance coach who has had several Broadway and Hollywood performers as his students. Debra is a member of Screen Actors Guild and American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, who has performed on stage, film, television and opera, having completed seven seasons at Utah Opera. She has a master’s degree in music from Brigham Young University and has several of her students who have been given major scholarships at universities coast to coast.