Dr. James Woodward is an Associate Professor of Music at JSU. As a self-proclaimed “Air Force brat,” Woodward spent his childhood in several different cities before graduating from the University of Wisconsin – Milwaukee with his undergraduate degree, University of Southern California with his master’s, and Arizona State University with his doctorate.

After eleven years in JSU’s Music Department, Woodward is spending this semester teaching Music Theory, Aural Skills, Composition, and Technology. His favorite part of his job is being able to collaborate on and create projects with faculty. About the Music Department itself, Woodward loves the “new drive to use technology to create recordings and videos.”

Woodward is a frequent collaborator of JSU professor emeritus Carmine Di Biase. With Woodward as the director and music composer and Di Biase as the screenwriter, the pair has been able to create works like Consider It Not So Deeply, a short film starring JSU alumna Kenli Doss, which has been accepted for the Katonah Classic Stage Film Festival and the Raleigh Film and Art Festival. Woodward shared that he and Di Biase “are in preproduction for [their] next short film based on Gloucester, the character from Shakespeare’s King Lear.”

Since he spends most of his time with his daughters Olivia and Jillian, Woodward jokes he will begin to have spare time in 2028. He does manage to create content for his YouTube channel Aural Skills Guru, though, which recently passed its one-millionth view.

If Wooward had to give advice to his students, it would be encouraging: “If you have ever wanted to do something new, write a song, make a movie, draw, paint, run a marathon, now is the time to give it a try.”