Recording - August 2011 - 10

labels were the only avenue for big record sales numbers. Home-recording equipment couldn’t be expected to produce professional-sounding results. Computers had barely begun to make their mark in the studio, able to achieve hardly a fraction of what a little smartphone can do now. Now—as if you didn’t know—things ain’t what they used to be. Internships are scarce because large studios are scarce. Record labels and record stores are not your only hope for getting your music heard and bought by the masses. You can outfit your home studio with equipment that can produce top-notch sonic results, for the price of a Spring Break vacation for two in Cancun. So:

In this issue of Recording—The Magazine For The Recording Musician, we look at ways to gain knowledge and move ahead in our chosen fields of music and recording. The crucial word in the Oxford English Dictionary’s definition of “education” is “systematic”. Can you teach yourself in a systematic manner, or is that the exclusive domain of schools? What about an internship where you pick up knowledge in bits and pieces? Does that count as “systematic instruction”? Let me put today’s educational options in perspective; then we’ll hear from a good number of people from the industry.

“In this changed audio world, what should the priorities be for someone who is serious about breaking into the industry and moving ahead, looking to make a successful career for himor herself?”
We put that question to a number of people from all corners of the industry, and present their answers here. We thank them all for their contributions; please check their websites to learn more about their background and achievements, which alone could fill this article.

Education—then and now
When I first began to contribute articles to this publication, years before coming on board as an Editor, I was teaching MIDI and synth programming and such topics at a school for (mostly) young grown-ups. It was the Grove School of Music, but music performance was not all that the attendees were aiming for. We had home-recordists looking to become professional audio engineers, we had budding film composers, we had singers who needed to learn how to arrange their backing charts, and now and then we had older, established musicians coming to learn new technologies, in particular computer sequencing and MIDI, the hot new topics of the day, soon to be followed by sampling. That teaching gig taught me a lot about education in a school setting, its promises and its disappointments. That was then—at a time when large commercial studios were the norm, when large-studio internships were still possible, and when record

Going it alone?
There is much to be said for jumping in and doing it, and learning as you go. You will soon find out if you’re suited to that career path or if maybe you only thought, erroneously in hindsight, that this was something you should undertake. Joe Albano (rooftopproductions.com), himself an educator, writes: “If I had to reduce the requirements in getting started to one most important thing, it would be self-motivation—being a self-starter is the one quality for which there’s just no substitute. Studios and clients aren’t just waiting around for qualified engineers to apply for jobs or gigs, or be sent over by their school’s placement office—they’re doing it themselves, or

Theodore Roosevelt: “A man who has never gone to school may steal from a freight car; but if he has a university education, he may steal the whole railroad.”
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RECORDING AUGUST 2011

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Recording - August 2011

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Recording - August 2011