Part 2: Don’t rush the process
When Audio Education becomes self aware, is all about celebrating the small details in the journey of learning audio. But, you might be thinking to yourself…why is Adam running through the psychology and relationship of a student and a teacher?
Well, it is very simple…There seems to be a lot of hidden joy in it, which we often don’t see or recognize is happening. We often only concentrate on the invisible, intangible, seemingly mythical accolades and rewards at “the finish line”, wherever that seems to be. I don’t really want to use the phrase “Instant Gratification”, but I have to in the year 2020.
These many years of learning, listening and ranting has given me a deeper appreciation for those tiny little in between moments that stay on the sidelines. When you look at the bigger picture, these moments can appear larger than the experience itself. We could write about this with many facets of life and living, but lets just keep the focus of these articles — the audio student and the audio teacher.
As an observer, I have noticed how much people learn from each other, inadvertently.
Student A to Student B: What do you think about mixing different genre’s of music together? Like acoustic instruments along side electronic synths, drum machines.. not really sure where it might end up.
Student B to Student A: Dude, that sounds awesome! What kind of gear should we use on the electronic side? How should we set this up?
The obvious thing here is that they both want to experiment. Student B provokes the question from a technical standpoint, but Student A comes from a purely musical place. It has become even more obvious to our nearby teacher, that they might make a seriously awesome team at this.
The teacher knows how the process can be enhanced by each individual specializing in their craft. Now is the time to push the students into weaving their own creative workflow.
Teacher: Why don’t you both take some time to foster each others ideas and make it happen! I am not sure if you already realize this, but when you team up (A’s) production, with (B’s) engineering, you have a real recipe for success. And honestly, this is the type of session I like the most. When each individual involved is concentrating on their unique craft.
Now, the scene is set for each of these students to find out what they are good at, doing what they love doing, while they get to witness another way to approach it from their own teammates.
Learning from each other is really important. See how others work. See how they do things. Take away what you need, and discard what you don’t. This is one of the main advantages of being an intern. You get to see how others do things.
In a world of virtual everything, it is a refreshing vibe. When we learn from one another, while we are creating — we achieve a broader scope of understanding and we apply what we learn to our own skill sets. Personal growth is a beautiful thing.
So stop and smell the roses along the way.
You deserve that!
Adam J. Brass 