Studio Monkey Enquiry / September 24 2007
I have just received a phone call from a young man who used to be one of my students when I was teaching at WNC.
I taught a two year BTEC course in Sound Engineering, but over the six years that I was doing it, I am sorry to say that out of the hundreds of students I had, only a handful ever demonstrated any aptitude for the subject. Most attended because they suffered under the mistaken belief that by associating themselves with a recording studio, they would instantly become rock stars or chart-topping singers. One of these was Gareth (not his real name), a bad heavy metal guitarist from Chesterfield. It was he who decided to ring me at 8:30 this morning.
‘I hear you’ve got a studio assistant job available,’ he said, ‘Any chance I could – ‘
‘I’ll stop you there, Gareth,’ I quickly jumped in, ‘There isn’t any such post open at the moment. Sorry.’
Even if there were, I definitely would not employ him. Gareth never had - and in my opinion, never will have - the necessary skills required for working in professional recording studios.
During lessons, he used to position himself close to the control room near-field monitors and speak into them, trying to communicate with the musicians in the studio. He evidently used to think that because he could hear their voices coming from the NS10m speakers positioned on the mixing desk, the people he was trying to record had somehow defied science and had had themselves shrunk to the size of tiny little men and were now in fact living in the small Yamaha speakers, busily setting up their miniature drum kit and guitar amplifiers. He was always doing that. I am laughing as I type this now - as loudly as I used to then, all that time ago.
Once, when he could not get a signal from a microphone, he pointed at one of the speakers and said to me in exasperation: ‘Sir, no sound keeps coming out.’
‘What an interesting idea, Gareth,’ I told him. ‘Fanciful and abstract it may be, but very intriguing nonetheless.’
For my sins, I could not help but constantly tease and embarrass him in front of his peers. I used to quite upset the poor boy. I have a gift for offending people, as I have said before. This is probably why I do not have many friends. But Gareth and students like him were always a great source of amusement to me.
He once snapped at me in genuine frustration: ‘I don’t come here to have the piss taken out of me you know.’
‘Really?’ I asked him. ‘Where do you go for that?’
Filed under Audio Recording / Music Production / Pro Audio / Recording Studio / Teaching
Comments
4 comments on “Studio Monkey Enquiry”
Despina / September 26th, 2007 at 10:28 pm
A music teacher friend told me that when he was teaching a similar course, he realised the kids in question liked him when they said
“You’re alright you are sir. When we do your house, we’ll leave your telly!”
Not exactly relevant, but funny none the less :p
Napoleon Fantastic / September 27th, 2007 at 12:54 pm
Despina,
I wouldn’t find that funny. I’d be terrified.
Couple of my ex-studes once threatened to have me beaten up. When they realised that meant no more free studio time, they apologised.
Two of them once broke into the video editing suite and stole some valuable equipment. They were captured on cctv and identified but because the college was so desperate to hold on to its students (no students=no funding), they let them off completey! I couldn’t believe it. It was one of the reasons I handed in my resignation in the end.
Enormous Paul / September 30th, 2007 at 12:24 am
I can just picture you saying that to him! LOL ;-p
Napoleon Fantastic / September 30th, 2007 at 12:36 pm
Hey, Paul!
I’m cruel , aren’t I?
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