"Brainwashed"

In Seth Godin’s article “Brainwashed: Seven Ways to Reinvent Yourself”, he talks about how our methods of bringing people up in society haven’t evolved to keep up with how technology has changed our society. With the explosion of Web 2.0, it is not only possible, but easy, to connect and communicate with people worldwide. This changes the way our society changes economically by giving power back to the individual by giving the individual the opportunity to be heard at the click of a button.

Godin then goes on to suggest 7 ways for us to adapt to this change, two of which, "Connect" and "Acknowledging the Lizard", spoke to me. In Connect, Godin advises us to take advantage of the ease of communication and build connections with people. I believe that this is good advice because much of what determines success in the media industry relies on who knows you and what you can do, and who they know that could use someone like you. It’s like real life 6 degrees of Kevin Bacon. If Kevin bacon has a job that you want, and you know the right people, you have the opportunity to get your foot in the door.

I feel that this blog is a direct connection between me and the work that I have done and will do. It’s an online, easily-available, dynamic, and interactive tool that shows people who I am much better than any resume ever could and would. It’s basically evidence of what I can do. It’s easy to get to and readily available so that if I have a connection with someone that knows me and likes me, I can get them to look at it and they can see what I can do.

In the section on "Acknowledging the Lizard", Godin suggests that the way we were raised reinforces an instinctual fear of criticism in us that has every potential to kill our creative selves. It kills our freedom of expression. There’s a reason nobody starts belting their favorite song at the top of their lungs on the subway on the way to work. We’re afraid of what other people would think and say about us. Godin says that if we are aware of this fear, if we Acknowledge the Lizard, then we can work around it. If we know we’re afraid then we can overcome our fear and show people what we’re good at. That’s what I intend to do with this blog. I intend to show people what I can do. If somebody thinks it’s a horrible affront to creativity, then so be it. There’s every chance, out of the 9 billion people on the planet, that someone else who has a connection may see it and think that it’s brilliant.

My Song

My Song

Soundscape & Critiques

Finding Your Howl

Confessions and Admirations

William Absent

To be honest, I am completely new to audio. Unlike many of my peers, I haven’t been playing with sound or video since I emerged from the womb. I didn’t really decide that I wanted work with music until I was a junior in high school and I didn’t become an audio production major until my second year of college. Thankfully, I have an amazing mentor who I look up to as a source of great knowledge and inspiration. When I was younger, we first met when he offered to give me lessons playing bass guitar. Now, he is currently offering my first internship at his studio and is breaking me into the audio world and bringing me up to speed. I owe a lot to William Absent at Shrinelabs Studios for taking me under his wing.

William is the type of audiophile I wish I could be. He’s been making music and tinkering with sound equipment since he was a kid. His has all kinds of guitars, basses, organs, microphones, amps, preamps, speakers, interfaces, and every kind of gadget and gizmo you could imagine and I couldn’t even begin to describe. He knows how every one of them works, how it was made, the history of the manufacturer, how to maintain it. He is able to offer judgment on the quality of the different types of equipment he owns through objective analysis of how they were made and the materials used as well as a subjective description of why he prefers one manufacturer from a specific period in time verses another. I know this is probably normal for people who own and run studios but it’s still amazing to me. Here's a sample of his music:

Understellar Innerstealer

Alexi Laiho

                As someone who is so new to the field, who currently has negligible experience, and who really has no idea what the heck they’re doing, I can’t really say that I have a firm enough grounding to really have created much of my own sound. I don’t really know enough of the vocabulary to be able to dissect and analyze sound. However, with what little I do know I can say that Alexi Laiho’s compositions in his heavy metal band, Chidlren of Bodom blow my mind. Laiho is most commonly known for his incredible talent on guitar, however, I love his music not just for his amazing solos, I’m more interested in how the riffs work together with all the other elements of the song: the drum beat, the bassline, the keyboards, and the two guitars. Each element of most of his songs has its own unique color that stands out in the song while contributing to the song as a whole. The combination of different sounds collide together to in a sonic assault that creates subconscious tension that is intended to get the listener to move and release the tension through physical movement without thinking. The songs make you want to jump up and headbang without actually saying “hey, you should give yourself whiplash… just for funsies”. In many of his songs, the tension builds towards the climax, the guitar solo, and then it releases after the solo as the song winds down or comes to a semi-abrupt stop. A perfect example of this would be in the song Tie My Rope, off of Children of Bodom’s most recent album, Blooddrunk.

Tim Burton

                Someone who inspires me, not as an audio producer, but as an artist in general, in terms of content, theme, and style, would be Tim Burton. Much of his work deals with existence outside of social norms, death, the supernatural and just overall dark themes. He often likes to juxtapose horror-esque settings and couple them with childlike character qualities such as in the film Nightmare Before Christmas where he sets the story in a town where every day is Halloween and fear lurks around every corner and then he contrasts the setting by exposing the main character, Jack Skellington, to Christmas for the first time where he is filled with wonder and dreams of bringing Christmas back to Halloweentown. This contrast gives the film an edgy and exciting feel that I love about a lot of Burton’s other works. For me, the combination of happy and creepy is like the combination of sweet and salty that makes chocolate covered pretzel’s so delicious.

Why Audio?

As long as I've been on this rock, music has always been an intense motivator for me. My mom likes to tell the story of how I used to walk into daycare at age 3 singing Dylan's "Everybody Must Get Stoned". Music has an incredible power over my emotions. A good film score can have me in tears or have me strolling out of the theater thinking I can take on the world. A good song can make even the worst day livable.

So why audio production? It just made sense, really. I've always loved music. Rather than get a mundane office job where I sit in a cubicle and perform some meaningless task from 9-5, why not do something I love to do?