My more advanced student kinda hit a temporary wall a few days ago. The good news is that we got past it fairly quickly, but their initial impression of the situation, and treating the matter as essentially insignificant, struck me as troublesome.
The assignment had been to create a series of musically related themes (7 seconds, 15 seconds, and 24 seconds) that could be used in a news broadcast - a station had actually requested the work from them, so this was not entirely a hypothetical task for them. Anyway, as a way to ensure a certain amount of quality control, I asked them provide the actual ProTools session data, not just the final mixes. I had explained that this was an important part of the work they were doing so that there would be the opportunity to make any last corrections and thereby ensure a certain level of quality control.
For the most part they did a pretty good job, but a few either did not follow the instructions regarding the timings or in providing the actual session data. The issue of a grade for the work aside, when I brought this up to the class, several students commented that since the end result sounded so good (which it certainly did) that it should not really matter that the details of the actual assignment were incorrect.
And so ensued a bit of a rant on my part dealing with the need to make sure that you always provide the client with exactly what they request. No matter what. Now, if in the process you come up with something even better, then it is certainly viable to provide that as well, but to essentially ignore the specific request, can easily jeopardize the possibility of new work later from the client.
Granted I was on a bit of rant, but it was like I was speaking gibberish. There seemed to be a complete disconnect over the realities of how the industry really works. Artistic freedom must be earned, and I now realize that may be a far harder concept for my students to grasp than I had originally speculated.
We talked further, and it proved an interesting conversation, but it was such an odd starting point to me. I know full well that there is an immense amount of talent in that room. Frankly, I find it staggering what they are capable of; but the confusion of arrogance with ego (another, more detailed topic for another time) was concerning.
One even commented, "Would you tell Bob Dylan to change his music for something like this?" Of course not. Even if he was willing to have some of his music used in a news spot, it would likely be taken from already completed work, not a request for new material for this specific objective. And even then, no, I would not tell Bob Dylan to change his music. But the comment is a bit absurd any way, and the fact that the absurdity was not immediately seen is really my point here.
Dylan has such a proven track record that he walks into a room with a musical credibility of such magnitude that anything he says has to be taken seriously. But a 16 year old does not have that. The trip-up for them was to think this referred to a lack of talent. It's sort of the like a reverse boy-who-cried-wolf: students, younger musicians, have to be establish that they can successfully navigate within the rules first. Then once they break them, a client knows it was done for a musically valid reason, not just cause it's the easy way out.
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