This past week, while on a break from teaching (ha!) I had three very cool musical experiences. Well, actually, there were five, but I will leave for later the discussions about the awesome new preamps in the studio and the massive progress on some very exciting new songs for the CD. So back to the three I started with...
The first, is actually thanks, yet again, to Michele's Mom's club. Through her connection to that group I have become friends with another dad in the group, Brock. Brock is one of the lead teachers at the Conservatory of Recording Arts and Sciences here in Phoenix. Needless to say, he is musically on a level I cannot even explain, much less equate myself to - simply, Brock, is a master, in the truest sense of the word. He's also a very cool person, just generally. Though I had heard of CRAS many times, Brock's tour was the first time I had actually spent time in the facilities. I have been in many studios, but this was really incredible - especially for an "educational" institution. The level of skill of the people who attend this school, much less the instructors, is pretty staggering. This is not your 4th or 5th tier audio specialist getting $20 per hour. There are so many gold and platinum albums on the walls, earned by CRAS students that they have to rotate them out into storage every few months. Same goes for the movie posters from all the post production work they have been responsible for. It was simply mind-numbing to walk through. The rooms were just full of so many cool audio "toys" I felt like a kid in a candy shop. This place turns out 48 students, only about 10% or less from Phoenix, every 6 weeks. It's an intense year for them. The most telling thing is that there are only something like three places in town that CRAS feels are acceptable for the required internship each student must complete. Three. That's a pretty high standard. Every know and again I meet someone who is clearly so many steps beyond my skill set that I cannot believe I get to call them friend. Brock is definitely in that category. He's also being kind enough to come speak to my more advanced students about the Conservatory and what the "real" music production world is like. Very cool.
The second was guest speaking at ASU for some Music Ed. classes (one undergrad, and one grad) about the CMAS program I created, for a prof. friend of mind, Dr. Evan Tobias. Evan is a brilliant guy, vastly more forward thinking than most people, and a big fan of what we're doing with CMAS. The opportunity to talk to some of his students about the program was really quite fun. It also forced me to really consider how the program's details are presented just generally. Clearly, I need to address this issue, but I am glad I was at least partially effective as after both classes I found myself talking for quite some time to numerous students about ways to push the music educational envelope. I'm eager to see what the future holds with ASU. Evan already sends me several interns/observers each semester, and I am hopeful that we can create a scenario whereby ASU students might be able to work with me directly as CMAS teaching assistants or something similar.
The third was a brief stroll through a local Zia Records store. It has been a terribly long time since I have been in a record store of any kind. I get almost all my music, as most people these days. on-line. The experience of walking amongst all those rows and rows of actual, tangible CDs (no it's still not the same as the days when I could walk through shelves of vinyl LPs, but still) was really cathartic. It was very freeing to just brows, something that you really cannot do with the same kind of feeling to it online. I plan to do it more often.
It was quite a week.
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