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| COMPLETE APPRENTICE AUTOBIOGRAPHIES & PROGRESS |
DAVE M.
Sunday, April 30, 2000
Dear Mr. Trout,
My name is Dave M. and I'm from Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. I am writing to you today to express my interest in your recording apprenticeship program. Please allow me to tell you a little about my background and how I ended up at your website today. I'll try not to ramble on, but I do feel some sort of introduction is in order, so that you may get a feel for my sincerity.
I grew up in a suburb outside of Philadelphia with a love for rock music. I also played trumpet for my school band. Any time I got a little bit of money, I would immediately make a beeline for the music store.
Now, God knows I love my parents, and they love me, and up until my father died in 1990 I enjoyed playing sports and making him proud of me, as he was an avid sports fan. My mother doesn't hate music, she enjoys dancing and I think she played the clarinet in high school. The problem was that she didn't approve of the music I liked, due to ongoing media sensationalism about heavy metal music being evil, and how it would warp my mind and turn me into a knife-wielding psychopath, and all the other bedtime stories. She made it very clear that I would not have her support in any endeavor that had to do with rock music.
In retrospect, I think I went to college as sort of a compromise. She sincerely believed she was looking out for my best interests, and paid my way through college, and I in turn set about the task of looking for a more "respectable" field of study. After bouncing around to a few different majors, I found somewhat of a home in psychology. As I've never been one to go back on my commitment, I stuck with it and graduated.
Ironically, the biggest lesson I learned was after college was over, and that is that pursuing a halfhearted interest is very dangerous. It's like standing in the middle of the freeway.
I worked in the field for three years and was miserable. During this time, however, my musical interests never waned. In fact, after I started working, much of my spare time and money went towards purchasing a lot of musical equipment and learning how to use it.
It started small...a guitar, then a keyboard, etc., but when I purchased my first four-track, and later some recording software and cd burner, I knew I was hooked. The more I learned, the more I wanted to learn and get involved. It was a very different feeling that I don't ever recall having during college. This new feeling also made me realize how unhappy I was with the field I was in. Even though it gave me money and security, what does it mean if you don't enjoy what you do every day? I'll tell you. It means you're securely unhappy, and the money you make will provide you with everything you need to wake up every day dreading the next eight hours. It's a fate worse than death if you ask me, because death only comes once, not every day for the next 50 years.
I can remember many evenings in my home studio where I was so caught up in what I was doing that I would forget to eat dinner and had failed to realize that I was hungry. The only reason I mention this is to illustrate the point that I've come to the realization that I feel I should do what I want to do for a living, and I believe that if I do this, then the rest will take care of itself and things will fall into place.
That is why I'm writing to you today, because I really don't know where to begin and I feel you can help me get started in this business.
I hope I've proven myself a worthy candidate for a placement and would appreciate any help you can give me. Thank you very much for your attention to this letter and I hope I hear from you soon.
July 10, 2000
Hey Phillip. It's Dave M. Sorry this took so long. I was away this past weekend. So far, I've had a pretty good experience at the recording studio with Kathy. Tomorrow night I'm scheduled to do my first lab drill.
Until now, our sessions have mainly consisted of reviewing my weekly workbook assignments and only a small amount of actual hands-on work. Kathy says that will change shortly, however, as she says I needed the basic foundation of book knowledge and theories in order to properly understand what to do with the equipment. I have spent a good amount of time handling microphones and getting familiar with the different kinds that the studio utilizes.
The first night, she showed me how to "zero" the mixing board, and I usually begin each session by doing that before moving onto that week's lesson. We missed last week, due to the holiday and our inability to schedule around it. Before that, we left off with the microphone test and I got introduced to the console itself. Kathy hooked up a microphone to a channel on the board and showed all of the different places that a signal can be routed to and how to control the amount of input and output for each destination. Then she gave me some time to experiment with this by manipulating the different knobs and faders.
After the microphone test I got to meet the studio owner for the first time. A client was coming in at about that time, a regular client who does projects there a lot, and I met him too. We then scheduled the upcoming lab drill which will take place tomorrow night…
Feel free to give me a call if you need anything. Thanks for checking in!
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