A New Day - Posted on 2018-02-16 by Hayden Goodzinski

Hey everyone! I know it's been a while since I've posted a blog but there was a situation that is now fixed. Just to get to the point, I have transferred to a different recording studio. To explain this as short as possible, I transferred because I wasn't getting the right experience/education that I needed in order to feel prepared to go into the career I strive for. The new studio I am at now is called Audible Images and my Mentors' names are Hollis and his business partner Jay. They are both great engineers and great teachers and all I can say is the studio is breath taking.

So today was day one at the studio and it started off with my one hour lesson with Hollis and there were a lot of things he said that was very inspiring to me. The biggest thing that stuck out to me was what helps you, hurts you, BUT what hurts you, helps you. I learned that this kind of business can lead me to not loving music the way I love it now but as long as this is something I'm passionate about, I'll still love it. I will end up hearing music completely different than the way I hear it now later in time. It is my goal now to train my ears to hear music the way a sound engineer listens to it. At the end of our lesson, Hollis gave me a more personal homework assignment for the weekend. He challenged me to pick one song to listen to and I have to listen to that song over and over and over and over again to the point where the song becomes annoying. At first, I didn't understand why he wants me to do that, but then he started to explain why. Each time the song plays, he wants me to listen to a specific track in the song each time it repeats so I can remember what each track sounds like and find out how to get that sound when mixing. The assignment sounds easy, but I have a feeling it's gonna be a challenge.

After our lesson, I got to observe a percussion recording session with Hollis' business partner, Jay. The leader of the group was Richie Cole. Now, for those who do not know who Richie Cole is; he is an alto saxophone jazz legend! If you look him up, he looks pretty old but don't let his age fool you. The way he plays the alto sax is breath taking. He truly is a musician that sounds like he speaks through his intrument. The sounds he makes and the music he plays is out of this world. It was such an honor to meet him. The percussionist we recorded was named Noel. He is a professional bongo and conga musician. He's never performed with Richie that much but when he came into the studio, he had no idea what exactly the rhythms he was gonna play. All he did was listen to the tracks, discussed  with Richie on what rhythms he should play and then recorded his performance. His performance was very impressive and took me down a path of memory lane when I had to play the conga for jazz band when I was in high school. The session wasn't really that long but it was smooth, quick and a great experience to observe for a first day at the studio.

When Noel and Richie left, I got to have a one on one lesson with Jay for about an hour or two on any questions I had and it was an experience I won't forget. We dicussed about a lot of topics like editing process, how the studio structure is built, and how the engineering business works. It was a long cenversation but it was all information that will help me in the future. 

All I can say is this first day was an amazing day. I've already learned a lot and I know there's a lot more that I will be learning in the next 11 weeks. I'm already given some challenges and I'm already looking forward to see what the next session will be like.