Finals week is next week, so this week is the last week of classes. While this is a relief for most, I couldn’t help but feel saddened when I left sound and mixing for the last time.
Everyone has a favorite class they take during the quarter. For me this quarter, that was sound and mixing. It’s a fairly basic audio mixing class that teaches the basics of different digital audio workstations (DAWS), particularly Logic Pro and Adobe Audition, and essential editing techniques
and tools. I’m required to take for my major, but it was so much more than that. I was fortunate to have a professor that not only fostered a respectful learning environment, but he also encouraged us to be creative in our own unique ways.
When a professor gives out a rubric for a project, they usually have a set structure and topic that the
students must comply with in order to get a good grade for that assignment. In sound
and mixing we were encouraged to take our projects and base them on something that we’re interested in so that we can not only have fun doing our projects, but we’re more likely to learn what’s being taught because we have an opportunity to truly enjoy what we’re doing.
As I had mentioned earlier, my professor was very successful at creating a respectful environment for us to work in. This also meant that we were all felt free to give constructive feedback on each other’s projects, allowing us to learn from our mistakes and we all felt as if we were colleagues, rather than just fellow students. We’ve all agreed that our favorite part of the class was presenting our projects so we could share our
passions and receive feedback on how we could be better. It was always exciting to see a colleague improve from project to project.
This class was also a great networking opportunity for everyone. Most were film and theater students (I was the only music student) but we all had our own area of expertise (i.e. camera operation, costumes, scripting, and audio engineering for myself) and it allowed us to see different perspectives for different materials, and it allowed us to connect and collaborate on projects outside of class.
One of my favorite parts of this class was the listening that we were required to submit. This was in the form of “Submit 30 seconds of a song that…”, some examples being “30
seconds of music that made your jaw drop, but in a good way” and “30 seconds of music that relaxes you”. It was different each week and it was wonderful for us to listen to what everyone submitted and discuss emotion, editing techniques, instrumentation, and it allowed us to discover different music that we might not have listened to previously. Because of these assignments, I felt like I knew each of my classmates better, which allowed me to work better with them.
I am thankful for the wonderful experience I’ve had in this class and everything that I learned because of it and from my colleagues. I’m excited to take another class with the same professor next quarter, and I’m hopeful that it will be just as wonderful.
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