Process & Product

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Not long ago, I met with a frustrated student. “Your teaching style is a poor fit with my learning style,” he told me. I think he means he wants direct answers to simple questions. I think he wants me to tell him which buttons will work ProTools’ magic on tracks of recorded music in the hour before his assignment is due. The pressures of deadlines and grades are heavy. He needs a thing to turn in. But neither his product nor even his mastery of a program is my chief concern. The thing and the software are as fleeting as musical tastes and computer operating systems. How do I insulate the student from the same obsolescence? I teach him process. I teach him how to learn. Such teaching is painful, for it often resembles this exchange:

STUDENT
How do I add EQ to this section of the guitar track?

PROFESSOR
Why do you want to equalize it? What do you want it to sound like?

STUDENT
Um… I don’t know. I just… thought it would be cool. The guy at the next work station was equalizing his stuff, so I…. um….

PROFESSOR
Well, let me hear it.

STUDENT
It’s not finished yet.

PROFESSOR
That’s okay. Lemme hear it.

STUDENT
Well… it sounds bad.

PROFESSOR
They all sound bad at some point. Lemme hear it.

Student reluctantly presses “play.” As promised, it is bad. Self-fulfilling prophecy.

PROFESSOR
Hm. Who’s your guitarist?

STUDENT
My suite-mate. He and some guys on the floor put together a band.
They played at the Mucky Duck last weekend. Kind of a folk-rock-indy–

PROFESSOR
EQ isn’t going to help him.

STUDENT
Why not?

PROFESSOR
‘Cause he can’t play. He’s flat and he can’t keep time with a click track.

Nine seconds pass. The same nine seconds which define the phrase “uncomfortable silence.”

STUDENT
He… uh… didn’t play with a click track. A click track messes him up.
He wanted it to sound… more like playing in a club, you know?”

The click track is a series of timid beats which keep tempo in a studio headphone. It ensures the guitarist recorded at noon will synchronize with the bassist recorded an hour later. Playing without such a track violates a cardinal rule of the recorded music industry and is the tell-tale sign of an amateur musician.  The Professor tries, unsuccessfully, to sound surprised.

PROFESSOR
You didn’t use a click track. Let me see your regions list.

The student surveys the screen, keyboard, and desk as if he’s mislaid something.

STUDENT
Where is that?

PROFESSOR
Check the class notes blog.
I’m pretty sure we mentioned in that in class last week.

STUDENT
Well I don’t remember everything you say in class.

PROFESSOR
Golly, I don’t expect you to. It’s why we have a class notes blog.
Or maybe you could find the answer somewhere else.

STUDENT
Where?

PROFESSOR
Where do you usually look when you don’t know something about the way software works?

STUDENT
Um… the ‘Help’ file?

PROFESSOR
Yeah. Sounds like a good start.

The student looks in the help menu. But unless the searcher’s terminology matches the software’s vocabulary, additional information about a given program feature often can’t be found.

STUDENT
It’s not here.

PROFESSOR
Okay. Now what?”

The student blinks.

STUDENT
Can’t you just tell me where it is?

PROFESSOR
Yeah, I can. But I’d hate to jump in too soon.

STUDENT
(the frustration rising)
It’s not ‘too soon.’ I’ve got Spanish in half an hour.

PROFESSOR
(with irritating calm)
Take a breath. Think about it a minute.
See what you can come up with.

If the earlier nine seconds of silence was uncomfortable, this silence is smothering. It is exacerbated by the necessary sound-dampening insulation of an audio editing lab.

PROFESSOR
(finally)
How do you learn something you don’t know?

STUDENT
(testily)
I ask somebody. Like you. But you’re not telling me.
Which makes me wonder what I’m paying you for.

The most entitled of customer-learners expect to get what they [or their parents or their government loans] pay for. They expect to establish the terms of their own satisfaction. And when they are satisfied with the height of their effort, the depth of their inquiry, they expect an “A.”

PROFESSOR
Half of all jobs in Media Production are with firms of fewer than thirty employees.
Your first job might be making wedding videos in your parents’ basement.
Who will you ask then?”
(firmly)
How do you learn something you don’t know?

The student sighs.

STUDENT
I don’t know.

PROFESSOR
(after a beat)
How about an online video tutorial?
Maybe a user forum? Have you ever used those before?

STUDENT
I guess.

PROFESSOR
Why don’t you try that now?

STUDENT
I don’t have my laptop with me. Besides, I don’t really have time for this.
Can’t you just show me how to view the regions list?

The professor leans over and click a button in the screen’s lower right corner. The regions list appears. The list ought to be populated with all the takes and versions of his recording.

PROFESSOR
There’s only one recording of the guitar track.

STUDENT
Yeah.

PROFESSOR
That doesn’t give you too many options in post.

STUDENT
Sounded okay at the time.

PROFESSOR
Did I tell you about Spielberg’s shooting ratio?

STUDENT
Yeah. In the intro class, I think.  It’s like… six to one or something ridiculous.

A shooting ratio: the number of takes recorded versus the number of takes used. The latter is always one, and Spielberg shoots an average of six takes for every one that makes it to the final film. Hence, 6:1. And, no, it’s not “ridiculous.” A really complicated shot might require a 20:1 ratio. There are stories of 500:1 from Chaplin’s heyday.

PROFESSOR
You think maybe you’re a better filmmaker than Spielberg?

STUDENT
No. But the people who booked the studio before me ran long.
And the guy after me showed up early.
So I didn’t have time for more takes. My musician had to go.

The prof nods sympathetically, but offers nothing that sounds like absolution.

 

I have not forgotten the student’s original question (about how to add EQ), but I do not think that the question he asked was the one that needed addressing. Indeed, addressing that question (no doubt, a shortcut to product) circumnavigates the [admittedly more difficult] discussion of deeper process. Equalization will not improve his music, but coaching him in learning styles will improve his workplace readiness and career staying power.

In the short term, he wants to make good product. In the short term, I want to grade good product. How then, do I teach a lifetime approach to learning all new technology when he wants to know which button makes this software work to his immediate satisfaction?