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Issue #152 – Student Successes
by L. Swift and Jeff McQ
“I walk in,” he says, “and the first thing Joey said is like, ‘Call me Uncle Joey.’ And I’m like, ‘Oh my God, this guy is so cool already.’ When I was in high school, I played a lot of jazz music in the jazz orchestra and band…And he’s a horn player, he plays trumpet. And we’re both talking about playing jazz music and playing just horn instruments. So we’re talking about that. We’re talking about kind of what inspires us and why we want to do audio and things like that…So I knew right off the bat he was going to be a great inspiration. But the other thing was him showing me around the studio, and my jaw was on the floor with the equipment that he had…It was like love at first sight…I was just totally nerding out.”
Zachary’s love for audio and music was sparked in his teenage years, growing up in Ohio, helping out in the audio department at his church. “I was doing audio with them on pretty big setups out there till last year,” he says. “When I started with them, I realized how much I loved it, and they were gracious enough to give me actual hands-on live experience…That was a really great opportunity. I realized how much I enjoyed it and how much it brought me closer to music.”
Even so, Zachary says he was hesitant to pursue audio engineering as a career, in part because he wanted to be the best at what he did and was insecure about whether he could be “good enough.” But shortly after a move to Philadelphia with his wife, he was encouraged to try. That’s when he found the Recording Connection online.
“I’d been looking at schools for a while and I didn’t see one that I really liked,” he says. “I worked with other audio engineers before, but I hadn’t had any formal schooling and stuff. So when I saw that the way you guys set it up with Recording Connection was that you mentor with somebody who’s already in the industry…that’s when I signed up.”
The on-the-job training proved to be everything Zachary hoped it would be, and more.
“When I first got there, I had my first question,” he recalls. “[Joey] was like, All right, here is how this is going to go; I’m going to give you the technical answer and then I’m going to give you the Uncle Joey answer.’ He gave me the technical answer and I’m like, ‘Oh, that’s fascinating.’ And then he gave me the Uncle Joey explanation, and I will remember it forever. It just made perfect sense.”
The Lunar Year
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