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Issue #52 – Apprentices in Action
by L. Swift and Jeff McQ
Some of our students’ best work is the stuff they do on their own. When Recording Connection apprentice Alicia Strawn (Fresno, CA) contacted RRFC Student Services for some remote tutoring sessions in addition to her apprenticeship, she mentioned that she wanted to enter one of her EDM/trance tracks into a remix contest. Student Service advisors Brian Kauppi and Jamal Abercrombia stepped up to help.
“I suggested that we focus on this project for our tutoring sessions, that we could talk about principles of audio as they relate to her project,” says Brian Kauppi. “For several weeks we had sessions where we talked about her projects and what changes or improvements may be made…She did not miss one remote session and every week for 8 weeks came with a new and improved project.”
Alicia’s commitment to the project further impressed Jamal Abercrombia, who also did remote tutoring with her. “Alicia has a great level of dedication to get done whatever needs to be done,” he says. “[She] has a great passion for trance music and a great passion to become a staple in the EDM world. She’s willing to make the effort to learn new things in order to better her music. That’s a quality that will get her far.”
That passion and hard work are already paying off. Although Alicia’s track did not win the contest, it has garnered a lot of attention on its own—including interest from record labels! “I put the track on my SoundCloud page, and was pretty astonished to see that it was quickly getting listened to without me doing much of anything to promote it,” says Alicia. Among those who found Alicia’s track was the owner of an EDM label who asked her to send him more demos and is considering signing her!
As Alicia continues to work on new material to send to the labels, she sees the process as an ongoing learning experience. “I’ve had to brush up on music theory, learned how to do some interesting things with automation, sound creation through vsti, and have even learned to push my own creative boundaries to get better results,” she says. “I’ve also learned a lot about how the industry works, especially in the trance music industry, and all of the processes involved in getting a song signed to a record label…I am really looking forward to learning more about everything involved with releasing a song, how to promote it, and building my own brand.”
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