AUDIO
LANDING A GIG | Bill Gibson
Okay , I get it . Audio is fun and who wouldn ’ t want to land a gig doing such a cool activity !? But , how do you find a gig in this area that ’ s pretty competitive . The gear is intriguing , music is great , people who make music are almost always fun to hang out with , and being the audio dude or dudette is exciting , nerve wracking , and infectious .
I completely understand the draw into the audio industry . It ’ s really all I ’ ve ever wanted to do and , pretty much , that ’ s all I ’ ve had to do . I was hooked at an early age . My parents bought a Voice-of-Music reel-to-reel tape recorder for my brother and me when I was about 12 years old . This recorder was the pinnacle of technology , offering Sound-On-Sound recording where the press of a single button disengaged the erase head ! This let you layer tracks on top of each other , actually embedding another layer of magnetism right over the top of the previous track ( s ); therefore , there was never any turning back . As soon as you made a mistake , you had to start over . I had already been playing rhythm guitar in my older brother ’ s bands for three years , so I knew quite a few tunes , and I was hopelessly hooked . All I wanted to do was play gigs and record music .
GET OUT OF YOUR CAVE Getting out of your cave and into the community is an extremely important part of success in any industry . Creative and technical people tend to get really good at their chosen discipline because they ’ re willing to spend a lot of time alone practicing and creating . I ’ m not sure if we start out that way or if the simple repetition of spending time alone in pursuit of greatness , forms one ’ s personality in a reclusive way . No matter what the reason , many in the audio world are drawn back into their caves to work on getting better . However , that only goes so