Note: Last month, David provided a quick tour of The Blackbird Academy’s new live audio school in Nashville; this time he returns to delve a little deeper.
In August of 2015, I journeyed to Tennessee to mix a fantastic show with Andrea Zonn, vocalist and violinist in James Taylor’s band. She performed all the songs from her newly released CD, Rise, on the Music City Roots broadcast. This refreshingly eclectic music show is performed and recorded at The Factory in Franklin, TN, just southwest of Nashville. After Andrea’s performance, I took some time to interact with the Blackbird students. Last summer, Blackbird Academy’s Live Sound division was up and running and I looked toward participating in one of the classes.
The Live Audio classes are conducted a few miles from the studio in a separate facility northeast of downtown Nashville. Also in this aggregation of warehouses and industrial buildings is Clair Global’s Nashville headquarters. Blackbird’s classrooms are just across the parking lot from the offices, workshops, facilities and rehearsal room of the Clair Global complex. Not surprisingly, there is substantial interaction between the Blackbird and Clair staff.
Inside the Rehearsal Room
The class I was asked to attend was held in Clair Global’s rehearsal room. This incredible room built within a far larger warehouse space has been constructed using four-high blocks of the legendary Clair Brothers Audio S4 cabinets to form the outer perimeter walls.
The now-empty baffle boards and black grill cloths face inward, creating an unusual and intriguing ambience within the space. This décor has great nostalgic significance for me. Entering that magical space caused me to reflect on the decades I spent mixing on these four-by-four-foot monoliths that, in their day, were the pinnacle of point source sound enclosures. I have many fond memories of rocking stadiums with massive S4 arrays. Seeing how beautifully the room construction preserved them warmed my heart.
Intimate, Small Classes
The live sound class was intimate. There were no more than a dozen of us in the room. John McBride and I initiated an easy dialog about the role of the front of house engineer in the modern world of live performance. John and I have our differences in style. He is staunchly analog and I am decidedly digital, but our philosophical approach to our jobs and understanding of our work responsibilities are nearly identical. We intensely love what we do for a living and have no problem projecting that feeling to the students. But we each also embrace a strong commitment to the more serious side of the job. John McBride is obviously both an ongoing student as well as a master of audio. I too have always believed that a good engineer never ceases learning the trade, and can never know enough about the science and art of the profession. Our presentation to the students displayed an obvious unity of perception.
Two hours in the classroom went by in the blink of an eye. I very much enjoyed the small class size. It was easy to connect with each of the students while relating my personal experiences and taking frequent pauses for questions. The students were attentive and involved, asking relevant and penetrating questions. John and I spoke mostly about our shared approaches to our work and what qualities lead to successful work habits — with a few, well-chosen road stories thrown in for illustrative purposes. After the class, John and I both agreed that having me return to the school would be a desirable circumstance. I also volunteered to use this platform in FRONT of HOUSE magazine to inform the readership about Blackbird Academy’s very special educational opportunities.
Back to Nashville
Fast forward four months to December, and I found myself back in Nashville. During this visit, I arranged to invest two more days at Blackbird. The first day began with a brief interview with John McBride. John and I have often discussed the intensity of his commitment to making Blackbird Academy flourish in the educational sector. He brings the same energy and drive to running the school as he has to the creation of Blackbird Studio, building his sound company or mixing FOH sound for his wife, Martina McBride. His goal is to provide a vastly superior alternative the audio engineering programs currently offered in many schools and universities. Both the Studio Recording and Live Sound branches have access to unparalleled physical resources. The roster of permanent teaching staff and guest instructors is unrivaled by any other institution. A look around theblackbirdacademy.com will easily confirm these assertions.
Due to the intensive, individual student-oriented nature of the instruction, Blackbird Academy will never become a big school. The current limit on yearly attendance is 200 students: 120 in the six-month Studio Recording program and 80 in the six-month Live Sound program. Dividing these totals by the four overlapping program start times during each year results in a class size of 30 for the Studio curriculum and 20 for Live Sound. While not yet at maximum capacity, enrollment has been up. Chief administrator Carma Bandstra mentioned that one of the school’s near-future goals is to expand the scope of instruction to include tour management and production management.
Best of the Best
In any of its programs, the school hopes to graduate the best of the best. To that end, the application process is extremely selective and the tuition demands a significant financial commitment. A high school diploma or equivalent is required for admission. Additionally, each applicant must submit two essays; provide two letters of recommendation from an instructor or industry professional; and complete an admission interview. Only the strongly motivated will survive these steps. A student admitted to Blackbird will enter an extremely exclusive society in which only those who demand the most from themselves and the school will find success.
The rest of my day was spent observing a recording session being run by instructor Mark Rubel and his students in Blackbird’s Studio C. A good description of this unusual space designed by George Massenburg can be found here: fohonline.me/Blackbird-FOH-2016.
The setup being prepared included a complicated, dense array of vintage and modern microphones deployed to capture the music being played by Wu Fei on a Chinese instrument called the guzheng and by Abigail Washburn on the banjo. Both women in this eclectic duo would also be singing. Producing this session was Rick Clark, an old friend who graciously allowed me to observe the events. The setting, the music, the performers and the circumstance combined to make this afternoon an experience of the ethereal. I was enthralled listening to this duet. Blackbird students executed the session flawlessly and demonstrated obvious enthusiasm for the project and facile knowledge of the SSL 9000-series console.
The Clair Connection
The next day, I headed to Blackbird Academy Live Sound and Clair Global Nashville. At Clair, Scott (Scooter) Hernbeck provided me with an exhaustive description of the symbiosis between Blackbird Academy and Clair Global. This interaction was born from the partnership of Clair and John McBride’s MD Systems in the 1990s. When John eventually retired from MD/Clair to found Blackbird Studio, the bond remained strong. Today it can best be seen in the interaction between the Academy and the sound company.
Scooter explained that Clair opens its doors to the students by providing detailed workshops in every department including field trips to show load-ins, instructional labs on all the various analog and digital console platforms, hands-on time with bands in the Clair rehearsal facility and seminars teaching successful work routines. Clair also brings in guest lecturers to enlighten the students about wireless systems and RF coordination, rigging, drive systems and array theory. This cooperative relationship between Blackbird and Clair separates the Blackbird Academy program from any other course of instruction of which I am aware. Scooter also explained that Clair greatly benefits from the relationship by hiring the students who exhibit the most promise. It’s a two-way street.
The Live Audio students also receive extensive classroom instruction from Kyle Welch and Bryan Clark. The instruction comes in the form of lectures, reading material and getting hands on many pieces of specialized gear. I sat in on a review class Kyle conducted before a final exam and I was impressed with the great extent of knowledge imparted to the students during the six-month program. It took some of us years to assimilate the body of learning that was reflected in the questions on the final exam. From basic electricity to complex rigging configurations, it was easy to see that the instruction given to these students was both detailed and specific to the daily challenges of working in the field of live audio.
Once the study session was complete, Kyle brought me into the larger classroom in which all the students had assembled. Kyle and Bryan spoke a few words of introduction and then asked me to address topics that complemented the direction they’d been taking in the classroom. But soon enough we relinquished the floor to the students. All questions were welcomed and hopefully most were answered adequately. By the time we adjourned the class it was nearly 6 p.m. I had spent nearly four hours with the students. Before we all went our separate ways, I asked two questions of the students:
If you had it do to over, would you repeat your decision to attend Blackbird Academy?
If Blackbird offered a follow-up program to your course of study, would you enroll?
To each question I received a unanimous “Yes!” Every student also volunteered that attending Blackbird Academy was the best decision he/she had made thus far in life. It’s easy to understand why the placement rate for graduates of the Live Sound program is over 90 percent. Blackbird Academy is preparing its students in the best way possible and the results speak for themselves.
Safe Travels!
For David Morgan’s Jan. 2016 “On the Digital Edge” column, which also looks at Nashville’s Blackbird Academy, go to http://www.fohonline.com/current-issue/27-on-the-digital-edge/14049.
