Thursday, March 1, 2007

"Come on teacher, teach me something, don't just fill my head with nothing"

5 anecdotes with a role in my recent withdrawal from the Trebas Institute - Music Business Program.

1) my 'contract and copyright' teacher is an entertainment lawyer who authored the text we were required to use. And when purchasing the highly demanded books from him, he had us line up and honored us with the privilege of mandatory autographs for each students copy. Even asking one student "Who should I make it out to?". Reading my peers mind like a bible, I imagined hearing...'make it out to that garbage can you egotistical square'. Aaron was next up and as the writing hand of the genius lifted to the inside cover, I sympathetically asked "Could you actually not sign it" before my plea fell on ignorant ears and he graced in blue ink "Enjoy the Read".

2) one of my colleagues is in a Hip Hop band and during a break in class he mentioned his appearing on a radio station Promoting "the best unsigned hip hop act in Canada". He talked of his onstage persona, and how he alters his language and voice ("uknowwhaammmsayin"), also wearing lots of bling-bling strictly for the occasion and rapping on about achievements he has never accomplished (well maybe I'm adding this final point myself having heard the music). When I questioned the consequences of his fans tripping upon this knowledge, maybe perceiving him as giving a front, being a fake, he got irate. The next 20 minutes of class time was spent forced into listening to him lecture on how some people are "so focused on being real that they aren't real". And trust me, he wasn't hitting the points of how genius that comment could be.

3) found myself in the director's office getting an exemption from 'Marketing'. I'd been to a few classes and realized the material to be no different than an equivalent taken in University. Anyway, as I'm proving my credentials, the dole turns to me and with no push from my side says "yeah, I've been interviewing people to take over that class, we're replacing Maude". From there he rolled on about the details, not a word exiting my mouth. Finally, I interject "has anyone approached or talked to Maude about this?". Enter some blabbing from his mouth and a "no, its too late for that". With each syllable from his side, I was brooding intense hatred toward this sly unprofessional wanker. By meetings end, I walked out of there feeling guilty, like I'd voluntarily participated in his 'behind the back' elementary school gossip. To relief this guilt, on reaching my computer I emailed and informed Maude of the plans.

4) In the 'music industry' course, we were given an in-class assignment worth 20% of our final grade. This task consisted of going through one chapter (10 pages) of our textbook and 'filling in the blanks' on test paper provided. The extracts were word for word from the book and we were permitted to accomplish the work altogether. The kicker, we had an hour and a half to get the job done, fruitless as ten minutes later we all walked out of there with 20 marks each and trying to somehow feel accomplished about this.

5) the secretary is a 35yr old audio engineer, and dawned the same coffee stain accumulating sweater 58 out of the 60 days. Maybe this last point is the number one reason I should have stayed, pure ROCK N ROLL!!!

"to put it modestly, I'm great at my job, sure there are a countless number of lawyers in Quebec, but only 2 or 3 that do what I do. Many people come to me and I'm well known in the industry as a great asset." - 'contracts and copyright' teacher

To put it modestly, Trebas is about feeding industry player egos, be it through green in their pocket or having 10 enthusiastic students attention while droning on about ones knowledge with little being delivered for the ballooned $20 an hour being passed over.

1 comment:

Lisa said...

hey...are you serious about your "recent withdrawal from the Trebas Institute" ??