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I’m sure you’ve heard it before. You’ve got to network. You’ve got to get involved. You’ve got to meet the right people. Well, here it is again. It’s really important to network. And get involved. And meet the right people. Because your skill will only take you so far, knowing the right people will take you farther.
This is not to be confused with shouting from the rooftops that you are the bomb, this is about going out and making healthy human connections (which let’s face it a lot of times these days this is virtual).
When I first started, I would go up and introduce myself to ANYONE – and I was kind of shy, so that took a lot. I would think of any, and I mean any question – even one I knew the answer to, and I would go ask. If I went to a concert, I would locate the sound person. And if there was a free moment, I would go ask my question. If I loved an album, I checked the credits, found the engineer, and wrote them on Myspace (I just dated myself with that but anyway).
But the biggest and most important place to network and meet people is through professional organizations. Going to conferences, and signing up for meetings, for workshops – i.e. getting involved in your community is the best way to get ahead. Meeting people will not replace skill, so it’s a delicate balance. You have to meet people AND hone your craft because you have to be ready for the opportunity to knock on your door. But those connections you make are the things that will bring those opportunities knocking. You recall I said it wasn’t so much who you know, but who knows you? Well, that’s going to require getting out there and meeting people.
I know this looks a lot different these days since a lot of this happens virtually. But it’s not to say you can’t pop questions in the chat, or reach out after the fact. Some of the conferences I’ve seen have smaller breakout rooms that allow you to have closer one-on-one chats. And from what I’ve seen most people on panels are open to people reaching out and often give their social media.
I sat down with my therapist (therapy is important), and she said it’s ok, you’re planting seeds. At the time, I was angry, because I was like whatever, I want change – I want a job now. But, I’ve never forgotten that because you eventually do see results. See the interview process is almost in a way networking. I had tons of emails and direct contacts for interviews I had been on which resulted in jobs later on. Because instead of going through the internet, if I saw the job posted a year later, guess what – I had the email of the person I interviewed a year ago, so I just wrote them directly. Also, if you make a good impression on the recruiters/employers, it’s not to say they won’t contact you later.
Be careful how you speak and treat people because you never know when or where those people may pop back up in your future. You don’t want to burn any bridges. How you speak and treat people will follow you everywhere you go. There may be a lot of people across the globe, but the audio community is in fact very small.
They say that success happens when opportunity meets preparation. So make sure you’re ready, and get out there (in person or virtually) and make some connections.
Jeanne Montalvo is a Grammy-nominated audio engineer and radio producer. She was the 2018 EQL resident at Spotify Studios and Electric Lady Studios in New York City, assisting in the recording process for artists like John Legend, Alessia Cara, and many more. She also
recorded sessions with Ivy Queen, Making Movies and Ruben Blades, and Flor de Toloache.
In 2017, she was nominated for a Grammy Award as Mastering Engineer for Vladimir Horowitz: The Unreleased Live Recordings and her recording of Multiverse by Bobby Sanabria’s Latin Jazz Big Band was nominated for Best Latin Jazz Album at the 2012 Grammy Awards.
She’s worked at the Banff Centre for the Arts, the Tanglewood Music Festival, and worked on live recordings with Spike Lee and Al Kooper. She broke into radio after receiving her Masters in Music Technology from New York University, working as an audio engineer and producer for
National Public Radio, the Duolingo Podcast and projects for Sony and the New York Times.
She is also the creator of “Live from Latino USA” a live and (mostly) unplugged video series that features Latinx talent from Jessie Reyez to Jose Feliciano. She is currently the treasurer of the Audio Engineering Society New York Section. See more at jmosound.net
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The mission of SoundGirls.org is to inspire and empower the next generation of women in audio. Our mission is to create a supportive community for women in audio and music production, providing the tools, knowledge, and support to further their careers. SoundGirls.Org was formed in 2013 by veteran live sound engineers Karrie Keyes and Michelle Sabolchick Pettinato and operates under the Fiscal Sponsorship of The California Women’s Music Festival, a 501(c)3 non-profit organization. In 2012, Karrie and Michelle participated in the “Women of Professional Concert Sound” panel at the AES Conference in San Francisco. The panel was hosted by the Women’s Audio Mission (WAM) and moderated by WAM founder Terri Winston. Terri brought together five women working in live and broadcast audio. The groundbreaking panel (which also included Jeri Palumbo, Claudia Engelhart and Deanne Franklin), provided young women and men a glimpse into life on the road, tips and advice, and a Q & A with the panelists. More importantly though, was how incredibly powerful the experience was for the panelists. We had all been in the business for 20 years or more, yet most of us had never met before that day and within minutes we bonded like long-lost sisters. We were struck by how similar our experiences, work ethics, and passions were and wondered why our paths had never crossed and how our careers would have been different had we been there to support each other through the years. Each of us are strong on our own, but together we were even stronger and a powerful force. We were empowered. Each of us had been asked hundreds of times in our careers: Are there other women doing sound? How did you get into sound? How would a young woman go about getting into sound? Through creating SoundGirls.Org, we hope to establish a place for women working in professional audio to come for support and advice, to share our success and failures, our joys and frustrations, and for empowerment and inspiration.
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