Traditional Institutions

Sound (audio) Engineering, as a subject is a relatively new discipline in academia. Even in 2001 face-to-face (f2f) sound engineering courses globally have difficulties fitting into traditional departments in universities. Sound engineering encompasses many different mind-sets and approaches to learning including engineering principles, and equally so, creative artistic ones.

The majority of current professionals working within the field have grown up and learnt their skills in the school of ‘hard knocks’. Essentially, by being thrown into situations and learning through self-experience and emulating mentors in the workplace. A cynical point of view is that over the last 30 years educational establishments have assessed a need for ‘fast-tracking’ engineers and providing provision in the form of courses as means of generating income. A more positive view would be that there is indeed a need, even if only for personal development without the outcome of employment. And rightly so, social learning reasons can be seen to be just as valid for the enrichment of culture. However, being such a specialised area, most traditional universities do not find themselves in a situation to be able to provide such courses that really do reflect the culture that professionals work in. Courses exist where sound engineering is an add-on to music courses or performing based courses, though very few exist exclusively for sound engineering as a subject.