Audio Engineering Society (AES): A Great Affiliation!

      Considering the services that my company, Art Of Audio Productions, will offer in the future, there are various professional associations that I could and probably will eventually join. However, the very foundation of everything lies in my expertise as an audio engineer, so investigating the Audio Engineering Society seemed to be my first logical choice for professional affiliation.

      This society originated in the U.S. in 1948, and grew internationally to unite, not just audio engineers, but also students, scientists, and creative artists, all over the world. This is accomplished through providing and promoting new information, education, and research about audio technology. AES currently has over 75 professional and 95 student sections worldwide, and over 14,000 members, which offers numerous opportunities for both personal development and networking. These sections host various activities such as: demonstrations, forums with guest speakers, social functions, technical tours, and other similar events.

      What I really like the most about AES, is the fact that education is of great importance to them, and in more than one aspect. Education is key to success in any field, and is especially important when one is doing something that requires technical skill. First of all, AES serves the educational needs of their members and the audio industry as a whole, through a wide spectrum of publications, technical gatherings, and equipment demonstrations. Their conventions are held annually in the U.S. and Europe, with additional ones (plus regional summits), held regularly also in Latin America, Asia, North America, and Europe. Secondly, the AES presents many research papers at these conventions, which end up being published in the Journal of the Audio Engineering Society, which is peer-reviewed and available for members in the AES E-Library for a small fee. Additionally, other educational resources are available in this section as well, such as tutorials and technical documents. The AES also has an educational foundation that awards grants to graduate students who are studying audio or a related field. Finally, the educational program that I find the most relative to the goal of aoap, is the AES Student Recording Competition, because it allows students to gain recognition and feedback for their audio production work.

      In this particular competition, there are four different categories that allow students to enter and showcase their work in basically every genre and technique of recording, at the AES international conventions. This is significant for the audio industry because these students are the future audio engineer professionals of tomorrow, and mentoring them is extremely important. With feedback and positive encouragement for their audio production work, these students can be inspired to reach greater heights in audio, and to achieve other awards, like a Grammy or an Oscar! At the very least, it should be the catalyst for student audio engineers to strive for greatness with their audio work, and to continue building their audio network of professional audio engineers. You can review the recap of the past winners of this competition at the 134^th AES Convention here. 

      The AES is also involved in maintaining and creating international standards in various areas of audio, such as digital/analog audio engineering, media preservation, and acoustics, to name a few. Therefore, AES serves a very important purpose for the growth and development of the audio industry as a whole, and joining either as a student or professional audio engineer, certainly has its merits. Additionally, being an AES member should also grow the personal and professional network of any audio engineer, as they connect with the thousands of other AES members, either online, at meetings, and/or at conferences.

      This professional association easily gets thumbs up from this audio engineer, and I cannot wait to become a member! Will you join me?

Annie Lennox: An Inspiration For All

      In the year 2013, it is really easy for people to forget about the HIV/AIDS pandemic, especially if this disease affects no one close to you. Furthermore, we don’t see as many ad campaigns as we did in the latter eighties or early nineties, when the disease was still relatively new and fresh on everyone’s minds. This is why the The Annie Lennox SING Campaign  and her story from Ted.com are so poignant and significant in continuing to raise awareness.

      In Annie Lennox’ speech, she describes how she became aware of Nelson Mandela’s launch of his new campaign, in 2003, called 46664. This led her to learn more about how the HIV/AIDS pandemic is seriously affecting women and children in South Africa, and it inspired her to join the fight as well. She talks about how she met the founder of Treatment Action Campaign, Zachie Achmat, and how she became involved in helping them obtain comprehensive quality medical care for those living with HIV/AIDS in South Africa. Lennox also gives information about how Mandela’s country has one of the highest transmission rates of this disease in the world. She also talks about how as a woman and mother this issue touched her heart very deeply, and as a result, she became committed to raising money and awareness for this cause through using her notoriety as a pop singer as a platform.

      She has given numerous talks, speeches, and seminars all over the world as an appointed UN AIDS Ambassador, in an effort to help eliminate, by 2015, the transmissions of this virus from mother-to-child. Specifically, she tells the story about an orphan child that they filmed in South Africa, who was born with the virus because her mother passed it to her, and who was suffering severely due to poor nutrition/health care. At age seven, she had full blown AIDS, had pneumonia, and only weighed what a one-year-old child might weigh when Lennox left after filming her. The hospital doctors/nurses consequently put the child on a special diet and gave her excellent health care in the hopes of reversing her poor state of health. In five months, when Lennox returned, the child had transformed into a completely healthy and normal looking seven-year-old child! This story, along with the before/after the pictures of the child, clearly affected the audience, because almost everyone in the hall stood up when Annie Lennox asked if they agreed with her about a couple of issues. She asked the audience if they agreed that every mother affected by this disease deserves access to good nutrition and health care; and then she asked if they agreed that The Millennium Development Goals (a report disseminated by the United Nations), specifically goals 5 and 6, should be met by all worldwide governments. I was not there to see this speech in person, but it definitely inspired me to want to join this cause!

      As an entertainer, woman, mother, and African-American, I feel that I can and should make a difference with this issue as well. Creating music and sound design are creative ways to entertain, but helping to serve my fellow man would be an even more significant way to contribute my talents, money, and time. Hopefully, this blog post will inspire you, as the reader, to join as well!