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Shure’s Doug Gould teaches at the inaugural Worship Arts Technology Summit at Maranatha Bible and Missionary Conference in Muskegon, Mich., in September 2008.
Budgets for technological gear are nice, but no box or board is worth its price tag unless your church has a committed staff member or volunteer with the skills to put that piece of technology to good use. After all, a car needs a driver, and in this country a driver needs a driver's license. How to get that piece of photo ID? Take driver's ed. For churches that want to adopt new audiovisual, production or lighting technologies, investing time and resources in technical education is thus a no-brainer.
Fortunately, today there's a wide range of educational resources out there that cover every technological task possible, from miking a band or choir to running a lighting console. Many of these educational programs are tailored for churches, be they online, on a DVD or administered in person.
There are a few main sources for technical education. First, there are the obvious institutions that are dedicated to education: colleges, universities and technical training institutes. Many of these bodies now offer online courses, even for highly technical disciplines such as mixing music. Discrete educational products such as training DVDs would also fall under this first rubric.
Second, the tradeshows that we attend throughout the year attract both experts in various technological disciplines and those who want to become proficient in them. Not surprisingly, many of these annual conferences feature full-day class tracks and one-off seminars that bring together the experts and the knowledge seekers. Some classes are taught by employees of companies that manufacture audiovisual, lighting and production hardware and software. That brings us to the final, related category: Manufacturers of the gear that your team wants to learn how to use will of course sell you that gear, and many will also actively help you learn how to use it.
Strictly Training
Some educators in the field of audiovisual, lighting and production will come to a town near you; to learn from others, you'll need to visit them on a college campus. Other technical educators teach via online courses, computer programs and DVDs.
Ex'pression College in Emeryville, Calif., serves those who can make it to the Bay Area for a bachelor's program. Courses of study are centered mostly around animation, production and postproduction, but there's also a Sound Arts program for those who wish to study live sound. New at Ex'pression are evening-only bachelor's degree programs for folks who work during the day. The next term of classes starts June 26, 2009.
Syn-Aud-Con, on the other hand, takes its in-depth two-day seminars on the road in order to teach the principles of audio and acoustics. A Syn-Aud-Con audio seminar's average price is $275 per day. "What people get from Syn-Aud-Con is a shortened learning curve on the things they need to know to work in the audio field," according to the Syn-Aud-Con website. "We know that you must divide your time between audio and other technical fields, and we strive to provide the audio part in a way that complements the other technologies that you must work with." Upcoming seminars this summer are in San Francisco and near Newark, N.J., both places playing host to Core Principles of Audio and Sound Reinforcement for Technicians.
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Trevor Boyer is a freelance writer living in Brooklyn, New York. He likes to write professional A/V and video production stories (like this one) that can be reported via subway travel.
Quick-links
Audio Training for Worship DVD; Lighting for Worship DVD
www.winninginworship.com
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ADD NEW COMMENTWow, what a great article! Thanks for sharing your expertise.
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