He’s got a twinkle in his eye and a smile for almost everyone he meets. That’s even after putting in the long hours of class and labs required for Expression’s Sound Arts program. Jeff Parsons is getting pretty close to graduation, and, like many Expression students, he is excited about the prospect of getting out in the “real” world but has mixed feelings about leaving the universe he’s inhabited for the past 2 years, working on dream. Like other Expression students, the dream didn’t become completely clear until after he spent some time doing other things. In Jeff’s case it all started with cars.
“From the very first day, and each day forward, it’s become very clear that this is where I belong and what I should be doing."
Jeff was born in San Francisco and lived all over California. One of his first loves was cars. Unfortunately, when he tried repairing one during his high school years, he ended up destroying it.
Taking an auto repair class in college led him into a series of interesting jobs such as working for a dealer that restored Ferraris. Not totally satisfied, he eventually started his own business in the legal support field. It was a great business and he made some good money but he just wasn’t happy. When he got back into the automotive field, Jeff landed a job running the service department for ProItalia- a boutique Italian motorcycle dealership in Los Angeles that handled Ducatis, Moto Guzzis and Aprilias. This led to a job managing a service department for a car dealership in Monterey. Once he turned the department around from being a perennial loser to being profitable, he found the day-to-day work stopped being challenging. “I thought I wanted to work in a bigger facility, maybe something more specialized. But then, I had this flash. “I realized I could just keep doing the same thing I had been doing, or I could do what I really loved, which was sound."
Jeff had grown up in a musical family, with grandfathers, aunts and uncles as jazz and classical musicians, and a mother who was a singer. Although they all tried putting instruments in his hands as a youngster, nothing took. That is, until he began playing drums at age 13. He started in marching bands and eventually went on to drum and bugle corps. This wasn’t just your average marching band type stuff. Think “Drumline”! Jeff played with the Modesto Valley Fever, the Concord Blue Devils’ bands that competed nationally and won.
He aged out of competitive drum corps at 21, spent some time teaching the instrument and then eventually got invited to hang out with, of all things, a bagpipe band. “The guy had been bugging me to play with them for about six months,” Jeff recalls with a smile. “After that long I just ran out of excuses.” This led to what might be the penultimate bagpipe band experience: competing in the Bagpipe Band World Championships in Glascow, Scotland. His band, the Alameda County Sheriff’s Pipe Band won second place in their class worldwide.
Jeff didn’t think he could make his living as a musician, but the love and aptitude for technology that he had honed in the automotive field got him thinking about the possibility of a career in professional audio. He researched Expression when it first opened. “At that point they didn’t even have graduates yet that I could talk to about placements,” Jeff recalled. He did a lot of research on schools that taught audio and felt like Expression would be the best for helping students succeed because of the equipment, the teachers and the “deep curriculum.” It also didn’t hurt that it was in the Bay Area.
At the moment of his epiphany, he went back to the Expression website and read that tuition was going to increase. He called up the admissions department to enroll in a February start and spoke with Brittany Riddell. Just one month and 4 sold motorcycles later, Jeff started classes. “From the very first day, and each day forward, it had become very clear that this is where I belonged and what I should be doing,” said Jeff.
He was little nervous at first about being somewhat older than a lot of his classmates but he quickly found that it was exciting to be around the energy of people that were motivated, despite age. Jeff volunteered for school events, got involved in Expression’s Audio Engineering Society (AES) student chapter, and even got chosen to go to New York City, attend the AES conference and work Mix Magazine’s prestigious TEC Awards show. Another extra project highlight for Jeff was getting to be part of a small team of students that put together a DVD project for a Samoan choir. The project was done at Skywalker Sound under the supervision of internationally renowned engineer and producer Leslie Ann Jones. According to Jeff, it was “amazing to work in her presence” and to be in a facility like Skywalker.
When asked about his favorite aspects of the program and where he thinks he might want to land after graduation in August, Jeff laughs. “Unfortunately, I like it all!” Jeff says there are challenges throughout the program and encourages students who enroll to make the most of them. “You can just go for good grades, or you can get help from the teachers to challenge yourself even further.” Audio post-production classes were really challenging for Jeff, but equally rewarding. He also loves recording bands and is looking forward to a session he has coming up that’s a 10-piece band in the Expression’s SSL 9K suite on the school’s largest console.
Jeff has begun meeting with Shiloh Hobel in Career Services as he gets closer to his August graduation. “Shiloh is fantastic,” says Jeff. “She knows just how to support you and make you feel comfortable. Then she gives you the kick in the pants you need to get moving."
“One of the most lightening rod experiences was my first session recording a band alone in a studio for the first time. It was a band I had found outside the school. When everything is your responsibility it’s a lot of pressure. But it’s a great feeling when you get it all to tape."
Jeff has developed the chops and confidence to go out and work some jobs in live sound while in school. He’s run shows and done front of house mixing for San Francisco’s Boom Boom room, and at the Shattuck Downlow in Berkeley for concerts that included world music, Latin, Afrobeat and reggae. In fact, it was at the Berkeley club that he met Afrodesia, a band he recently recorded. Jeff talks about the pressure and the excitement of mixing live shows, and particularly about the course director for the live sound program at Expression, Hani Gadallah. “Hani is a real character and great teacher,” says Jeff “and everything in Meyer Hall is top shelf- just about as good as any club in San Francisco.” Jeff feels that while he “treads carefully” at the gigs he’s been getting as a student, he feels that his experience as a student have given him the confidence and base knowledge to work and learn alongside people in the industry.
What is Jeff’s advice for people going into the Sound Arts Program at Expression? Dive in! Even if it’s not something that excites you check it out. When you find something that you are excited about, dig deeper."
