12 Feb
2010
12 Feb
'10
5:50 p.m.
On Fri, Feb 12, 2010 at 07:38:31PM +0100, Pedro Lopez-Cabanillas wrote:
how much of sound engineer and musician should be in
your blood stream?
If you want to be a musician you need music in your
blood stream, to be a sound engineer in the usual
meaning of that term you need both music and technology.
The term 'sound engineer' is sort of a linguistic
mixup. Usually an 'X engineer' is someone who has
a good knowledge of the technology of X, and able
to apply that knowledge in a systematic way to the
the solution of practical problems. In many cases
it also implies formal training and certification.
The focus on technology and practical application
is what differentiates an engineer from a scientist
in the same field.
By that definition, most of the people called 'sound
engineeers' should maybe be called 'music engineers',
and the 'real' sound engineers according to that
definition are the ones usually called 'acoustic
engineers'.
But even the term 'music engineer' is too broad to
describe most 'sound engineers'. It implies a much
more universal knowledge - most people called 'sound
engineer' only know about one type of music and would
be completely lost when e.g. asked to record an opera
performance. That's not a reflection on their qualities
which can be exceptional, but on the usual meaning of
the term 'engineer'.
Apart from all this there is a second linguistic
mixup. In English the term 'engineer' refers to
engines and machines. The drivers of steam trains
were called engineeers. In roman languages the term
used sounds almost the same (French: ingenieur,
Italian: ingegnere), but has a different origin going
back the the Latin 'ingeniosus' meaning 'skilled'.
And strangely enough, in Italian today 'ingenuo'
means just the opposite: someone naive and easily
abused.
Ciao,
--
FA
O tu, che porte, correndo si ?
E guerra e morte !