Interdependence 9: David Turner (Penny Fractions)

Mat

cheers Martin - I guess experiences vary but I can say from our side we have always been hesitant to run internships in the studio for exactly the reason that I don't want to waste anyone's time. Project work is different, looking for someone with a specific skill to contribute to something, but even in the case where someone needs an internship to graduate I would feel weird not engaging them in anything of substance.

This was great. 
 I was one of those that responded to David's tweet about industry internship pay. I did an unpaid internship at an Icelandic recording studio/label (I won't name them but you might be able to guess). I had just come out a technical graduate program and desperately wanted to be surrounded by people making music again (and not engineers) so I made peace with the idea of throwing my savings at it (read: was privileged enough). The most depressing thing was how little I was needed. It was exactly as David said - if I was needed they would have paid me. I was a big fan of the artists who were based at the studio and was super excited to be involved with their projects. I mostly sat around working on a PhD proposal (which never got funded in the end) waiting until after working hours when I was free to use the studio on my own. I and the other intern (yes there were two of us!) had to take it in turns to make lunch for everyone and do the weekly food shopping as well as other domestic chores. There were some weeks when the owner and the other resident artist were away, so it was just myself, the other intern and the head engineer who was mostly working on his own projects. I still had to pretend to do something useful for eight hours before I was allowed to do as I wanted in the evening. This studio/label had been running two interns back to back for more than a decade. They had a seemingly unending supply. I made a lot of music there and met a bunch of cool people, but I'm not really sure it was worth the depressing six months I had to spend back at my parents following it - working in the same cafe as I did when I was at high school in order to recoup some of the costs.

Mat

over the moon you are here Elijah! Hope all is well

late to the party, but im in now, will try and catch up on em all today.