You Can’t Teach Sound Design

You Can’t Teach Sound Design

Not really.

You can teach the fundamentals. The workflows, recording techniques, how to use different plug-ins.

You can show someone how to prep a session for a feature so the mixers don’t hate you, how to build predubs, how to deliver in multiple formats. All of that technical mastery is teachable.

But the art, the instincts, the style, the taste... thaaaat’s a different story. You can’t teach that part. It evolves over years of experimentation, trial and error, late nights, and crafty edits.

Everyone’s taste is different too. (Thank the Lord for that)

It reminds me of one of my favorite quotes.

“Nobody tells this to people who are beginners… I wish someone told me. All of us who do creative work, we get into it because we have good taste. But there is this gap… your taste is why your work disappoints you.”
— Ira Glass

Sound design is like music. Hand a guitar to four different people and you’ll get four different songs. Ask four pianists to play the same waltz and you’ll hear four unique interpretations, shaped by their sensibilities.

That’s what makes sound design so hard to define and so endlessly fascinating.

Even after 30 years in this field, I still hear work from newer artists that stops me in my tracks. Surprises me. Blows me away. Because their instincts, their choices, their fingerprints are nothing like mine. It reminds me to keep learning and stay open. That’s the beauty of this craft. You can be in it for decades and still have the curiosity of a beginner.

The second you start settling into formulas, reaching for the same familiar sounds, that’s the beginning of the end. Unless you notice it and shake yourself loose.

As long as you stay curious, and creative, you'll do great.

The way you design is unique to you. That’s the part no one can teach.

You just have to find it for yourself.