For Rory Steuart, there wasn’t much doubt that he would end up working in music – it would seem inevitable for somebody whose parents were sound editors on movies as big as Mad Max, Dead Poets Society and Crocodile Dundee.
Steuart started creating music as a teenager on the NSW mid-north coast before deciding to take the plunge and move to Sydney to study at university.
“AIM was the right choice for me because it was music orientated. I ended up going there because I went to the Open Day and it showcased that they actually do music theory as opposed to just doing an audio degree and pump you out doing a diploma really fast,” he explains.
“AIM really went into the ins and outs of the music, how to record it, and the history of music, why it’s so interesting, why it’s so necessary in culture and also how it’s made.”
“I studied audio engineering. It’s a two-year course but I chose to do it over three years. I started the course with the intention of leaving with the qualification to be an engineer, recording bands and artists. I come from a compositional background, I originally almost did a composition course but steered at the last second to do audio engineering as I thought it would be a better career path for myself.”
Upon finishing his degree, Steuart was asked to return to the school to help the next generation of students; this time working as a studio assistant to help students understand the process of working in a real studio environment.
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“I finished studying at the end of last year, and then at the beginning of this year I got offered to do part-time in the studios at AIM to help with the Music Production 2 classes. Essentially, it’s a compositional class that everyone has to undertake in their second trimester at AIM and it really puts the student into the producer’s chair.”
When asked why he thinks he was chosen for the role, Steuart puts it down to the effort he put in as a student.
“I was previously interning at a studio for six months and started working there before I got this job as well, that would have been a big part of it,” he explains. “I think also the fact that I showed I was keen when I was a student, that I liked audio and I just wanted to get things done, as well as being reliable.”
“In my later trimesters, it really clicked in all of a sudden. You don’t realise that you’re getting all of these skills and then you’ll start talking to somebody who knows something about audio and you realise how much you actually learnt there. I think it really does gear you towards real life.”
His advice for students thinking about studying?
“Go into it with a goal. Know what you want to get out of it. I feel like if you want to get into this field, do well at it and persevere for a lot of years to do this thing, I think you should really go into it with a focus.”
Steuart believes that it was really was the AIM Open Day that sold him on pursuing music as a career.
“I think the best thing is that you actually get an insight into the studios. I think the biggest benefit of the Open Day is that you actually get to meet the staff, learn who is there, and it really becomes apparent very fast that it’s a big family.
“And apart from actually meeting the staff and the teachers, seeing what the courses entail and what talent is already present there, you, as a student can see the studio. You can see what they actually have to offer there and it really is another level from being a bedroom producer and seeing things online to actually being able to touch a real console, it’s just a different world.
“To be able to sit in a room with that all of sudden, it sparked something inside of me that said ‘this is what I want to do’. It takes it from a hobby to a profession.”
Want to learn more about AIM? Head to their Sydney Open Day on Saturday 12 August. You can find out more here.
