Follow the Fellows: Share your knowledge, listen and learn with Sound School

This week’s Follow the Fellows guest blog post is by Laura Haapio-Kirk whose project, Sound School, is one of the 2012 SoundCloud Community Fellows.

For thousands of years, we have used sound to create rhythms, songs, stories and all kinds of magic. Passed on from person to person, knowledge of how to work with sound has often been limited to having access to the right people. Now that we are so connected online, we are in a better position than ever to learn from each other and from the artists we admire.

Sound School is on its way to becoming a home for educational content on sound, fuelled by the massive skill and talent of the SoundCloud community. For example a professor from Berklee College of Music had the idea to start a set of musical terms explained through sound. Have a listen and upload your own favourite musical term, expressed as creatively as you like!

People are also sharing knowledge on different aspects of sound technology. Help us get this off the ground, so if you have a specific technology tip, please share it and help others out! If you feel like your advice requires screenshots, share a link to them in the timed comments at the relevant moment. Simple!

Sound School is also actively seeking collaboration with educational institutions and are excited to be partnering with the SAE Institute. Their instructors are in the process of recording their “Sound Advice” series which will be a collection of tips and advice based on questions that keep coming up in class. How awesome!

In terms of inspiration, nothing beats hearing from people who are working every day with sound. We want to know things like how you got to where you are now, how you found your style, what goes behind the song writing process, and your biggest lessons so far. The SoundCloud Heroes have given us a wonderful start by sharing their experiences, as you will hear below. Now we need you to share yours!

A new topic we’re working on is ‘Designs for Sound School’. Do you have an idea for how sound education can be improved? A piece of technology that would make a great teaching tool? An opinion on how we should approach sound education? Ideas big and small, we want to hear them all! Those with the best ideas will be invited to come and talk about them at the Sound School event happening in the coming months. This promises to be a wonderful evening where you will get to meet other SoundClouders and share your knowledge and passion for sound in person!

For more ideas on how you can contribute to Sound School, check us out our Tumblr, Facebook, Google+ and follow us on Twitter.