Audio mission goes on despite shutdown
Nonprofit studio shifts to training women online and doesn’t miss a beat
Ever since San Franciscans were ordered to shelter in place on March 17, Daniela Rodriguez has been awaiting the day that she’ll be allowed to physically return to her internship at Women’s Audio Mission.
Thankfully, she said — miraculously, perhaps — the staff at the Natoma Street studio hasn’t missed a beat.
“I’m still learning so much, and they’re constantly giving us things to do to help get us in shape for our future, after the internship ends,” Rodriguez, 24, told The Chronicle by phone. “They’re really taking this crisis into consideration and making everything accessible online, both for us interns and for the community.”
For 17 years, WAM’s titular mission has been to train girls, women and gendernonconforming individuals to enter the professional audio world, an industry recent studies show remains overwhelmingly maledominated.
Now, the nonprofit is focusing its efforts on a new digital course catalog called “WAM Everywhere.”
“There’s been a huge demand for that since prior to this health crisis,” said WAM founder Terri Winston, referring to distancelearning courses in audio engineering and similar fields. “Ironically, people have not wanted to fund it. We’re al
ready known for our expertise in this area, so people are looking to us to make this happen.”
Available through its website, WAM’s upcoming course schedule will include tutorials on synthesizers, a fireside chat with Grammynominated singersongwriter Linda Perry and a catalog of training sessions from WAM’s “Soundchannel” archive. So far, students across the United States as well as in countries such as India, Chile and France have tuned in, with more than 500 participants in total, Winston said.
In addition to getting classes online, Winston is focused on fundraising. WAM currently spends $1.4 million in annual operating expenses, which are financed through a mix of grants, corporate funding and charitable donations. That budget covers the services WAM provides to more than 3,000 students across Northern California each year, and additionally pays for the expenses of the three conferences WAM hosts annually.
“Our urgent needs to maintain our ability to deliver our mission and retain our staff is $100,000,” Winston said, “which we need to raise in the next six months to shift all operations online through ‘WAM Everywhere.’ ” Winston added that WAM recently received a matching donation of $50,000 from Dolby Laboratories in San Francisco and a $15,000 grant from San Francisco’s newly created Arts and Artists Relief Fund.
Part of Winston’s urgency is underscored by the demographics that collectively define the professional audio trade.
In the U.S., career positions in record engineering and sound production are overwhelmingly held by men, according to a 2019 USC Annenberg study. The study examined the gender and ethnicity of artists, songwriters and producers responsible for 800 popular modern songs. Researchers found that only about 2% of surveyed songs were produced by women. Similarly, men represent nearly 90% of all Grammy nominees in the past six years.
Thao Nguyen, of the San Francisco rock outfit Thao & the Get Down Stay Down, credits WAM with sharpening her skills as an engineer and producer, all of which she said she has applied to her upcoming fifth album, “Temple.” What sold Rodriguez on an internship with WAM was seeing the nonprofit’s studio, where acclaimed artists like Nguyen, Toro y Moi and TuneYards have all previously recorded.
“I was just amazed, because that’s what I’d gone to college to study, but in most of my classes
I was usually the only girl,” she said.
For prospective WAM students, the biggest obstacle is often establishing a hardware baseline for learning from home. A possible solution arrived in March, when the San Francisco Unified School District ordered 8,000 Google Chromebooks for students who don’t have access to a home computer as a result of school closures.
In an April 20 news conference, Gov. Gavin Newsom indicated that the state would follow suit, providing “tens of thousands of laptops and other technology” to students in need.
“Growing up, I didn’t really have any of this stuff,” Rodriguez said, “so this is good for students to take advantage of while we’re all in quarantine.”
Winston said she hopes the move sticks, because WAM’s goals don’t stop there. Her plans for the future include sending technology kits to remote schools in areas of the world where students may lack the equipment. Participating students would be instructed remotely on how to assemble the hardware, which would then allow for ongoing virtual education.
“We’ve put in numerous proposals for something similar for years,” Winston said. “I’m guessing that perhaps now people will be more open to it, which is great.”
“This is good for students to take advantage of while we’re all in quarantine.”
Daniela Rodriguez, intern