{"id":732,"date":"2016-02-24T04:05:00","date_gmt":"2016-02-24T10:05:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/txsound.com\/blog\/?p=732"},"modified":"2016-02-24T23:59:42","modified_gmt":"2016-02-25T05:59:42","slug":"terrible-ted-smu-audio-professor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/txsound.com\/blog\/terrible-ted-smu-audio-professor\/","title":{"rendered":"SMU Audio Professor “Terrible Ted”"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0Back when I was an undergrad at\u00a0Southern Methodist University\u00a0(1979-1982), there existed\u00a0a ruthless, seething, grey-skinned, chain-smoking, Korean-War-veteran audio professor<\/strong> named Ted Gardner<\/strong>. Ted was about\u00a060 years old at the time, and typically stood a head shorter than anyone in the room. <\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0Ted’s\u00a0classes were not only meant to teach audio<\/strong> (by the driest, most uninteresting means possible), but also designed to weed-out<\/strong> students who were not serious about filmmaking and broadcasting. Ted would unhesitatingly fail<\/strong> those who turned in late work or could not pass written exams. Some students re-took his Basic Audio class 2 or 3 times before earning a passing grade. \u00a0He lectured while sitting behind his desk, reading verbatim from the text , while smoking\u00a0Carlton 100’s<\/strong>, (Easily the most vile brand of the day, but\u00a0also the lowest<\/strong><\/em> in tar and nicotine).\u00a0Ted would also bum smokes from us students, insisting on paying us a nickel per cig<\/strong>. His eyes would wince, and his face scrunched up as he sucked the juice\u00a0out of every puff, the sputter and crackle heard through the room.<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
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\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0He was also my college advisor, with regular meetings on Wednesdays. <\/span><\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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“How ya doin’, Ted?”<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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“My doctor told me either I quit smoking, or I die.”<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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“Oh yeah? How’s your kids?.”<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
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Mind-blowing<\/strong> it was to imagine being one of Ted Gardner’s children.<\/div>\n
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\u00a0 \u00a0 In his tiny, cluttered office, under the desk-\u00a0he kept\u00a0hidden\u00a0the school’s pair of Neumann KM84’s microphones and their lunch-box<\/strong> power supplies, to be loaned out only to the Advanced Audio<\/strong> students for their final projects.\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
Entry-level students made-do with the head-beaten Electro-voice RE-15’s. Regardless, you could make some very impressive recordings with those mics and an\u00a0Ampex AG500 reel-to-reel<\/strong>.\"AG500\"<\/a><\/div>\n
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\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0Much of my student pocket-money was earned in the midnight hours at the Steak and Egg Kitchen<\/strong>, across from Virginia Hall\u00a0at SMU. I tutored jocks and\u00a0co-eds<\/strong>\u00a0to pass Ted’s final\u00a0exams, $10 per wee-morning-hour. The Egg’s<\/strong> jukebox was filled mostly with the country hits of the day, except selection 1A, which strangely had no title card<\/strong>. One night we gambled a quarter to hear what 1A was hiding. \u00a0Like so much spilled eggs and flour on the napkin dispensers, out flowed David Bowie’s “Changes.” <\/strong>Oh, wow.\"steakandegg\"<\/a><\/div>\n
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\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0Ted set my career course for-life, \u00a0by assigning me an internship at Sumet-Bernet Studios<\/strong> in Dallas, then the epi-center of the world’s jingle production business.\u00a0\u00a0I worked under John Mayfield, \u00a0who now runs the premier\u00a0mastering facility\u00a0in Nashville<\/a>, Mayfield Mastering.<\/div>\n
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Before he died, Ted had contributed his tar-soaked voice<\/strong> to a track from the band Course of Empire<\/strong>, some of whom\u00a0were SMU students.\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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\u00a0 \u00a0 The band’s tracks are pretty impressive, especially coming from musicians who were educated at Southern Methodist University, somewhat of a trust-fund bubble-campus<\/strong>.<\/div>\n
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Band-member Mike Graff<\/strong>\u00a0reminisces about his memories of Uncle Ted and the Course of Empire recordings here<\/a>. His description brought back a flood of memories.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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The track containing Ted’s narration can be heard below:<\/div>\n
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