Hello Dear Berklee blog readers,

Are you ready for more internship action?

Prepare yourselves to be submerged in my Blue Mics world for the next couple hundred words. The past two weeks were a lot of fun at the studio. We’ve covered everything at an internship you can imagine. During the past 14 days I came up with my own mantra: “Be humble, give your best. You just never know.” You will understand what I mean by the end of this post. Without further ado, let’s get to the details.

If you’ve read my previous blogs (Part 1 & Part 2), you know I do a lot of stuff at Blue. I am in charge of running the studio, engineering sessions for our Blue artists (www.bluemic.com/bluemob), getting coffee, meeting and greeting artists, managing the studio inventory, creating content for social media marketing, buying lunch, cleaning up after the artists, etc. Some of my internship duties are significant and fun. Others, not so much. However, any single task I perform in the studio at the company, I give my best. I tell myself: “Be humble, give your best. You never know”.  (You see? I told you this was coming up.)

What I mean by this is the following.  The other day at the studio my boss told me, “Hey Rafael, prepare the studio. A female singer, Kina Grannis, is coming by last minute.” So, I did. I cleaned up a bit, opened up a session, dimmed the lights, and brought some refreshments into the studio. Kina walks in with a guy, who happens to be her manager. They were both very nice. Kina is young, Hawaiian and very cute.  After exchanging some words with my boss, she picks up her guitar and walks into the vocal booth. After 50 minutes of recording and listening to her sweet, unique voice, she comes back into the control room. We listen back. She loves our mics! “Oh they sound so good on my voice,” she says.

Then we record a podcast for our iTunes channel. (http://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/the-official-blue-microphones/id354099289).

During the podcasts, we are able to chat more intimately with artists. The sessions usually run 30 to 45 minutes. In the first part of the podcast we talk with the artist about their background, inspirations, how they came to be and their current or new projects. For the second part, the artist picks two songs from their latest album and we play them for our listeners. In the last part, the artist picks a song that inspired them to pursue music. We’re looking for that one that they cannot get out of their head or that was a “game-changer” for them. We play it. Then we do an “in-house” pick and play it. And that’s pretty much it. We all say goodbye and live happily ever after.

Anyways, enough about podcasts, back to Kina. While listening to the live recording of the podcast, I learned a lot more about who she is. Well, it happens that she is a major YouTube hit with over six million views and more to come. She won a Super-Bowl Doritos music competition with a beautiful song she composed. She never thought it would make it that far. She has a brilliant future with an upcoming album to be released on April 6th and tour to promote the album on the East Coast. You can visit Kina’s website here.

And here it comes back at you: “Be humble, give your best. You never know…” When this girl walked into the studio I didn’t have a clue who she was. She just looked like another cute singer to me. However, I treated her as if she was a superstar, doing my best to make her feel comfortable and happy with our mics. Next thing I know, she is an internet superstar soon to become one in the record industry world.

So the moral of this story, as one can expect is, “Be humble, give your best. You never know…”

Thanks for tuning in.

Best,

Rafael

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More in this series: Part 1 |  Part 2

Rafael Restrepo is a CWP / Music Business & Management dual major at Berklee interning at Blue Microphone’s (studio) in LA for the Spring 2011 semester. Originally from Manizales, Colombia, Rafael is the recipient of a World Tour Scholarship and is set to graduate in May 2011. His favorite quote: “Choose carefully the things to which you give your attention. For where you place your attention is where your life will grow”.

For more information about Rafael and to listen to his projects, visit: www.rafaelrestrepo.com

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