THE FINAL NOTE
BRAD PRICE
Product Marketing Manager, Audinate
By Brian Berk
The Music & Sound Retailer: Who was your greatest influence or mentor and why? Brad Price: Dr. Amar Bose. I studied acoustics with him and was his teaching assistant for a year. He was dedicated to his subject and to his students with utter sincerity and loved exploring how we experienced sound and music. The Retailer: What was the best advice you ever received? Price: “You’re way less likely to get fired or burned out doing something you can stand doing.” — paraphrasing my dad. The Retailer: What was your first experience with a musical instrument? Price: A frustrating time with a really awful guitar when I was 12. I figured out the notes, but nothing sounded good at all. Ugh. The Retailer: What instrument do you most enjoy playing? Price: Acoustic guitar, an especially lovely custom instrument built by a friend of mine. I’ve come a long way since that first one.
The Retailer: Tell us something about yourself that others do not know or would be surprised to learn. Price: I can dowse for water. I have no idea how it works, but it does. Try me. The Retailer: What’s your favorite activity to do when you’re not at work? Price: Playing music with my friends, especially folk and bluegrass. The Retailer: What is the best concert you’ve ever been to? Price: Dire Straits at the Paradise Club in Boston, 1979. It was their first week in the USA. The Retailer: If you could see any musician, alive or deceased, play a concert for one night, who would it be and why? Price: I want a time machine to see Emmylou Harris and her Hot Band play in 1976. Why? Crushingly good songs from Rodney Crowell, the Louvin Brothers, Suzanna Clark and others performed by an angelic singer backed by James Burton, Albert Lee, Ricky Skaggs, Glen D Hardin and more. Simply the most tasteful country music ever produced. Spoiler alert: I saw this show. I just want to see it again. The Retailer: What musician are you hoping to see play in the near future? Price: Richard Thompson doing solo acoustic. The Retailer: What song was most memorable for you throughout your childhood, and what do you remember about it the most? Price: Tough one. There are so many. “Turn, Turn, Turn” by the Byrds because it was a big part of the anti-war movement in the ‘60s. I heard it and sang it many times with my parents at various protests. It left a mark. The Retailer: What songs are on your smartphone/iPod, etc. right now? Price: My iPhone says there are 34,289 songs on it and so that’s a difficult question. The best answer is “a lot of them.” Just played: “Walk Away” by Durand Jones and the Indications. The Retailer: What’s the most fun thing you saw/did at a NAMM Show? Price: I got to play the new C.F. Martin D-28 1937 authentic guitar, and it was pretty darn fabulous. The Retailer: If you had to select three people, past or present, to have dinner with, who would they be and what would you ask them? Price: Ken Jennings (of “Jeopardy!” fame). I’d want to discuss ideas around economics with him because he is a very broad thinker and one funny guy. Noam Chomsky. I’d want to talk about human morality and how groups of people can encourage constructive behaviors in functional social contexts, and I want to know how he feels his work impacts others on an emotional level. Also, linguistics. David (continued on page 61)
62
