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The Four Dimensional Artist

Coaching singers for 30 years, I found that helping an artist become the best they could be went far beyond just good vocal technique. The best singers have other skills that are often not recognized as a skill by casual observers. Even more disheartening, these skills are often not developed in singers, even those working with a great voice teacher. It’s easy to get blinded by the flashy “money notes” or crazy riffing and put all of one’s energy into achieving that bundle of skills.

Yes, healthy vocal technique is essential as is the ability to hit those money notes and do the crazy riffs when the song or moment calls for it. What I’m talking about is the importance of singers developing a deeper skill set that goes beyond this. I like to think of these skills in four different phases or dimensions.

Dimension One

Vocal Technique

Breathing (breath support and breath control), placement, laryngeal positioning, vowel shape, diction, articulation, vibrato, resonance, connection. 

Work with a great “technical” teacher who has the ear and the knowledge to help you dial in a healthy voice. This process can take one lesson or several over the course of months but make healthy vocal technique the goal without getting distracted with American Idol auditions.

Dimension Two

Musicianship

Timing, pitch, dynamics, control, aural skills (intervals, tonal center, harmony, etc.), instruments, genres and basic music production understanding.

The understanding of nuanced timing is one of the great tools that a singer has, yet most singers I work with as a recording engineer really struggle in this area. The power you have as a storyteller by pushing the beat, holding back the beat, sitting on top of the beat, etc., separates the “good singers” from the “great singers”. Next level singing comes from developing this important skill along with the ability to improvise, create harmony parts, sing as a great duet partner by listening while singing and so much more.

Dimension Three

Performance

Engaging, stamina, believable, entertaining, connecting with the audience, making the audience feel, mic technique, studio recording.

I’ll always remember an experience I had working with a young, crazy talented singer. She sounded exactly like Christina Aguilera at only 15 years old. I worked with her in the studio, had songwriting sessions with her, I even watched her get into the top 20 on American Idol one year. Yet, we watched her flop time and time again. On the surface, it was easy to scratch our heads and say “What is going on here? Can’t people hear how amazing she sounds?” The truth was that deep inside, I knew what was wrong. She was soooooooo boring! Even just sitting and having a conversation with her was like talking to a wall. It was as if she had no personality. This was nearly 15 years ago and I have no idea where she is or what level of success she has had if any at all. All I know is that her vocal chops were among the best I had ever heard, yet her lack of engagement in conversation and as a performer pretty much stifled any progression in her career. Never underestimate the importance of learning how to “perform”. Whether you are in an interview, a guest on a podcast, an opening act for a local show, performing at an open mic night, or headlining a show. Every individual you communicate with as an artist needs to know you are there for them.

Dimension Four

Mind, Heart and Soul

Vulnerability, believability, peace, rising above, taking criticism in a healthy way, taking accolades in a healthy way, maintaining balance, running a business, being a non-Diva, love yourself, love others, always bring people up, mental and emotional health, overcoming limiting beliefs, overcoming stage fright.

The word “quan” comes from one of my favorite movies, “Jerry Maguire”. If you haven’t seen this moment where Cuba Gooding Jr’s character explains the meaning of quan to Tom Cruise’s character, google it now. The word means “love, respect, community…and the dollars too.”  There is no shame in searching for success with music. None at all. However, we can get so focused on what is or isn’t happening in our careers that we fail to see others around us and what value we can add to others’ lives with our talents. I am a firm believer in this concept of giving more than you take in the music community. It will come back around. Focus more outwardly and see what changes might take place in your life and your music career.

Most importantly, seek to keep balance in your life. Make a list of your priorities, including building your music career, your job that pays the bills, your family that needs to know you love them, etc. Make sure your day-to-day activities align with what is most important to you. If it doesn’t, make some adjustments. Are you carving out time for yourself and your mental health? Are you spending too much time “scrolling” and not enough time creating a content schedule, posting, and then getting off your phone? Whatever adjustments you need to make in your life, start tomorrow and create the life that makes you happy.

 

Choosing the Right University 

By the time I was in the twelfth grade I had some idea of what I wanted to do… but no idea how I wanted to get there.

If I was aiming for a doctor, an office job, or a lawyer it would have been a no-brainer that I would go to university. However here I am on SoundGirls, so as you can imagine I was aiming for a path a little unconventional.

Now, not to say that those jobs are bad careers, by no means. However, when it comes to wanting to have your profession in the arts? Getting a degree from an educational institution may or may not be the way to go.

If you are aiming to become the next Beyonce for instance. You could go to NYU and major in vocal arts, network, and meet some people that can help you record an EP, and BOOM! Instant success! Unfortunately, however, while this scenario is possible it isn’t always subject to replication. Not everyone that majors in NYU’s vocal arts program are going to be the next world sensation, some might not get the opportunities or work with others that would elevate them to that megastar status.

The entertainment business is surely creative, but it is also still a business. It needs a lot of people to keep the machine well oiled. So the people factor is extremely important, who you impress and who you don’t can change where you might be months or years into the future.

So the question I posed is, choosing the right university? Well, I’m pretty sure you can predict what I’m going to say. What are you roughly aiming for? Want to be an engineer?  Want to be an entertainment lawyer? Or maybe a music journalist? Which path to follow, university, tech school, or a hands-on mentorship? University is an option but not the only one. So this September when you are pouring over state and private universities, think about where you roughly want to go and then what options you can look into.

One last quick tip. If you are not sure where you want to go but know you want a career in the music business, you can always take quick courses online. Coursera and Berklee Online have free and paid-for options on a number of different classes that you could take. While you could go to university undeclared, it still will charge you tuition which could be pricey depending on where you are and if you are receiving scholarships or some kind of financial aid. With online classes, you can get a taste of what you might be in for in your profession and for way less than college tuition.

Find more educational programs from online to four-year universities

Do I Really Need to Go to School

But, Do I Really Need to Go to School

Should You Go to School for Audio Engineering?

How Music Affects Your Brain

We all know that music plays a huge role in our everyday lives. It helps us focus on our daily tasks and helps us relax when we are stressed out. Music helps us change our mood by changing how we perceive the world. So what happens to your brain when you listen to music?

Research shows us that it might be the secret to improving test scores, as well as our long-term well-being in life. In today’s post, we will take a look at 5 ways that science has shown music affects our brains!

Music Can Relieve Anxiety

Stress and anxiety are part of our daily lives, and we all have different methods to help calm ourselves when things get stressful at work or in our personal life. Research done by Dr. David Lewis-Hodgson of Mindlab International shows that music can help reduce anxiety and stress levels by up to 65%. A study was conducted on participants who had to solve a puzzle as quickly as possible. While solving the puzzle, the participant’s brain activity, heart rate, rate of breathing, and blood pressure were being measured.

According to Dr. David, music helped the participants to relieve anxiety and concentrate on the tasks at hand. Marconi Union’s song ‘Weightless’ resulted in a 65% reduction in participant’s anxiety and reduced their physiological resting rates by 35%. The song managed to slow the participant’s heart rate down, by lowering the levels of the stress hormone cortisol. Pretty amazing!

Music Can Boost Memory

Ever heard of the documentary Alive Inside: A Story of Music and Memory. This award-winning documentary by Michael Rossato-Bennett follows the social worker Dan Cohen. Dan is bringing music to people diagnosed with dementia in nursing homes. He creates individual playlists by asking family members to list the songs the patients once enjoyed.

The documentary shows how patients came back to life and started to feel like their former selves when listening to their individual playlists. Henry, a 94-year-old home resident diagnosed with dementia, claimed to start recalling aspects of his life which he couldn’t remember before the music therapy started.

The WWII veteran John who suffered severe dementia remained still in his wheelchair until hearing his favorite music. After the music therapy, John started singing along and dance in his wheelchair.

Music stimulates the centers of the brain that deal with concentration, organization, and information retention. These play essential roles in categorizing memories, making music therapy a critical tool for people with dementia.

Music Helps You Sleep Better

Listening to relaxing music can put the body in the same state of relaxation as when you sleep. This results in a slower heart rate, slower breathing, and lower blood pressure levels. Research shows that a pre-bedtime music listening session will help you fall and stay asleep.

Sleep has an indirect effect on our overall mood and emotional state. Depression, anxiety, stress, and other mood disorders are tightly connected to sleep problems. Insomnia also makes us more vulnerable to stress. Simply put, music has the power to activate and influence the emotional and memory centers of our brain, which is beneficial when you go to bed.

Music Can Relieve Pain

Pain and sleeping problems are closely related to each other. Pain interferes with sleep, and sleeping poorly increases our sensitivity to pain. If you improve your sleep, you’re likely to reduce physical pain (and vice-versa).

A study made by researchers from Queen Mary University of London shows that listening to music was associated with a reduction in postoperative pain. Music also decreased patient’s anxiety and reduced the use of painkillers post-surgery. So how can music relieve post-surgery pain? Your favorite music puts you in a better mood. When you’re in a good mood, the brain starts to release neurochemicals and hormones that stimulate your immune system and decrease pain.

Music Enhances Performance

In 2012, Costas Karageorghis of Brunel University in London wrote that music acts as a “type of legal performance-enhancing drug”. For many athletes around the world, music is essential for peak performance. When listening to music, people run longer, swim faster, and lift heavier – usually without realizing it. Music can elevate your mood and motivate you to push through the fatigue. Scientists don’t know exactly why music can be such a powerful tool while working out. The hypothesis is that the tempo of the music (BPM) helps us get by performing repetitive tasks.

Conclusion

As you can see, there are countless ways that music affects your brain. Music can ease pain and improve your sleep, as well as increasing your performance. Music therapy has also been proved to be effective with memory retention in people with dementia.

It’s worth mentioning that studies on how music affects our brain are relatively new, but it sure looks promising for all music lovers out there!  Who knows what science will discover in the next 10-15 years!

 

 

Martin Kristiansen is the founder of HomeStudioIdeas.com. He has been playing, recording, and producing music for the last 10 years.

 

The Plumage of Punk: Review of Violence Girl

I don’t know where I first heard of Alice Bag, but it must have been when doing a deep dive into Riot Grrrl.  What I heard stuck with me:  a woman my mother’s age hitting just as hard as any punk band in their prime.  I wanted to know more, but I only found bits and pieces here and there.  An interview of anglicizing names, mentions of her influence, nothing until I was looking for more books to review for SoundGirls.  Violence Girl: East L.A. Rage to Hollywood Stage by Alice Bag is an action-packed cruise through the first part of the life of Alicia Armendariz (Alice Bag’s birth name).

Violence Girl is a memoir told in brief anecdotes, like memories, and arranged mostly chronologically detailing her life until her early thirties.  We are first introduced to her parents and in a way, East L.A.  Born to Mexican immigrants, Alice feels like an oddball not quite fitting in with her classmates or her Mexican cousins.  From an early age, Alice begins to realize the world is complicated when domestic abusers go free and police both protect and battle against innocents.  In describing her life in school, Alice documents her love affair with music.  While Alice does end up becoming a musician, it is by becoming a hardcore fan that sets her future in motion.  The combination of the outcast, the fighter for justice, and the crazed fan is an alloy of punk at its most concentrated.  By the time Alice Bag forms The Bags, she is ready to rip the world to shreds.  Alice and the rest of the L.A. Punk crew have formed a movement.

I see some of Alice Bag in me.  The self-directed anger and aimless wandering through life, the outcast, the mom, the straddling of multiple genres.  Her story resonates with me, by laying bare each facet of her life, she makes her life accessible.  Embarrassment and shame have long gone.  Her confidence in who she has become is contagious.  Regrets occur, but they do not stop her from her fight.  By her side is a who’s who of L.A. Punk, but L.A. Punk is its own character as well.  Through Alice Bag’s memories, the reader is a fly on the wall of the formation of the Go Go’s and the rise of Black Flag.  These bands are mere appendages to the pulsating mutant, centering around select locations in L.A. and even San Francisco and gorging on the actions of devoted fans.  As memories do, some sections blur through a string of concerts and events, and in doing so build upon the scene as its own entity.  This mutant is greater than the sum of its parts, and can only exist when everyone is doing their part.  Fans are there to support any and all bands, venues and derelict apartments host the orgies (both of music and not), the bands are not the only puzzle piece.  The cohesion fails when the fans are cast aside or the venues disappear, and the music cannot exist in a vacuum.

Punk is more than the Angry White Boy image that has taken hold of it.  It takes us all to make a scene rise from its seed.  The roots pull from the variety of individuals, and it cannot flourish without that variety.  Violence Girl is more than an autobiography, it is a study of Punk as a community from the eyes of its biggest fan.

Available at the SoundGirls Lending Library

More on and by Alice Bag

The Women of Rock Oral History Project

Alice Bag’s Women in L.A. Punk Archives

Turn it Up

A Sound Designer Prepares: Mind and Body

When I’m preparing to go into tech for a new show, there’s a lot I have to do to prepare.  Some of these things include:  Making sure my paperwork is correct and up to date, checking all show hardware (speakers, mics, consoles, computers, etc.), programming consoles and playback systems, and making sure my crew is also prepped and ready to go.  I must admit that I used to always prioritize these needs above my own personal needs.  I’m a pretty tough person, and I know that I can power through hunger, aches, and pains, and sleep deprivation, but after years of operating in this way (and let’s be real, after getting older) I find that while I CAN still power through, it’s not worth it.  My mind, body, and even my work suffer from that kind of self-neglect.  In this blog, I’m letting you know about a few things I make sure to take care of when I’m preparing for a new show.  These recommendations will keep you on the right track to mindful and healthy work.

(Good) Food=Fuel

Ok, I know we all love to load our tech tables up with tech snacks (….right?? Or is this just me…I’m a snacker), but is your snack stock loaded with sugary/processed foods?  If so, these snacks are not helping you be your best brilliant self.  For me, specifically, I also try to look for quiet snacks, so crunchy is out!  Some great whole food options that will double as a brain boost are blueberries, walnuts, seeds (hemp, flax, chia, and pumpkin are great omega-3 foods), coconut chips, almonds, and avocado (I’m a Cali girl, so I’ll just split one open and eat with a spoon!). For meals, consider whole grains like brown rice, oatmeal, whole-grain bread, and whole-grain pasta to increase your focus and concentration.  Beans and salmon are also excellent brain boosters, and the preparation possibilities are endless!  Stick to water, coffee, and tea to keep your brain in tip-top condition, and go for dark chocolate if you need a sweet pick-me-up!  These superfoods are sure to keep your bad self on point all tech week long!

Photo Credit Favorece
https://www.favorece.net/ Photo Credit Favorece

More (Brain) Rest Is Best

It may be obvious to say that a good night’s sleep is imperative during a high-intensity work week, but getting those 8 hours (or as close to 8 as possible) isn’t the only thing we can do to keep ourselves rested enough to keep out brains sharp.  When you start to feel your mind wandering or you’re getting too tired to focus, take one of those 10-minute breaks and treat yourself to a power nap.  Just 10 minutes is all you need to disconnect and reengage for a renewed sense of sharper thinking.  Engaging your unfocus brain can also do wonders.  If naps aren’t for you, on the next 10, step away from the computer and walk around the space.  Talk to friends about cats.  Plan your opening night outfit.  Do something to disengage from the work, and reap the benefits from your newly readied brain when break time is over.  Free walking can also greatly increase your creative focus.  During the dinner break, resist staying the full 2 hours grinding out all of your notes.  Instead, dedicate at least 30 minutes to aimless walking (so around a park, or a quick little trail as opposed to something structured like a track).  Do it outside for an extra brain boost bonus!

Low Stress Is More Productive

We all know that tech week can be very stress-inducing, so lowering your personal stress is a great way to enter the week.  Some little things you can do to lower your personal stress are:  Making sure you have your laundry done (and put away…I know, yuck, but you’ll thank me later) the week before tech starts, meal/snack prepping for the week, stashing few extra device chargers in your bag, locating and cleaning your two favorite water bottles (hydrate or die-drate, I always say), and canceling any social plans that fall during tech week.  Drinks after a long day of tech can seem really cathartic and fun, but that activity is not going to help with your mindful self-care, so instead, save it for opening night, and go all out!  If you need to wind down at the end of the day, try a bubble bath followed by 20 minutes of relaxation low-intensity yoga right before bed.  Couple this with 20 minutes of morning yoga after your morning coffee, and I promise you’ll be unstoppable.

Remember that you got this contract because this company values your skills.  That is why we always work so hard to over-perform during tech, but when we don’t listen to our minds and bodies, those skills are not shining at their fullest potential, and we are also left suffering for the cause.  Advocate for yourself and your needs, and listen to your body.  It knows what to do.

Women in the Mix Survey

The Recording Academy, Berklee Institute for Creative Entrepreneurship, and Arizona State University have joined forces to continue studying the roles and realities of women and gender-expansive people working in the American music industry through the Women In the Mix Survey.

Building upon baseline results from data(opens in a new tab) collected by Berklee and Women in Music in 2018, the goal of this follow-up survey is to help inform Diversity, Equity & Inclusion objectives and initiatives from within the Recording Academy, the industry at large, and the many advocacy groups that will reference and leverage the report in their own work. This survey will examine if progress has been made in the three years since the first survey. It will also examine where continued work is needed, include expanded gender identities, further explore pathways into the industry, and take a deeper look at creatives and music makers.

We know how powerful data can be. Our goal is to get the most comprehensive snapshot of where the industry is so that a course can be charted to where it needs to be. We will listen to a broad and inclusive set of people identifying as women and gender-expansive people working in the industry. Much of the data currently available to us which studies these marginalized groups is mined from sources that either assume a certain threshold of success and visibility or doesn’t exist in the first place.

How Can You Help?

If you identify as a woman or a gender-expansive individual, please take the survey. It will take roughly 10 minutes of your time to complete.

Share the survey with your communities and ask them to take it. We know the power of personal influence. You can help us gather crucial respondents which will lead to a more complete and robust data set.

 

Design Thinking Strategies for Sound Designers


A few years ago, I attended a user experience design boot camp. That course taught me that UX is so much more than designing visuals for apps and websites. UX designers conduct a lot of user research to determine how an app should function, implementing what they call a “human-centered approach” to their decision making; that is, an approach that ensures the final product serves the user.

Since then, I have been meaning to write about the similarities between sound designers and user experience (UX) designers. Sound designers use design thinking strategies all of the time! Through careful analysis and experimentation, we consider the end-user product. For us, that’s usually a film, play, video game, podcast, concert, etc. Even though the tools are very different, the process is very similar. This article will examine the crossover between design thinking and the sound design process through the five phases of design thinking.

Phase 1: Emphasize with the user

The first thing user experience designers do is evaluate and research user needs through a “discovery phase.” They will conduct interviews with users surrounding their specific needs and desires around a product. They may also send out surveys or observe users’ nonverbal interactions.  What they are looking for is a problem to solve.  This first stage is really systematic because although researchers have a specific topic to evaluate, they do not go into the discovery phase with a pre-determined issue. They find it through interacting with users. This makes for an unbiased approach because the research is being conducted objectively and no one is making assumptions about end users’ desires and needs. This academic approach allows for discovering users’ needs so that the end product will actually serve them.

If phase one for the UX designer is about gaining an understanding of the user, phase one for the sound designer is about gaining an understanding of the message, environment, and characters within an experience. The sound designer’s discovery phase involves reading the script and talking to the director about their intentions with the story’s message. They may also begin to look at the work the visual team has done to begin to gain an understanding of the environment. Before talking to the team, the sound designer should have already read the script and begun to think about the message. However, they haven’t made any sure-fire decisions about how the experience should sound until after talking to the director and the team. Even if they have ideas, the sound designer keeps an open mind and conducts objective research.

In this sound design/UX design analogy, the director is the user, at least in this first phase. Much like UX designers, the sound designer first asks non-leading questions to understand what the experience needs; goes in with an unbiased approach, and is ready to pivot if their initial interpretations of the script are not in line with the director’s vision.

Phase 2: Defining the User’s Needs

The user experience designer has a bunch of quantitative and qualitative data from user interviews and tests — now what? The next step is laying out all of the information in a way where the data can be synthesized into findings. This is usually a very hands-on approach. A common technique UX designers will use is called affinity mapping. Every answer or observation is written on a post-it note, then “like” things are grouped together. The groups with the most post-its will inform the UX team about users’ most common and important needs and expectations. Then, they will begin to write up a problem statement, which is usually phrased as a question: “How might we [accomplish X thing that users need]?” Keeping it focused on the issue at hand keeps the approach unbiased and user-centered. The problem statement is a goal, not a sentence that is proposing a solution. The problem has not been solved yet; it has just been defined.

In the same way, UX designers define the problem statement, a sound designer’s second phase involves defining the message; the overall feelings and thoughts that the audience should take away from the experience. They may combine notes from their initial script reading and the conversations they have had. They may also go through the script for sound effects that are mentioned if they did not do that during the first read-through. This is where they define the world and mood of the experience. Some sound designers might even write down their own version of a problem statement, which is the goal or message of the experience. Sometimes in my work, I have found that it is helpful to have a goal for an experience written down so I can keep referring to it and checking that my work is in line with the tone of the piece.

In both roles, keeping a main goal or statement keeps the process about the end-user or audience. While a designer in either role might end up lending their own artists’ voice to a project, maintaining an unbiased approach (starting with a problem statement or message) keeps everything that is designed about the characters and the story.

Phase 3: Ideating

 After user experience designers spend all this time cultivating data, they get to start brainstorming features! A human-centered approach is very systematic; to create a meaningful and relevant product, designers can not get here without the first two phases. Every proposition for a feature is based on user research.

Similarly, the sound designer has defined the director’s expectations and the message, mood, and physical environment in the first two phases. The ideation phase is usually about watching and listening to reference material and beginning to gather and record audio. Much like user experience designers may not implement all of the features they think of, a sound designer might gather sounds that they do not end up using at all.

For both roles, this is when people are referring to their research and brainstorming ideas just to see what sticks. During the third phase, user experience designers are constantly referring to the research and problem statement, and sound designers are referring to their script and notes.

Phase 4 & 5: Building & Prototyping, and Testing

 This is where things begin to heat up! All that data starts to become a real, tangible experience. At this point, the user experience designer has developed a few prototypes. They can exist as paper prototypes or digital mock-ups. They may have a couple of versions in order to conduct usability tests and see what is most relevant and meaningful to users. Designers will build prototypes, test them, get feedback, build a new version and test again. A cycle exists between these phases, and whatever is discovered in phase five will influence a new phase four prototype, then it is on to phase five again for more feedback…Rinse and repeat until the design is cohesive (or the project runs out of time or money). Testing and getting feedback is very important, to make sure the work continues to serve the users or audience. 

A sound designer’s prototype is often the first pass at a full design. For theater, it can be cues they send to be played in rehearsals; for other mediums, it is about inserting all the audio elements and taking notes from the director. Then, they implement different effects for a few iterations until they reach approval from the director and producers. In the sound designer’s case, the director is akin to a beta tester in UX research.

During testing, user experience designers and sound designers have similar considerations to evaluate:

Phase 6: Iterate

Design thinking strategies are far from linear. Throughout the process, a user experience designer or sound designer refers to their initial research and notes to keep their decisions focused on the audience. They will prototype features (UX) or effects (sound), test them out, take feedback, redo, and test again.

Conclusion

A great sound design, while influenced by that artists’ voice, is unbiased and serves the story. A solid product design does the same thing; because at the end of the day, a user’s journey with a product is a story. Consciously implementing design thinking strategies also makes our approach as sound designers human-centered, resulting in stories that have a huge impact on the audience.  A solid, well-researched and thought-through design can bring a project to another level completely; by touching our audiences and end-users in deeply emotional ways, we provide a meaningful and relevant experience to their lives.

GUEST BLOG: krost: “You’re pretty good…for an Asian”

This guest post is written by Anaheim-based indie singer-songwriter krost. 

I’m conflicted. I don’t know how I feel about being an “Asian American artist”.

When I was in middle school, YouTube started getting popular and became a platform for a lot of Asian American artists. It was the first time I can remember interacting with media that truly resonated with me. It wasn’t necessarily that I thought it was impossible to be an artist at the time. It was more so that I had never really actualized the concept of being an artist in the first place. I never saw someone who looked like me doing the thing, so I never envisioned myself doing the thing. I think that’s the power of representation – it plants the seeds of what is possible. To see people who look like you, doing cool things. It’s crazy how much that can influence your own perception of self and what you believe yourself to be capable of.

Integrating myself into this online community of Asian American artists sparked a strong desire to create. At the core of it, I wanted to connect with people, and I wanted to make people feel connected. Connection for me is hearing a song that is about an experience or feeling that resonates; it shares a story that I can personally relate to. For example, listening to Run River North sing about the immigrant experience in “Monsters Calling Home” hit pretty hard. I felt like my story was being represented, and it felt nice to feel seen.

Now, as I reflect on my artist career, I can say I’ve had a few really great opportunities – I am truly grateful for each one. But there’s a common theme to a lot of my opportunities, and it’s that they are Asian American focused or run, spanning from blog posts to performances to interviews. Not all of them are, but a lot of them are. And I make that observation with the utmost level of respect, gratitude, and love for the people who have graciously given me the opportunities I’ve been lucky to be a part of.

And so here’s the internal conflict – I feel so empowered by these experiences, but I can’t shake the underlying feeling that I only get those opportunities because I am Asian American, or that I am only getting Asian American opportunities. I think it says something to me when my most reliable gig season is playing shows during AAPI month. If I get a cool gig partly because I’m Asian, it’s still a cool gig at the end of the day. But then I wonder if I would have gotten the gig based on artistry and skill alone, and those wonderings run parallel to a spiral of feeling invalidated and sub-par as a musician.  It’s like the whole, “she’s good….for a girl” deal. Maybe I’m good…for an Asian American.

If that is how I’m interacting with and being perceived by the world, what does that tell me about my artistry? Am I an artist just for Asians, by default because I am Asian? How do I break out of the bubble? Do I want to break out of the bubble? I’m not sure. I don’t know the answers to any of these questions.

But there are a few things that I do know. I know that I am grateful for everyone I’ve had the privilege of connecting with. I know that I started writing music because of feeling empowered by seeing Asian American artists. I know that by creating and sharing, I have the potential to catalyze someone else’s desire to create and share, even if that is through playing an annual AAPI celebration show. Lastly, I know that Asian American opportunities are not less than – they are beautiful, they are important, and they are necessary for cultivating and sustaining a community that is built on shared experience and a desire for connection.

The Backseat Lovers at Bowery Ballroom

This Show Must Go Off Episode 5

What a sigh of relief, we finally have our first full-capacity concert event under our belts. Like many venues, we got excited when the pandemic infection numbers were taking a turn for the better, and we finally felt as though it was safe for us to reopen.

Mid-July the Delta variant shook all of that up, and our first two shows of the season were postponed once again.

Our venue decided to take a proactive approach and made the decision to allow only vaccinated patrons, staff, and performers into our events. New York City rolled out a similar mandate a few days later and we pushed ahead. Many artists and tours welcomed the news, including The Backseat Lovers. A few decided it is currently too risky to tour, and a smaller percentage was unwilling to support the new guidance. In those instances, the performances were either canceled or postponed.

The tour manager for the Backseat Lovers sent out their Advance email about 3 weeks ahead of their performance. * For more information about what an Advance is, and how to create a Rider, check out this great post: How to Make An Awesome Audio Rider

The band’s rider had everything I needed to know about the tour. It was professional, concise, researched, and well written. I got a great sense of the band’s personality and what to expect.

 

 

Audio would be self-contained, and the headliner would be mixed on an M32 desk. House would provide a floor wedge as a backup, drivelines to the PA, a drum riser, and power for the artist’s backline.

Artist would use our LD and our house light rig.

There would be a Meet & Greet experience that would take place 1 hour before doors.

Everything about this advance read like a classic Bowery show, and I began to feel excited.

On the day of show we coned off parking and the band pulled up with their van and trailer. Everything was professionally packed into road cases on caster wheels, which made load-in a breeze.

I needed to sort out PA drivelines through the Avid desk. Several factors made an external console management system like XTA an inappropriate solution for our needs and budget. Guests would need to pass through our console and I wanted to make sure they could do so as transparently as possible.

Avid’s “Input Direct” turns a normal Input or Output into a line-level pass through, bypassing any channel processing like EQ or compression, and routes the signal from the Top of Channel pickoff directly to the fader. The 5 channels of our PA and the Matrix Outputs were set Input Direct. The Artists’ engineer was satisfied with that solution and fed us the drivelines through his stage box into our split snake.   Our stage manager and monitor engineer assisted putting the artists’ mics on stands and running cables. All of the bands’ 4 members were using in-ear monitors that the tour carries. Right on schedule, 60 minutes after load-in the engineer tuned the room, and the band ran through a few songs.

The house crew managed the opening band. No stage plot was given, but we did have an instrument list in the advance.

Their vocal mics would pass through guitar amplifiers and that would be mic’d to achieve their desired effect. The vocal amps and the vocal mics needed to be carefully positioned around the stage to avoid bleed from the other instruments. It was an acoustic challenge, to say the least. Speakers in guitar amplifiers tend to be less directional than a stage monitor or PA speaker and have limited frequency response. Depending on the overdrive or tonal characteristics of the amp, you could have a greater potential for feedback. Everything was close mic’d as much as possible and the decision was made to aux feed the subs and front fills of the PA for the greatest control.

With soundcheck complete, the Meet and Greet experience took place in front of the stage and was completely unplugged. It consisted of acoustic performances of songs with a Q&A segment for about 50 fans, vaccinated, masked, and distanced. The fans were allowed to remain in the room while we opened doors to the rest of the ticket holders.

I feel confident that the opener sounded as good as we could make them, and I resonated with Samantha Potter’s thoughts in her interview where she mentions “sometimes functioning is better than beautiful.”

Once the Backseat Lovers hit I was able to breathe a long-held sigh of relief. We had done it. We made a show happen, with a completely new FOH desk, new lights and rigging, and a whole new set of rules due to Covid. I felt incredibly proud of all of my staff, and impressed by the artists’ FOH engineer Greg Downs, whose mix sounded energetic, balanced, and reinforced the talented band on stage.

A sign of any professional production, the band and crew started breaking down their gear shortly after their set, in favor of a quick and easy load out.

The whole night felt so organic and happy, and all the wonderful quirky parts of putting together concert events.

I look forward to the season to come and hope that our industry can offer a sustainable way to tour that values personal wellness, and that we can all support each other to continue to have conversations around vaccination and how important it is to our industry.

 

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