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We Need More Arts Workers in Arts Advocacy

 

One of the biggest blessings for me over the pandemic was that I finally had time to get involved in my community. I explored undiscovered neighborhoods, tried lots of restaurants that had always been closed by the time I got home late from my shows, volunteered at a food pantry, and started following local news and politics. As part of this, I became more involved with local arts organizations and in statewide arts advocacy. I attended Zoom meetings to learn how other artists, arts workers, and arts organizations were weathering the storm, and to simply meet others from my city who were working in the creative industries.

I found a lot of camaraderie in these Zoom meets and from getting to meet other politically motivated folks in the arts, but I also felt a little out of place. I showed up at my first Connecticut Arts Alliance virtual meeting a few months ago and quickly discovered that I was the only person there who was just an individual, and not from an arts organization of some kind. Additionally (and possibly related), I was overwhelmingly the youngest person on the call at most meetings. And I learned that our perspective, the perspective of actual real-life arts workers, is needed, welcome, and totally missing from these meetings. So, here’s my pitch to all of you to get involved in supporting the arts loudly and proudly in your own communities, states, and countries, especially here in the US, where the arts are both so vital, and so lacking in government support.

First, some background. For those who aren’t aware, every US state has some sort of government body tasked with arts, culture, tourism, and/or some combination of the like. In my state of CT, it’s the CT Office of the Arts. According to their website, the CT Office of the Arts is tasked with creating and distributing grants, running programs and services “that connect people to the arts and help build vital communities across the state,” providing training and professional development opportunities, and serving as a resource hub for the statewide arts community.

In addition, most states have some sort of primary advocacy group that exists to ensure that the state arts office is meeting the needs of the communities it serves. In CT, that’s the Connecticut Arts Alliance (CAA). Funny story, I learned about CAA for the first time, not because of any outreach they did specifically, but because they rented the stage of the theatre where I was mixing full-time to host two of their live events (pre-pandemic, of course) ☺. One was a “Create the Vote” event prior to the 2018 election, then another one to hear reports from a task force formed by then governor-elect Ned Lamont about how to better support arts, culture, and tourism in the state.

Besides these two events, who is CAA and what do they do? To quote their mission statement, “CAA is a statewide non-profit organization that works to build political, financial, and grassroots support to ensure that the arts are a vital part of life for everyone in Connecticut.” The membership includes leaders of regional arts advocacy groups, such as the Arts Council of Greater New Haven, Greater Hartford Arts Council, and more. It also includes members of local arts organizations from every corner of the state, from Thrown Stone Theatre in Ridgefield, all the way to La Grua Center over by the eastern border with Rhode Island. Yes, I know our state is geographically small compared to most, but it’s still a lot of people from a few hours’ drive away from each other, and it’s no small feat getting them all together and on the same page! The CEOs, directors, artistic directors, and curators of the many organizations who belong to CAA represent every facet of the arts, and so too should the artists themselves who are on the committee.

Arts Council of Greater New Haven and Cultural Alliance of Fairfield County are two such local arts organizations in CT. One I was a member of for 2 years, and the other I hope to join soon now that I’ve relocated within the state!

 

I am eager to represent my portion of the arts community, but I can’t do it alone. Nor would it be appropriate for me, a white woman who works primarily out of state, to even pretend that I can articulate the needs of all the art workers in CT. Just like the disparate companies and art-making groups that CAA brings together under its umbrella, we arts workers are not a monolith. What CAA and other statewide arts advocacy groups don’t have enough of, in my opinion, is individuals working “on the front lines” as it were. These groups comprise lots of people who do the hiring and managing, but not enough of the folks who paint the murals, stage-manage the concerts, and of course, mix the musicals 🙂 It’s important that they get the feedback and perspective from the people who stand most directly to benefit from support, both political and financial.

Despite all our differences, there are some key things that many arts workers have in common, which became only more apparent during the pandemic. First, most of us are on the knife’s edge when it comes to economic and employment-related stability most of the time. In my line of work, I don’t always have jobs lined up even a week in advance. So, when all the work dried up at once in March of 2020 and I went to apply for unemployment, I had no way to prove the loss of future income from projects that I hadn’t even signed contracts for yet. Second, many of us work many jobs for many employers to piece together a livelihood and a living. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but it means that in the US, the way we work is completely at odds with a social structure that assumes most people have one job that they can expect to keep unless they quit, die, get laid off, or get fired. Our system also assumes that that one job is the source of most people’s healthcare and retirement savings. Outside of union work, my experience in live theatre has been that I must put all these things together for myself. And with the onset of the pandemic, even union workers weren’t safe from hardship, as many of the health plans used by Actors Equity Association, American Federation of Musicians, and IATSE directly tie access to benefits to the number of weeks of union work one works in a calendar year.

And you know what? A lot of people outside our industry don’t know ANY of those facts. So, it’s up to us to inform them so that they can best serve us!

I got a key opportunity to do just that this summer when a group from CAA met with senior aides for each of our 7 federal legislators (2 senators and 5 representatives) as part of National Arts Advocacy Week. We each took a turn talking about how the pandemic had affected us or our organization and then tied that struggle to bills being debated that could directly help our cause if passed. I had never done any sort of lobbying before, and it took some serious prep to figure out how best to spend my allotted 90 seconds making my case. I focused on things that the pandemic response got right, but also where some of those initiatives fell short. For example, I think there is now a more universal understanding among the “muggles” about the existence of the “gig economy” and the “gig worker,” but even that definition falls short of encompassing all of us who work in the arts. I, for example, do not consider myself a gig worker, because even though I work many jobs in a year (my record was 29 in 2019), it’s almost all as a W-2 employee, not a 1099 Independent Contractor. Therefore, while I did qualify for unemployment, having to enter 18 months of work history took me hours, and some of those jobs lasted only a single day!

After the last 18 months, I can truly relate

 

Additionally, I focused my speaking time on requesting funding for government initiatives that would create new opportunities to employ arts workers and grant them better protections at work. For example, Rep. Rosa DeLauro (CT-3) represents the city of New Haven, where the employees of the local concert venue, College Street Music Hall, had just voted to join IATSE 74 but were struggling to get management to agree to a fair contract. So, when I was lobbying her congressional aide, I focused on how the PRO (Protecting the Right to Organize) Act could directly benefit arts workers by strengthening protections for workers in unions and those trying to unionize. This in turn would bring more good-paying union jobs to her district and strengthen the huge role that the performing arts plays in the local economy for the whole city of New Haven.

IATSE 74 members and supporters holding an informational picket outside College Street Music Hall. Photo courtesy of the Official @IATSE Twitter page.

 

When speaking with an aide to Sen. Chris Murphy, I talked about how the expanded unemployment benefits had kept so many arts workers afloat, and that even with other industries going back to work, we were collectively being left behind because it wasn’t yet safe for our businesses to reopen. Finally, to tailor my message to Sen. Richard Blumenthal, I implored the aide to talk about how eager creatives were to get back to work, and how so many of us had translated our theatre skills so beautifully into jobs such as working for the census, registering folks to vote, or helping with vaccine distribution. We arts workers stand at the ready to be put to work helping the cause, and we have the training to do it well. We just had to put two and two together for those who don’t see that connection.

 

A little blurry, but here we are in action getting ready for our Zoom session with Alison Council, an aide to Sen. Richard Blumenthal! Photo credit Chris Tracy.

 

As we all well know, the arts are an under-appreciated economic driver in this country. In just the state of New York, Broadway shows are a billion-dollar industry. That’s more than the revenue generated by all 9 major NYC sports teams COMBINED! And that number only represents official Broadway ticket sales, it doesn’t even factor in ancillary spending that theatergoers often do, such as eating at restaurants, paying for parking and taxis, or buying souvenirs. Nationwide, a $1 investment in the arts generates a $7 in economic boost. That’s an INCREDIBLE return on investment! Yet, art departments in public schools are being gutted everywhere across the country. Arts workers are notoriously underpaid, exploited, and berated for not “getting a real job” or not being willing to “do it for the love, not the paycheck.” I’m here to tell anyone who will listen that our industry is full of the greatest, smartest, most innovative people and that a career in the arts can lead to a great life and a good-paying job if you work hard enough at it. And without the arts, life just wouldn’t be as rich. So, I hope you’ll be inspired just as I was to get involved in your local arts organization, call your representatives, or donate to groups like CAA that are fighting this fight for new laws, new grants, and a public showing of the importance of the arts at the highest levels of government.

 

Give It Another Go

Giving things a go and trying something new, is one thing, to intentionally put yourself in.  In my last post, I encountered my most stressful job ever, I am going there again today. So I thought it would be interesting to write a before and after, not only for my own record, but maybe it can help you or someone you know.

My heart is pounding like I drank 3 cups of coffee. My stomach has the vibrations of a small earthquake. My whole body is tense and I keep reminding my shoulders to relax. Sometimes I feel paralyzed by fear and can’t move. As if I’m in great danger, except this threat is my job and it’s something I choose to subject myself to all the time. It’s a remnant of our ancestry where the danger was tigers and lions. Now it’s people and their expectations on me. I can’t shake it, it’s found me and won’t let go. I try once again to relax, and when I do, I just feel exhausted. My head is messy and foggy. I stopped drinking coffee ages ago and currently only have an on-and-off relationship with this hot steaming beautiful delight because of the anxiety and hormonal imbalance it brings.

I feel like an addict and I’m having horrible side effects. COME ON LINNEA! It’s ONLY a job!

“You’ve done it for years!” my therapist shouts across the ocean.

“Yes, but… “ I start…. “I wish I could flip a switch and I’ll be my old cool and chill self again.”

Who I think I used to be is irrelevant and not helping me now. Instead, I have to affirm and remind myself: I am not in danger, I am not stressed. It’s an old human survival instinct. The last time you did this job you had a horrible horrible time, but the worst is over, you have done it once and survived… you even got paid to go through it! Now you take that knowledge and you take this focus and you use it to your advantage. You bring extra bits that you might need and anything else that happens isn’t your fault. They have hired you to do your job with your expertise and they asked you back! They don’t know it was the most horrible experience you’ve ever been through. They don’t know about your worries and anxiety.

Ok, let’s also try rational thinking. You know how to be a sound engineer. You know most of the gear you will be using. Although you might not know where things are, that’s their job, to tell you where to find them. You know they are a bit disorganised and that frightens you, but once again, that’s their fault and if things run late because of it, it’s not your fault. Even if anything was your fault, why is that so scary!? You are a problem solver and you are great at it. The last gig you did there had lots of problems and you solved all of them. The gig went great and everyone except you was pleased. You will arrive before you are needed. You will sign in and get the keys, you will pick up equipment that is needed and you will set it up and do the job. The hotel’s system is difficult and if you need help with it, call someone. Ask for help. You have never been scared of asking for help and asking questions, so why the need to be so perfect and independent!?

After I finished writing the above I wrote to my friend who also works there. I asked for help. Ten minutes later I heard back from the music director and I now have all the info I need to do the job. I have calmed down. It’s in the same room I did last time, except this time it’s not a nine-piece band but two speakers talking. It should be simple enough and this guy will be there too. I am calm, I tell myself, but my aching body tells me otherwise. Yes, the crying and paralysis are over, but I am still anxious…

To be continued for when I get back tonight…

I did it! With zero problems! Well, there were two problems, one system problem that wasn’t down to me, just their complicated system. The other was a recording thing. I forgot I had to select the desk instead of the interface! Such an easy thing!!! Almost frustrated by how simple the fix was!

I had been super early, got-a-sandwich-in-a-café-nearby-and

-watched-some-Netflix-early. I knew where everything was, I made several choices, like the size of the speakers, that turned out perfect. Everything went smoothly. This time even I was pleased after it all.

I got on the tube, elevated, with that rush that only comes from a successful gig. It went amazing!

So would I do it again? Yes. Yes, I would. I have already booked a Drag Bingo and a party on the rooftop overlooking London. I can’t wait to come back and continue to kick ass! I repeat, what a rush it is to have a successful gig!

Remember, it’s not a tiger, it’s a gig.

I have an app I dearly recommend called Worry Tree. It’s a simple app with prompts for finding solutions to our worries. You write down your worries, then you can either decide to deal with it now or later, but you have to yourself come up with a solution. Even if the only thing you can think of is three deep breaths. I have the paid subscription which also allows you to fill in what kind of categories your worries fall into, like black and white thinking, catastrophizing, or a fortune teller (the ones I often fall into). So if you suffer from stress, worries or anxiety I highly recommend this one. 

 

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.

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