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5 Important Things a Sound Engineer Must Keep in Mind

Being a sound engineer is difficult sometimes. You have a lot of things to consider when you are planning a live event and you will be the one that takes all the blame if the event is not a success. Sound mixing can be an enjoyable experience, but only if you are prepared to take care of all of the tasks that are required of you during a live event.

There are many skills that a sound engineer must have in their toolbox and you need to have all of them if you want to be a successful sound engineer during a live event. There are some important things that you will need to know how to do if you want to be a big success when you are the sound engineer at a live event.

If you are ready to learn the things a sound engineer must know and keep in mind, you should read on!

Important Things a Sound Engineer Must Keep in Mind

Know the Plan

The plan of a live event is an important part of the things that you need to know to make sure that you are able to mix the sound perfectly for the entire event. You have to know which kinds of sound will be going on during which parts of the event to be sure that you are ready to mix the sound correctly.

If there are going to be talking portions of the event as well as musical portions, you need to know this when you start planning how to mix sound. This is just as important as controlling the lights for the event. You have to know what the plan is to be able to generate the best sound mixing possible after the fact.

Know the Acoustics

Acoustics can impact your jobs as a sound engineer greatly. You will need to be aware of the acoustics of the venue in question so that you can make sure that your sound mixing is correct. You can make broad assumptions about the kind of space that you are mixing sound in, but without sound checks and knowledge about the acoustics of the venue, you will have a hard time making sure that the sound is great.

Acoustics can make a huge difference in the overall sound mixing that is needed for each location that you need to be the sound engineer at. You will need to know this information to do the best job possible mixing sound in these locations.

Work With the Event Team

When working on live events, you really must work with the event team to make sure that you know what the highs and lows of the live event need to be. You will need to understand the theatrics of the proposed events on stage so that you can make sure that sound mixes correctly for these expectations.

Working with the event team closely will allow you to be sure that all the right moments are emphasized throughout the event. The crescendos of a live event are often the most important portions of the action to highlight, but you need to be sure that you are aware of when these moments are supposed to take place.

Know Your Equipment

You might be aware of how all of the necessary equipment works, but the combination of unique technology that you are working with for a live show can cause issues you did not foresee. If you have been working with the same show for a long time, this might not be a big issue, but locations can still add challenges to your overall sound mixing plans.

Make sure that you check all of the acoustics related to each of your amps as well as the arrangement of singers and other performers on stage. You want to be sure that you know how to balance the sounds that are going on during the performance with reliability to be able to mix the sound correctly when the event is live.

 

Use Quality Mics

You need to make sure that you have quality mics on every one that is onstage. This might include the instruments as well as the singers. You should know how each mic style works and how to best mix and manage the sound from each of these mic types. Cheap mics will never sound as good as quality mics and you will find that you will have the best luck with a good quality mic.

While you may not be in charge of the decisions that are made with regards to the mics that are used for the production in question, you should make it clear that low-quality mics will affect the overall quality of your mix. You need to be sure that you have access to the technology that you need to ensure a good mix at the end of the event. Cheating yourself on good mics and equipment can lead to frustrations over the mix quality later.

Sound Engineers Need to Know a Vast Array of Information

There are many things that a sound engineer needs to know. From the complexities of mixing sound during and after a live event, to the process of sound checking and balancing the sound in unique event locations, this is a complicated job that requires a lot of skill.

Always make sure that you are working with the right equipment that will generate the best sound and be sure that you are aware of the acoustics of your location. Know the plan for the event and be sure that you are in the loop about any changes that have been made to the scheduling of the events on stage.

Sound engineers have a lot of skills and tricks of the trade but the most essential tools come from planning ahead and being connected to the plans that are governing the event you are mixing for.

Mixing a New Musical

 

Getting any show up and running is hard. Layers upon layers of new information are being added to the piece once the actors move from the rehearsal space to the performance venue, and it’s all happening very quickly. As a show’s A1, I am hard at work preparing my script, generating paperwork, programming the console, and in some cases also working as a hand on the shop build and/or load-in. Design elements are coming together throughout the tech process. Ideas are tried, then retooled, and tried again. However, one thing that usually isn’t changing is the actual script of the show. Not so on new work!

New pieces, and especially new musicals, come with their own set of unique challenges. Sometimes members of the writing team are present throughout the rehearsal process, making rewrites and changes to the piece as it gets staged. Rehearsal reports sent out by the stage manager will include new script pages and/or change logs, all of which can make it harder to get familiar with a show in advance of tech and previews. Songs may be moved around in the script, new scenes or characters might be added, entire sections may get cut. The entire product is constantly evolving!

Personally, new musicals are my favorite kind of shows to work on, despite all these added challenges. In fact, part of why I love them so much is precisely because of these added challenges! It’s really special to be part of a work that is being shown in its full form for the first time, and it really does keep me extra engaged when I’m in the tech and preview process. The audience has no preconceived notions of what the show is going to look or sound like, and as the mixer, my role in facilitating the storytelling is even more crucial, because no one has ever heard it before!

So, how should one approach the preparation process when mixing a new musical? In general, the process is the same as with existing work, just with a few added hurdles.

Do your homework as per usual

Familiarize yourself with the material in advance as best you can, whether it’s through demo recordings or by watching run-throughs in the rehearsal hall. The new musical I am currently mixing was meant to be produced in 2020, but due to the pandemic, it was adapted into a radio play and released on audible, with the fully staged production postponed to this summer. So, since a new musical likely won’t have a cast album yet, I was able to use that audible recording to do my “homework” of getting to know the general feel of the scenes and songs, even though I knew that the show would likely change a lot in the year that passed between when the radio play was recorded and this summer when we would finally get to do the show for an audience.

Prepare for new pages

This is probably the most labor-intensive part of the prep process on a new musical. As the script changes, whoever is tracking those changes (usually someone from the writing team or stage management) will bring you new replacement pages to insert into your book, or a change sheet with lines that you should write in on your own (some shows do one or the other, on my current show, Row, they do both). This means you’ll be doing quite a bit of transferring your notes from old pages to new ones. For that reason, it’s all the more important to develop a shorthand for yourself that you like, so that you can do all this rewriting as quickly as possible. For example, I will abbreviate my Band Master fader as “B” and my Vocal reverb fader as “V”, then I use musical crescendo/decrescendo markings for my dynamic moves. Writing “B < -5” is a lot faster than having to transfer the full words over and over again every time a new page comes in! Other little symbols I like to use are up and down arrows for pickups, slashes for when characters’ lines overlap, and my favorite, a little glasses symbol for when you should look at something specific for a cue (this is a common practice among musicians to remind themselves when they should watch the conductor).

Don’t get rid of your old pages!

As Gibbs’ Rule #11 teaches us, “Everything is subject to un-change.” A new scene might not work, and you might go back to the old scene. Keep all your change logs and cut pages handy in case you need to re-insert them or reference them for any reason. Fun fact: I once did a new musical whereby the end of the run, my stack of cut pages was basically the size of the finished script!

My current stack of old pages for Row.

 

Practice but don’t memorize yet

As you mix a show more and more times, you will naturally begin to develop muscle memory for making your pickups and fader moves. However, on new work, it’s important to not let habits set in too soon in case things keep changing. I have on occasion caught myself making errors because my hands got too used to doing a scene a certain way and then the scene was re-written. Pay extra attention to any lines that you use as cues for yourself in case they change!

Consult all your sources

Since we’re talking specifically about musicals, it is likely that songs will change in addition to book scenes as the show develops. Make sure that you are getting updates from the music department in addition to the ones you get from writing/stage management. Sometimes the piano/vocal will have more current information than the libretto! Also, even if you don’t read music, it can be super helpful to have access to the piano/vocal score to consult as you figure out the timings of band moves and console scenes.

Try to program flexibly

As a general rule, it’s good to leave yourself “buffer” console scenes/snapshots as you program in case you decide you need to add things or adjust DCA assignments. This is even more true on a new musical. For example, the console on Row is a Yamaha CL5, which can accommodate up to 300 console scenes. When I laid out my DCA tracking prior to programming the show, it looked like I would need about 60 scenes to do the whole show. So rather than start at Scene #1 and go sequentially, the first song is scene #10, the second song is scene #15, etc. That way I have room to add more scenes internally without having to renumber every subsequent scene. To save time and hassle, also try to program in a more minimalist way than you might on an existing show so that you can adapt to changes more easily. Inevitably you will find yourself having to go through 10 separate console scenes to make a single change to all of them because of a script/song change, but the fewer times you have to do this the better. ☺

My console scene tracking sheet for Row. Notice the skips between numbers!

 

The thing to remember most of all on a new musical is that while rolling with the punches as things change can be stressful, it’s all in service of the art. I once worked with a choreographer who when he needed to adjust something would say on his god mic “I’m making a change” and the whole company would reply “Change is GOOD!” I’ve made that quote my new musical motto. The reward of knowing that all of the work that the creatives are putting in (and you alongside them) is truly helping to tell the story better will make it worth it when the show finally gets “frozen” (this means no more changes are allowed) and makes its world premiere in front of its first-ever audience!

Channel Lists, Cleaning lists and Other Noise

Recently I came across an article that mentioned that list-making is a sign of someone with anxiety. So in order to try and find any research that would agree with it, I came across Psychology Today’s article “How Making Lists Can Quell Anxiety and Breed Creativity”. Which in turn contradicts the first article. Because if you ask, you shall find. Online! Sources are more important than ever with all of the fake news and information that is readily handed out to us for clicks and likes. Social media spreads it without consequence in most cases, making it hard to know what to trust.

So I love making lists. Even as I plug cables into my multicore, snake, stage box, or whatever you like to call it, I make a list in my head. Kick, snare, toms and if needed, overheads. Then comes bass, guitars, acoustics, keys, BVs, and finally lead vocals. There are colours, and they follow what my first studio teacher in Sweden, Bengt, used. Our personal workflow and ways of doing things ripple down to those who we teach. I’m getting ready to have another young woman shadowing me and I really want to do it right this time. It’s hard doing your job and passing on the knowledge you’ve gathered for 15 years at the same time. All my experiences and those I’ve learnt from have made impressions that I will pass on, and that’s the kind of knowledge you won’t find in any book. Just small things like that I like my drums red.

I tend to not get stage plots and channel lists emailed to me. Maybe the band makes it, forgets it or it just doesn’t make it from the booking agent to me. So they tell me and I continue to make lists in my head. If someone sends me a list in advance, it’s also very often wrong by the time you meet the band or act, so I always ask. I try to learn their names, have a chat and ask how far they’ve traveled. Small talk is as important as my list. It’s kind of my signature move. If someone is skeptical of working with a woman I will talk small until they like me. It’s an attempt to be accepted and liked but likewise to be respected for my work. Not for just being a nice engineer but an engineer who cares and is brilliant, who gets you and wants to make you as comfortable as possible. Because I’ve been on the other side, on stage, singing since I was four years old. I know that the people looking after you and how they behave affect your performance.

Today I had a day off and I got to make a giant list of cleaning for my flat and like naming my channels, there’s real satisfaction in crossing off one thing after the other. I suffer from anxiety and lists make sense of the jumble that’s inside my head. I once lost an artist’s in-ears because another engineer stressed me and “helped” me packing up. So my words of caution and care to myself and you today are to take your time and clear your head, don’t let anyone stress you. If things get messy in your head, take three deep breaths and you will find the solution and tune out that noise. Basically, be the boss of the noise on your inside as well as outside.

The Worst Kind of Fear for Music Makers

After thousands of conversations with artists, musicians, and singers, I’ve come to realize that the greatest enemy we all face as we pursue this career path in music is fear. Duh, you say. Yes, we all know this. Every self-help book or psychoanalyzing article will boast about how overcoming our fears will free us to become all we can become. There is the fear of failure. I get this one. Sometimes it’s easier to not try at all than to try and fall flat on our noses. There must be millions of memes floating about the internet about how many times so and so failed before becoming a mogul of some sort. We must like those memes because we all feel crippled by this fear of failure.

Then there is the fear of success. What? I do not get this one. But, to some, it is really the fear of a different type of lifestyle, or perhaps the fear of new opportunities (which equates to new opportunities to fail), or just the fear of new expectations placed on you because of your success.

But just recently I pinpointed the most dangerous fear…the worst kind of fear that is inside our musical minds but disguises itself as other things. It is the fear of what others think about us.

Here are some example phrases that I hear:

“I don’t want people to think I’m like…oh, watch me. I’m so amazing.”

“No, that’s dumb. I’ve never seen another singer do that.”

“I don’t really care what people think….(while saying, practically in the same breath,) I don’t want to be like that girl that acts like she’s better than everyone else”

“I don’t want people to think….”

“I don’t want to be like….”

“I don’t want to sound like…”

Get the picture?

What is it about music that makes it the universal language? Why does it impact humankind the way that it undeniably does? What do the timeless songs and iconic artists we love have in common? Music needs to come from a place of honesty, vulnerability, and love. I don’t care what your genre, your style, your message. If you are not coming from the heart, then no one will connect with you. Except maybe your mom.

Therefore, this fear of how people see you is completely devastating to our honest hearts. It’s as if you have this mean dude in your head, standing over you with a hammer. Any move you make or think of making, he hits you over the head and shouts, “No! That’s dumb!” “No! That’s ugly!” “No! That’s too pretty!” “No! That’s too girly!” “No! That’s not girly enough!” “No! That’s too edgy!” And on and on it goes. Do you see why this fear of other’s perception of us is the most dangerous of all? It blocks off who YOU REALLY ARE!!

It’s time to shut that mean dude up. Stop listening to him. Eventually, if you stop listening to him, then you will no longer hear him. I promise, if you come from the most honest, vulnerable spot in your heart, your music will “speak” to people. You will connect with people who need your music. You will succeed. The best part of all is that you can decide right now, this very moment to stop listening to that dude and pay attention to your own heart and voice. Do it now!

 

Live Chat with Dr. Susan Rogers

Dr. Susan Rogers is a legendary professor, sound engineer, and record producer best known for her work with Prince (Purple Rain, Around the World in a Day, Parade, Sign o the Times), Barenaked Ladies, David Byrne, Tricky, and more. She is a professor at Berklee College of Music in the Music Production Department. Susan caught up with Women & Audio to talk about her life and work.

My friend Crash and I were honored to speak with Dr. Rogers about her life and work in audio, her experience going on the road and recording Price, and her latest research on psychoacoustics! She graciously took the time to answer questions and get in-depth about working as a woman in the field.

On Diversity and Inclusion Quotas

I receive emails from people on a frequent basis stating how they have changed their names to be gender-neutral or to white-sounding names, so the exclusion of people based on sex and race is very real. Resumes from women, BIPOCs, and LGBTQ+ people are often ignored or just tossed into the trash. On top of it most of our industry is freelance and people are hired based on their contacts and word of mouth referrals.

In the wake of the murder of George Floyd in 2020, there were a lot of promises made to diversify crews and work staff. SoundGirls has seen this playing out as we are getting requests for recommendations for women, probably the largest uptick since we started on a weekly and sometimes daily basis. So it is nice to see some of those promises being kept.

For myself, while I enjoy being able to tour with 10 – 12 women on any given Pearl Jam tour, I have never wanted to be a part of an all-women crew and throughout my career have turned these types of gigs down. And while I know that I have not gotten gigs because I am a woman, I also don’t want to take a gig solely because I happen to be a woman.

I am not sure how feasible it is for touring productions to have diversity quotas in hiring, I would assume diversity quotas are more for companies and while they may be imperfect it seems diversity quotas are a necessary quick-fix to meeting diversity goals.

We all know organic change is slow-going and these quotas can help speed up the process for companies in reaching diversity and inclusion goals. We also know that diverse talent is out there and quotas can nudge the hiring managers to find, interview, and hire them.

A thing to remember is quotas DOES NOT MEAN HIRING UNDER QUALIFIED PEOPLE. They also can get the message out to people in the company to take diversity seriously. It always has to start from the top down.

Legality In the United States

Title VII of the Civil Rights Act PROHIBITS discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, or national orgin. Yet we know and understand this happens all of the time and eliminates women, BIPOC, and LGTBQ+ people from hiring consideration, and affects WOC the hardest.

So how can companies reconcile unlawful discrimination in hiring and reach the real value of the goal of increasing diversity? There is a difference between committing to hire and promote a certain percentage of individuals on the basis of their skin color or other factors and committing to interview and/or consider these individuals for hire or promotion.

Expanding opportunities for everyone within all levels of an organization makes sense from a financial, legal, and moral perspective. The question is how to achieve those financial and moral goals without running afoul of the law.

Suggestions for businesses include:

Businesses and organizations should be aware of these pitfalls

Resistant People

The most resistant naysayers within an organization could very well end up being the biggest diversity champions. But enforcing rigid quotas is a sure-fire way to create resentment and resistance. No one is perfect and no one is born “woke” but education, conversation, and patience will help those employees to come on board with diversity initiatives.

Minority groups don’t want to be patronized

“We certainly don’t want a situation where people feel like they only got the job because they’re meeting a target.” This can seem demeaning and creates a divide between so-called “diversity hires” and those who believe they were hired solely on merit.

Forcing change doesn’t force inclusivity

A lot of organizations engage with quotas but they are not necessarily engaging with the community to change the fundamental problem, which is a lack of opportunity and the biases and the challenges [that minority groups face].

There should be no end-goal

Setting quotas and targets implies that there is an end goal for diversity and inclusion. In reality, organizations need to continually learn, evolve and find ways to truly include and integrate their workforce. diversity and inclusion isn’t a problem that you can just tick off and solve. It’s about embarking on a journey to continuously improve our position.

Let’s briefly look at Affirmative Action

In 1965 Affirmative action policies, which were passed to encourage universities to use an applicant’s race as an admissions factor in order to increase racial diversity on campus, were never meant to be permanent.

In 2003, Grutter v. Bollinger Justice Sandra Day O’Connor wrote, “The Court expects that 25 years from now, the use of racial preferences will no longer be necessary to further the interest approved today.”

Yet here we are in 2020 and new research finds that states that banned affirmative action have seen a long-term decline in the share of Black, Latinx, and Native American students being admitted to and enrolled at their public universities. According to the study, conducted by Mark Long at the University of Washington and Nicole Bateman at the Brookings Institution, alternative policies designed to increase representation have proven inadequate. https://feed.georgetown.edu/access-affordability/what-happens-when-states-ban-affirmative-action/

Inclusion Rider

Before Frances McDormand ended her acceptance speech for Best Actress at the 2018 Oscars with the words, “Inclusion Rider,” most people both inside and outside the film industry had never heard of the phrase. Just a few years later it seems to be working. “The inclusion rider has moved from concept to concrete actions that creatives and companies are employing to counter biases in hiring across entertainment, sports, theater, and technology.”

https://www.fastcompany.com/90309462/did-the-call-for-inclusion-riders-help-make-hollywood-more-diverse

While I do not know what the answer is – it is not just keep your head down, work hard and be overly qualified this has not worked if it had SoundGirls would not need to exist. For my part, I have gone through my list of referrals and I made sure that I am recommending women, BIPOC, and LGBTQ+ people for gigs.

You can find more info here on creating an inclusive industry

SoundGirls – Gaston-Bird Travel Fund

Discover Audio Jobs on the Software and Hardware Development Side

Discover Audio Jobs on the developer side for software and hardware and Raffle with McDSP founder and CTO Colin McDowell

Tune in (zoom in ??) with McDSP founder and CTO Colin McDowell for a chat about jobs in the audio industry from the software/hardware developer side.  Not everyone gets to record with amazing artists, mix for film or television, or run a live show.  But there is plenty more that needs doing, particularly at companies specializing in audio products!!  Colin will offer up some thoughts on what kinds of jobs are out there, and where some of those gigs can be found.

August 27 at 11 AM PDT

Register and Post Questions

Following the presentation, there will be time for Q&A and a raffle for some McDSP plug-ins.

Colin McDowell has been creating audio products since dinosaurs roamed the earth, which according to some, in the early 1990s.  Colin graduated with Honors from New Mexico State University with a Bachelor’s Degree in Electrical Engineering, along with minors in Mathematics and Economics in 1991. Before founding McDSP in 1998, he was employed at IBM, Digidesign, and Dolby. Colin worked on several projects during that time, including many Digidesign plug-Ins, the original TDM multi-shell technology, and the Emmy Award-winning Dolby E audio encoder. Colin’s work at McDSP has garnered nine TEC Award nominations, two Electronic Musician Editors Choice awards, a Cinema Audio Society Award for Best Post Production Product, an Emmy Award for Outstanding Achievement in Engineering Development, and a few US patents.
When not writing code, developing new products, or using his basket-case persona to demonstrate the latest technology from McDSP, Colin McDowell enjoys spending his time with his two daughters.   From helping them with homework (when their NASA scientist mom can’t figure it out – which is like never), to attending every soccer practice, ballet recital, ice hockey game, and more, that is what Colin likes doing best.

Raffle Details:

Three plugins will be raffled off – each a McDSP single plug-in of choice to the winners.  (require an iLok or iLok Cloud.)

Understanding Confidence

If I had advice for my sixteen-year-old self it’d be this: Stock up on toilet paper and hand sanitizer- you’ll be a millionaire in a couple of years.

No really, I would tell her the power of having confidence in herself. For her, it was a constant need to mix well with everyone. What are their wants? What are their needs? Never taking a second for herself in fear that it would displease others, I can think of distinct moments where I would freeze up mid-sentence just because I thought I would sound stupid. The older I got the more I realized that unless I wanted my back to become a carpet permanently I would need to pamper and understand myself more fundamentally. What are my wants? What are my needs?

So since the clock is only moving forward, how about instead of giving some advice to a sixteen-year-old me, I give it to you? Cool? Cool.

Remember That You’re Learning 

You don’t need to be a prodigy or have a doctorate to be considered smart. Surprised? Probably not, it is perfectly normal to be clueless when you start out on a new passion or career. That could be learning a new instrument, crafting, even learning how to solder. If you have aspirations to work in a recording studio, for instance, you don’t need to do every job. Monitoring engineers, audio technicians, booking, event planners – they all have a role to play. In larger settings some studios have people just to tune the instruments, someone, only to track, and someone only to mix. Smaller settings may have people doubling up jobs, so the tracking engineer might also be the mix or master engineer for that studio. Learning is always power in any setting, and while you don’t need to do every job it can help to not pigeonhole yourself into only one thing you can do. For our studio example, say you get hired on for mastering tracks for commercial use. If the person tracking a session cancels at the last minute or is running significantly late and you know how to track, not only does it make your wallet happy but you distinguish yourself as an asset. You show how valuable you are and if the client hits it off with you they may go on to recommend you to other studios and projects.

In short, you don’t need to do everything, but by learning how things line up and work together you will be able to expand yourself and only develop in your career or hobby. Remember that you are learning, and learning different and innovative ways to do things is one way to set up success for yourself down the line.

It Isn’t Weak To Ask For Help 

The stigma around asking for help is ridiculous. Saying you need help doesn’t mean you are not valuable, tying into the learning part, you are still learning. You don’t need to know how to do everything, if you need something ask for help.

Trust me, I understand the human factor of this. Here you are getting a chance to go after your dreams, you’re in a room with tons of professionals with likely high-end names in their portfolios. Say, move, do anything and that’s it! It can be mind-numbing, anxiety-inducing, all, and any other

synonyms to describe how terrifying it can be. I want to say this next part with love, not asking for help when you’re stuck should be more terrifying. The last thing a professional producer, engineer, or showrunner will want is you slowing down a production. If you don’t know a key cut in the DAW that the studio has, ask. It will not only help the production of what you are doing go smoothly but you also learn how to do it.

If you risk not asking you might leave a bad impression (the thing you tried to avoid) because you could patch a signal wrong, not cue the light at the moment needed in a live production, fry a wire, etc. Assume anything and everything can go wrong if you don’t know something, it could save your employer time and money.

Have Drive. 

The global music industry is over twenty-one billion US dollars. Anyone that says working in the music industry is not a financially smart idea simply does not understand the huge caliber of this number. I know many friends from high school and a couple from college that loved to do music but kept being told no due to family or financial scares. So some of them went on to become teachers, one went on to work as a bank teller and that was that. In a “normal” job most retire the day they turn 62, in the music industry established artists and mixers don’t retire unless by choice or health concerns. So it makes sense that finding a job in this field can be daunting to say the least, but that’s okay. What makes you different from everyone going after the title of Madonna or the next DJ Khaled is that you are willing to put in the work.

Trust me, you are worth it. The moment you start to see that these intimating numbers and faces are just people that put in as much as you are now, that is the moment you understand confidence. Confidence is knowing that everyone is subject to human error and success. It means you are capable and value yourself and your capabilities.

Have the drive, the rest will steer itself.

Britney Spears: 13 years without Autonomy

 

While pop music isn’t necessarily my go-to listening choice, it’s ever-present as an underlying soundtrack to our lives, marking the milestones we’re often unaware of until they’ve passed. Sometimes it’s not necessarily the music, but the personal stories that mark these moments. This is apparent when following the unfolding legal battle of Britney Spears, which in a nutshell has been an eye-opening story of the exploitation and suffering of a woman who at almost 40 years old, is under the control of her previously alcoholic, absent father.

Reflecting back on her public 2007 breakdown, I remember how I couldn’t have hummed any of her recent tracks, but her freshly shaven head was looking at me from every shelf in every shop, from trashy mag to ‘newsworthy’ rag. The world laughed and reveled in watching the downfall of a young, successful woman who was most likely battling post-partum depression at the very least. After years of media hounding and criticism for everything the pop star did, it seems unsurprising that she eventually snapped while in the middle of a divorce and custody battle over her children – stressful prospects on their own for anyone.

Perhaps it’s worth going back to 1998, when Spears first shot to fame as a pop singer with the single Baby One More Time, wearing pigtails and a revealing school uniform in the music video, while she was still legally a child. I find this problematic for so many reasons, but it’s particularly notable as for the last 20+ years this woman has been both infantilized and sexualized in tandem at every opportunity – a truly toxic combination that has been used to weaponize almost everything against her since the start.

Coming back to the current situation, Britney Spears is challenging the conservatorship that gives her father, Jamie Spears control over her life. So what does that mean?

Merriam-Webster’s definition of ‘conservator’ is given as: “A person, official, or institution designed to take over and protect the interests of an incompetent.” In its most usual context, a conservatorship is generally implemented as a means to care for vulnerable, often elderly people to prevent them from being conned or taken advantage of. It is also used to protect those who may be a danger to themselves in terms of forgetting or neglecting their own self-care.

Britney was placed under conservatorship in 2008, and this was initially supposed to be temporary, however, it was extended indefinitely later that year, and has now been in place for 13 years. At the start, she was given a court-appointed lawyer who she was unable to choose herself. To cancel this arrangement, a petition to terminate the conservatorship needs to be filed by the person in question (the conservatee), which Spears claims she was not told until recently. This is where we currently are, observing Britney’s attempts to remove her father’s control. As such, she is currently paying the legal costs for both sides in the case.

Obviously, as members of the public looking in, it’s impossible to know the whole truth of the situation, however, what we do know is that Britney has worked consistently through this time, including a four-year residency in Vegas, which is no mean feat. Knowing this, the question has to be asked: which is it – is she incapable or not? If she’s incapable, then how on earth can she be trusted to work a demanding residency for four years? Is this what ‘an incompetent’ looks like? And if this is how one of the most famous, high-earning, and successful women in pop music gets treated, then what is the treatment of others likely to be? How do women get treated when they have a lot less privilege, or face similar cases of ‘he said, she said’?

In court transcripts from June made by the singer, Spears explained that she has no say in making decisions about her own body – she has been placed on birth control and under the influence of extremely strong drugs without her consent:

“I want to be able to get married and have a baby. I was told right now in the conservatorship I am not able to get married and have a baby. I have an [IUD] inside of myself right now so I don’t get pregnant… but this so-called team won’t let me go to the doctor to take it out because they don’t want me to have children. So basically, this conservatorship is doing me way more harm than good. Lithium is a very, very strong and completely different medication compared to what I was used to. You can go mentally impaired if you take too much if you stay on it longer than five months.”

Spears also addressed the financial elements of the arrangement whereby she is refused access to her own money. Court documents confirmed that the singer was given a weekly allowance of $2,000, and her father Jamie earned $16,000 per month in addition to his office expenses and additional percentages of her income. She explained:

“I shouldn’t be in a conservatorship if I can work and provide money [for] other people. It makes no sense whatsoever for the state of California to sit back and literally watch me with their own two eyes, make a living for so many people, and pay so many people, [taking] trucks and buses on the road with me and be told, I’m not good enough. But I’m great at what I do. And I allow these people to control what I do, ma’am. And it’s enough. It makes no sense at all.”

Britney has also gone on the record saying that she had never wanted her father to become involved and that he “loved the control to hurt his own daughter” and worked her hard, punishing her if she didn’t follow his orders. She explained the complete lack of control over her own career, saying:

“My management said if I don’t do this tour, I will have to find an attorney, and by contract, my own management could sue me if I didn’t follow through with the tour, it was very threatening and scary. And with the conservatorship, I couldn’t even get my own attorney. So out of fear, I went ahead and I did the tour.”

While these elements of her lack of autonomy have shocked the world, there are also small things Spears is asking for that highlight just how tightly controlled she is – Britney wants to be able to visit nearby friends alone, pop out to the nail salon, and head out with her boyfriend in his car. She is not currently allowed to do any of these things.

The 2021 New York Times documentary Framing Britney Spears has raised awareness and backed the #FreeBritney movement which has gained momentum as more news has come to light. It’s interesting that following the documentary’s release and the June hearing which has attracted attention, Spears’ lawyer Samuel D Ingham III has stepped down along with her manager Larry Rudolph. Ingham had previously received $373,000 in 2019 in this role. Additionally, Spears’ financial management firm the Bessemer Trust has requested to resign in recent weeks.

The documentary not only explains the facts of the current legal battle in an easily understandable manner, but additionally outlines just how sickeningly well-oiled the misogyny media machine is, and how quickly it can turn on women such as Spears. The film also raises some important questions about how we treat those going through mental health struggles, how we continue to treat women in general, and moreover, how those in positions of authority in the legal system can take the word of an alcoholic, absent father over that of a successful, adult woman.

While there’s a glimmer of hope in the present climate as we reflect on what should now be seen as outdated and unacceptable behavior from a bygone era, we must address that there is still work to be done when it comes to how we value mental health, ensuring financial and bodily autonomy for all, and lastly, we desperately need to start actually listening to women, especially those who ask for help. The next hearing in the Britney Spears case is scheduled for 14 July.

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