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Empowering the Next Generation of Women in Audio

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Teaching to Empower

 

How do you teach the basics of sound reinforcement, when you still find yourself learning from the shows you work?

This was the question I was left asking myself after I was asked by the City of Ottawa’s Community Arts and Social Engagement program to develop an introduction to sound course for women.

My background in sound is diverse. I worked at a community radio station as a teenager, and then I taught myself how to record when my band needed to make a demo. I moved on to working in live sound in my early 20’s when some local sound techs to let me shadow them. I never went to audio college. When I had a question, I read up on what I could find online or asked fellow techs. It was definitely a slow process – I don’t think I knew what I was looking for when I EQ’d a room for that first year of working shows. From working with different co-workers and touring techs, it quickly became obvious to me that there were many different schools of thought in how to approach mixing in a live venue.

IMG_3145As great as it was to ask questions to fellow techs, I sometimes found it intimidating to admit I didn’t understand a concept. I was a young woman, new to the industry, and with very few female audio techs to look up to. I could count on one hand the amount of female audio techs I’d worked with before moving to Toronto. It’s not that I prefer learning from women, but as volunteering for Rock Camps for Girls has taught me, it’s that it can be nice to learn in an environment where you are not shamed for asking questions. It’s these thoughts that helped me frame my course plan.

I wanted to make sure women with little to no experience running a sound board would feel comfortable doing an equipment rental, setting up a PA and running a small sound check after completing the one-day class. Perhaps a bit ambitious considering similar classes tend to run a week or more, but I had faith in my participants.

 

Preparing for that first class, held in August 2015, was daunting. I came up with a basic manual and a course agenda:

  1. We would spend the morning talking about the equipment needed to set up a PA
  2. I’d set up a PA in front of them
  3. Participants would get in groups of 2-3 and set up their own PA
  4. We would then go over tech requirements for different kinds of artists
  5. Finally, we would set up a PA at a small arts space and sound check a band

IMG_3140I was fortunate that my first round of participants were fairly experienced – mostly musicians, and even some women who had been through a music industry arts program in college. They seemed to absorb the material, and the soundcheck portion of the class went fairly smoothly, except for one crucial point: the difference between gain and faders. As we’d been using small powered mixers without faders for part of the day, I could see where the confusion was coming from. From having had a few bad experiences with over gaining and feedback, I’m always wary of my gain pot. I also don’t subscribe to the idea that it’s always necessary to hit -0dB levels on every input: sometimes, your source is just too quiet and it’s best to try and get it as close as possible and pull back before feedback. This is definitely something I learned through experience, which I tried to convey to the participants.

That first session received a positive response, and the city brought me on for another class in November 2015. With the help of the assistant teacher, Lesley, I re-worked some of the sections of the teaching manual. Version two of the booklet was definitely more concise. The second round of participants ended up having different backgrounds in audio and music than the first group, which lead to the class schedule needing to be slowed down. This taught me as an instructor that although you can prepare a lesson plan, you never know how well your students will absorb it until you start teaching them!

With that lesson in mind, I re-worked the class yet again. The winter 2016 edition of “DIY Intro to Sound Class for Women” was split into 2 days, making the weekend portion slightly longer, which gave me more time to cover materials. We moved the soundcheck practical portion of class to two days later, which would hopefully give participants more time to process what they’d learned. This proved to be a double-edged sword– the weekend portion was more relaxed, but it was difficult for some participants to make time to come to the weekday class. In retrospect, I like the condensed class better, as I found it was easier for students to stay in the groove, even if it was a long day.

As I told my students, no amount of class time can replace experience: the city of Ottawa has been working on internship opportunities for class participants so that they can put the skills they’ve learned to use. Live sound is tactical, and you have to work different shows with different artists to develop your own toolbox of tips and tricks. I also subscribe to the idea that to stay on top of your craft, you must constantly be pushing yourself to learn new things: although I have been working full time in live sound for close to 3 years now, there is still so much I want to know!

IMG_4650I am now working on part two of this intro class, aimed at women who are looking to further their skills and find work in live sound. This will be hosted in early summer at one of the city’s theaters and will give students the chance to work in a real venue, with pro-audio level equipment.

Which leads me to ask: what are some of the most important lessons you’ve learned working in live sound? What resources (books, websites, videos) helped you? I’m looking for help and input in the continuous development of my curriculum. Feel free to reach out if you have resources or tips you’d like to share.

Thanks to Caleb, Allison and Karen at the City of Ottawa Community Arts and Social Development Program for their support in creating this class.

 

 

Being The Boss (Even When You Aren’t) – Part 1

 

boss

Have you ever had a boss that you absolutely despised?
Someone unorganized, impatient, and short-sighted?
Didn’t make you enjoy your job, did it?

A quality leader can make or break any business or project. As the boss, you are the face of the team. What your team does reflects on you, and vice-versa. If you’re unorganized, or don’t know your crew, or have no goals, how can you expect to lead anyone anywhere? A leader needs to have many positive qualities in order to be successful.

Get to Know Your People

You don’t need to remember your technician’s great-aunt’s birthday to know them. Learn their strengths, weaknesses, what they enjoy about work and what they don’t, who they work well with, etc. It also doesn’t hurt to get to know them outside of work-themed bullet points. Are they married? Do they have kids? What do they like to do outside of work? Get to know them as human beings, instead of just employees or teammates.

Some of my worst managers knew a lot about me personally but nothing about me professionally, so they didn’t place me where I needed to be. Others were familiar with me professionally but not personally, so they weren’t sympathetic to anything that may have been happening outside of work. Find a balance. You don’t have to be best friends, but you should at the very least acquaint yourself with them on a basic level.

Push Them

growthAn important part of any job is growth opportunity. Without growth we are stagnant and begin to lose interest in learning. When I stop learning, I get bored and enthusiasm dies, which causes my performance to suffer. Even if you aren’t 100% comfortable letting them do something, let them do it. Watch over them, supervise, make sure they don’t destroy something or kill someone, but let them dive in. Sometimes, being thrown to the wolves is how some of the most valuable learning happens.

Personally, I love being pushed past where I thought I could go. I find this idea especially important for young women because we so often tell ourselves we aren’t good enough or aren’t ready for something when we are. Each person deserves to learn and grow as a human and as a fellow worker in the industry. With that being said, it’s a fine line between pushing them to succeed and pushing them right off the cliff. If you place your team members in situations they can succeed in, not places they’re bound to fail in, you have that much less to worry about.

Communication

directionLike all relationships, communication is key. I cannot stress this enough. If you don’t efficiently communicate with your team, your leadership means nothing. Part of communicating well has to do with knowing your team, as we discussed before. Some people respond well to straightforward directions (i.e. “go there,” “do this,” “do NOT do that”). Other people need a little bit of an explanation (i.e., “go there because”, “do this while”, “this causes that”). Some people work in an entirely different way. You should know how each of your team member’s understands tasks best. I can tell some of my team members a very general idea of what I need to be done and they can fully transition that into a finished task. Some of my other team members need an exact list of every single thing that needs to be done to finish satisfactorily.

Another part of communicating well is listening. Communication is a two-way street, you know! Make sure that you hear your crew, and that they know you are hearing them. I ensure that everyone is comfortable coming to me and asking a question or asking for advice. I would much rather answer the same question 10 times than have someone go in confused or accidently irreparably damage something. If a crew member needs to know something, or they’ve got a problem with a co-worker, or an outside client is acting disrespectfully, I want to know. We can’t fix or address what we don’t know. Open communication lines.

Next blog will continue part two of this series on how to be an effective leader!

Woman Up

“Woman Up” is a guest blog from Becky Pell, freelance sound engineer, yoga teacher and writer. This post originally appeared on RocknRoll Yogi.

It’s an inescapable fact that the music business is a male-dominated industry. Lately, I’ve noticed a springing-up of more discussion groups and surveys focusing on the roles of women in touring, and why there aren’t more of us. As you’d expect, I get asked about it a lot.

There are some brilliant organisations, like Soundgirls, who support the ambitions of budding young female sound engineers. I really like their proactive approach of inspiring the younger generation and sharing knowledge – knowledge which is valuable irrespective of gender. Soundboys would do well to check out the articles on the Soundgirls website for practical know-how!

But some comments I’ve read on Facebook (in response to very sensible questions about how, for example, other women have handled a situation) worry me. It’s great that there’s somewhere we can discuss the stuff that concerns us. But I see some women getting hugely up in arms about the attitudes of some guys, and wasting time dissecting their behaviour/comments/ignorance; time which, to my mind would be better spent just proving them wrong!

I absolutely identify as a feminist and a strident one at that. But…. I don’t know if continually highlighting the thing that makes us different is helpful. Your life consists of what you pay attention to, after all. If you’re determined to be offended and outraged, you won’t have to look too hard for material.

But equally, if you’re looking for opportunities to educate the old, mostly male, guard; to inspire and surprise and change attitudes….. Here’s your chance!

I’m hugely supportive of younger women trying to break into a tough but brilliant career. I’m hugely supportive of younger men trying to do that too.

The advice I would give to a young woman wanting to do my job is 99.9% the same as that I’d give to a young man, and I think that the more we draw attention to the fact that *drum roll* THERE’S A WOMAN ON THE TECH CREW!!!!, the further away we push ourselves from our intention of acceptance.

What creates happy, peaceful communities? Integration.

And what causes wars? Segregation. ‘We’re different.’ It’s obviously an extreme example, but I hope you see my point.

There will be people – ok, guys – who want to make a drama out of you being a woman and belittle you, and who feel threatened because the world is changing. But trust me, if someone is being a jerk, it’s not because of your vagina. It’s because they’re a jerk. Or having a bad day. Or whatever. You know what you do? You deal with it and you move on. Dismiss it. Don’t give it more energy than it deserves. That’s how we change attitudes – by not letting the jerks win.

Women in a lot of places in the world have a seriously raw deal. But that’s not what we’re talking about here. We’re talking about emancipated, educated western women with choices. With personal power.

The behind-scenes music business is tough, irrespective of gender. Only the deeply committed get anywhere. It’s long hours and hard work and rejection and uncertainty and insecurity. It’s also a great many brilliant and exciting things that make all of that worthwhile. If you’re the kind of woman who gets offended by swearing; who expects special treatment; who doesn’t want to get her hands, either literally or figuratively, dirty; it isn’t for you.

But if you’re a woman who has a thicker skin than that; if you can brazen out any stupid comments and learn how to come back with a witty retort; if you’re willing to get amongst it; the music industry needs YOU!

We need you because when the people who got here first – the boys – see that having girls in the playground isn’t a problem, guess what happens? It isn’t a problem! But like all ground-breakers, it’s up to us to educate them. Is that fair? No, probably not. But are you going to sit around complaining about life not being fair? Or are you going to change things with your actions?

(Or, as an ancient proverb has it – will you be the person who wants to wrap the world in soft leather to make it comfortable to walk on? Or will you put on your shoes?)

The best advice I can give a budding young lady roadie is to just GO FOR IT. Dream big. Don’t give your gender another thought, because a guy certainly wouldn’t, and you are every single bit as capable and worthy.

Are we seriously going to let what we’ve got in our pants be a defining factor in whether we pursue our ambitions and live our dreams? Come on girls. Get real.

Woman up.

Independent Contracts – The Business Skills You Need

As a sound technician (sound engineer, mixer, editor), there’s generally two types of gigs:

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Navigating a New Building – Planning the Build.

Over the last four years, I have been a part of the planning and designing committee for a new student union. Over this journey, I have learned many things when it comes to building a new structure and that the process can be very complicated and messy. If you ever get the opportunity to be a part of the planning process for a new venue, do it.  It will be an experience you may hate at times, but it is rewarding.  It has been a great learning experience. (more…)

The Life Long Learner

Personal growth and professional growth work hand in hand for me. The more I expand my mindset, the greater the possibilities. Julia Child said it best “You’ll never know everything about anything, especially something you love.” So why should we stop learning, right?

I started my journey in media at a young age within a place of worship. Audio has always been my focus point. But I noticed as an in-house engineer once communication was set and audio was brought up to a standard of excellence there was still more work to be done. Which led me to expand my reach as a freelance technician.

Once I set up a multimedia platform for one worship center I continued to research equipment that could take the worshiping experience to the next level. From audio consoles to projectors, from lights to CD duplication. From live broadcasting to DVD production, they all played a significant role in creating this great experience. The leaders loved the thought of having all these outlets to help spread the gospel. Not only did it help the leaders and the congregation. It helped me gain experience, which births excellent technicians.

After working in places of worship for over eight years and graduating from a Media Tech Institute with a diploma in audio engineering and multimedia. I choose to see what other routes I could go with this passion and experience. I then found the wonderful world of AV (Audio and Visuals). A place where being proficient in all areas of event technology is golden. I had been in AV for years and didn’t even know it. I just specialized in worship centers; now I’m branching out even more. Seeing what all the world has to offer a young audio engineer willing to learn and grow.

Being an audio engineer can take you in many different directions, but no matter which route you take, the more you know, the more you grow. You can start as a monitor engineer and then move to mixing at FOH. You can be a boom microphone operator and develop into recording and mixing Foley. I started in AV as a stagehand just doing load in and load-outs. You never know, continue to keep an open mind. Never stop learning. The possibilities are endless, so is the amount of growth within the industry. Once you feel you know everything there is to know, you put a cap on yourself and opportunities. Don’t be a know it all, be willing to learn it all.

The Art of Being an Evil Genius

There’s this moment that occasionally occurs when I’m working on a project in the studio. I like to call it “The Evil Genius Moment.” (more…)

Norah Seed – Finding your Dream Job

By Toni Venditti

Norah Seed is an audio engineer who has worked in Live Sound for over 25 years. She has worked in theatre, television, and AV. She currently heads the audio department for the Shell Theatre in Alberta, Canada.

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EAW ADAPTive™ Systems Training

By Amy Truong

IMG_5073

A few days ago, I attended the EAW ADAPTive™ Systems Level 1 Training Program held in Primm, NV. It was two consecutive days and lasted approximately 8 hours each day (with lunch provided). This was my first time attending a non-console based training class.

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