Community Of Peers
The live sound environment is often one of high stress, with a significant level of responsibility combined with time constrictions and often a severe lack of sleep.
If it sounds a bit like a military regime, it’s because it sometimes feels like it. And just like in the military, we have to count on the people next to us to help out, do their jobs and have our backs. True characters are revealed in these extreme conditions, and bonds are forged that are strong and long lasting.
Our community is comprised of people who share the same goal of making the show happen by any means necessary and being content with our invisibility – we’ve done our job well when no one notices we’re there. Through those shared goals we’re able to work those long hours and still stand at the end of the day.
Sure, everyone has off days when they don’t work well with others or personal issues creep into the work environment; we’re all human, after all. But most of the time there’s a good-natured humor that blankets the team, and if that doesn’t help, early morning venting helps in blowing off steam and leaves us feeling better when sharing some of the frustrations with the only people that actually know first-hand how we feel – our comrades in arms.
Marriage Of Arts & Tech
Working in live sound also feeds some of my passions in life, one of them my love for music and sound and the other my interest in technology and gadgets. This environment is a perfect marriage of arts and tech, allowing me to be ethereal and creative on one hand and logical and technical on the other. It occupies both sides of my brain and forces me to stay on top of the latest developments in both music production and tech innovation.
Putting it bluntly, I’m a bit of a geek, and playing with new consoles, discovering new technological tools at my disposal and testing new gear is a great source of joy for me. And there are variations on this theme – some folks are more interested in IT and networking, others are more focused on exploring the latest musical instruments. But if you share this desire to bridge the gap between the artistic and the technical, then live sound might be right up your alley.
The Cool Factor
This last category might be completely made up and in my head only. But I think that there’s still a public perception that being a sound engineer is “cool.” It’s a profession that still hasn’t anchored itself completely in the general public’s eye as a worthy career pursuit, and that brings a bit of mystique.
This is fueled by the fact that very few people realize the full scope of what we do, since they only see (and hear) a very tiny portion of it. It’s by no means as awesome as being a race car driver or a hand model or whatever one’s definition of the coolest job on earth might be, but it should still score some points when you introduce yourself with that title. (Then again, it could just be me.)
Anyone thinking about getting into our profession should know this: you really have to love it to keep doing it long term. It will demand a lot from you, sometimes more than you’re willing to give. But it’s also immensely rewarding and exciting, and that’s why I, for one, keep coming back.
