Recently, I was in Seattle with my good buddy Dan Craik (House of Worship Product Manager for Yamaha Commercial Audio.) We were attending the Christian Musicians Summit. Side note, if you're a musician or techie, you need to attend CMS. Check it out here at www.churchmusiciansummit.com. So, back to the story...Dan and I were enjoying dinner and chatting about "the basics" of what makes a good sound engineer. We both agreed that learning to listen is the key to being an excellent sound engineer. You might ask, "What do you mean?" It's simple, you don't need expensive fancy equipment to learn how to be good at mixing. Don't get me wrong there is a technical side to things. But, to understand the art you must learn to listen with a critical ear. Here are some practical ways you can develop your ear.
1. Stop talking and start listening to the sounds around you.
2. Listen to every piece of music you can. Loud, soft, rock, country, rap, classical...the list goes on and on. Become a lover of all sorts of music.
3. When you start listening to the world around you and to music start using words to describe what you hear (i.e. bright, brilliant, soft, warm, etc.)
3. Protect your hearing!!! I can't emphasis this enough. Look, if you lose your hearing, it doesn't come back. So invest in some disposable earplugs or if you're serious about things pick up some custom "musicians" ear plugs. My friends over at futuresonics.com make them. Say hi to Marty for me. He's the man.
4. Buy Brady Paisley's album Part II and listen to "You'll Never Leave Harlen Alive." I love the vocal on that song.
Next we'll be talking about "Keeping Your Eye On The Action."
p.s. remember we're all in this together so if you have anything to add please do.
