Behind the Board – Lesson #1 – Being Teachable
A big shift has occurred in my mixing lately. The past year has been a huge challenge for me as I’ve felt like I’ve been running into a brick wall…I’d be running Front of House for a weekend at New Life Church (my home church, for those of you who don’t know), and I’d have what I believed to be a great mix.
Turns out our senior pastor has an extremely critical ear. Inevitably, he’d walk back to the board on Saturday night with a series of recommendations for my mix. Honestly, there are times when those critiques would be downright deflating. I’d tweak the mix, absolutely convinced that my mix was being compromised as I complied to his requests.
Well, weeks passed, and I realized something interesting…turns out, 98% of the time, he had valid points. Somehow, our church has been blessed with a senior pastor that is so attentive to detail…and over time, I realized that by heeding to these suggestions, my mixes became more mature and refined.
Now, I know that you may not have a pastor that knows a lot about running FOH. But I have found that, while most pastors have a hard time articulating what they don’t particularly like about a mix, they do have valid perceptions.
For instance, I’ve heard many FOH Engineers complain that their pastor doesn’t like cymbals. This was the case at NLC. After some discussion with him, I realized that this wasn’t completely accurate. It wasn’t that he hated cymbals, it was that oftentimes, when the cymbals were prominent in the mix, a whole slew of harsh frequencies accompanied them. The root cause was not the cymbals themselves, but rather the lack of aggressive EQ-ing to smooth out the overheads, and to get them to sit in their proper place in the mix.
It is a very elementary idea, but I beg you, take time to understand the requests and desires of your leadership. Don’t dismiss their critique because they lack the technical language that many of us FOH Engineers speak. Most of the time, the critique has validity to it, whether or not they are able to zero in on the root of the cause. It comes down to understanding your audience — you will never be successful if you don’t make the conscious attempt to understand what your audience/leadership wants to hear.
It takes patience, and it takes a conscious effort. But, I promise that if you take the time and effort to understand the underlying perceptions that accompany the critique, and humble yourself to be teachable…your mixes will drastically improve.
I’d love to hear your thoughts on this! Feel free to comment!
This is really good… Especially in an age where we young ones think that just because we are in touch with the pulse of “current”, we don’t need to heed anyone else’s opinion. It’s a hard balance to find. Thanks for the ideas!