Becoming A Sound Technici The Highs And Lows - 949 Words

Becoming a Sound Technician: The Highs and Lows â€Å"The worst part about being a sound technician is that, unlike anyone else on that show, everyone in the audience will notice when you mess up.† Ed had told me. His words reverberated through me like a sledgehammer to a church bell. I sprinted up the curving, narrow staircase of the balcony more effectively than a lot of my peers could have. My legs had memorized that climb over the past two years. I was familiar with the darkness, the tiny yellow lights marking the aisles. What I haven’t memorized is exactly what I had done to trigger the terrible noise that was blasting through every speaker in the auditorium. The screeching was worse than any feedback I had heard before. My mind was moving faster than my legs were. I had a few ideas as to what could be going wrong, but I had made sure that everything on my list had been done before sound check an hour ago. It was not the first time I had no idea what I was doing. It was, however, the first time that I had no idea what I was doing while the house was full of people and show was about to open on my professional debut. I fumbled to pick up my headset, flustered and angry. In my left ear I could hear the frustration in Ed’s voice. With my right hand I frantically checked and rechecked every input, output, connection I could think of that could have gone awry. I had forgotten to switch the system over from automatic to manual. The problem that could have been fixed by the