CAN YOU HEAR ME NOW?

There might be no more common link among music and worship folks in churches than a shared frustration and struggle with audio and all things technical. It seems like a pretty common refrain for a lot of us. Whether it’s a shortage of manpower, a shortage of proper gear or a shortage of technical ability and talent, many churches walk with a limp when it comes to sound issues.

Our lead tech is an professional front of house tech with a local production company vocationally, and we’re very fortunate to have him volunteer his time and expertise to the church. That being said, we still face plenty of challenges trying to mix a band in a building that was never designed for it while using whatever gear that a modest church budget can afford (I hope to have Evan, our tech, share some tips and suggestions with Worship Period very soon). Sometimes the sound desk can attract frustrated musicians with a chip on their shoulder, or technically-minded folks with little to no ear for music side of things. Well, at least that’s what the musicians always say…

Sound issues tend to be a bit touchy, and are often misunderstood and even trivialized by those not directly involved. It might seem like a contextually trivial thing. Sure, it may be a tough pill to swallow, the idea of spending a significant chunk of dough on something like sound gear, for a small church budget. But when you consider that part of the role of the worship leader is to manage distraction and minimize it, sound becomes an important piece of that puzzle. I don’t need to natter on in detail about all that, I just thought I’d share some context behind this post to get us started.

Church sound guys tend to get a bad rap, but the next time you’re gritting your teeth through the piercing feedback, ask yourself a question: “How much training has Sound-Guy-Joe had to do what he’s doing? How much training have I offered him?”

If you’re a worship leader and you lead from an instrument, you likely took lessons. You practice, you listen to others play, maybe go to concerts and even play with other musicians. What about your tech person/team? I don’t think it would be an exaggeration to suggest that most volunteer church techs are self-taught and learning as they go. They don’t practice everyday, they ply their trade once a week. They don’t take weekly EQing lessons or attend a Compression and Reverb small group.

So, my suggestion? Well it ain’t rocket surgery. Train them. Give them opportunities to learn and improve. It’s ridiculous to hold someone accountable to a standard they’ve never been educated to meet. The thing is, many of us worship leaders aren’t sound guys and we’re in no position to do any audio training ourselves, so we need to find resources to offer our tech crew to do that. People are always the best resource, so if you have access to a gifted tech who is able to share his or her time with your team then latch on to it. If not, we need to be seeking out tools and resources to offer our tech teams.

One such suggestion to get the ball rolling is a site I recently ran into. Many of you may already be familiar with Own the Mix. This site is put together by the tech and music leads at Buckhead Church in Atlanta, GA. For a nominal fee you can join the community and have access to their vast array of training videos and tools. Now, granted, the scenario from which the creators of the site come is likely beyond what most of us face each Sunday morning. That being said, they make an effort to make their advice practical for churches of a variety of sizes and levels of technical prowess. If you’re looking to help your tech team and don’t know where to start, this site may be a logical first step.

There are certainly no shortage of training tools available out there. A quick trip around Google will tell you that. We have used a Sunday School class to train some of our guys using a DVD series and facilitated by our tech lead, as an example. This post isn’t as much about the specific tools for training, rather I just wanted to share a post that reminded and prodded us all to be thinking about how many opportunities for improvement we’re providing the members of our team and offer a suggestion as a potential starting point.

So, if you aren’t already, start thinking about ways you can offer some opportunities to your technical folks to learn and improve their skills. They, you and truly your entire congregation will benefit from it!