Check...One....Two....Check

The Stress of Soundchecks

“Rack tom…” 

Doink

Doink

Da-Doink 

“Snare…”

Thwack 

Thwack 

Thwack Thwack 

(continue this for what seems like 2 hours…)

Sound checks; A necessary evil if your band is privileged enough to get one. 

A couple weeks back, I was sitting in with a friend's cover band playing a wedding (a ridiculously beautiful wedding, btw) and our call time for sound check was very early, which was helpful for us because we needed to run through some things we had never run through before. However, the call time was SO early that we were there the same time as the crew setting up the sound system, which if you know, takes a bit of time. We could have potentially saved over an hour of our lives either practicing at the hotel, napping, doing mindfulness practices, or literally anything else but sitting around waiting, but such was the case that we had bonus thumb twiddling time, which led to a little bit of aggravation. This is normal. 

It’s not a problem that this scheduling is normal, because I get why it is this way, I just noticed that it can lead to a bit of consternation, mood swings and general anxiousness, especially when the musician is eager to just play. It got me thinking how sound checks can change a band's dynamic just minutes (or hours) before show time. 

Like I said, if you are privileged enough to actually get a sound check, here are the few options I’ve been privy to…

If you are playing a small bar, dive, or something of that nature, 9 times out of 10 you will not get a sound check at all. You just set up and hope for the best. As you “move up the ranks” and play small clubs, you get quick but sifficient sound checks, or if time gets away from you, line checks. Line checks can be pretty annoying in that you have likely gotten to the venue early to sound check, but for some reason (other band taking their time, lack of punctuality, etc) you lose time, so instead of running songs, you get only a quick power chord and thwack of a snare, but I suppose a check is a check right? 

If you are on the road playing bigger clubs or theaters, or opening for a bigger band, you show up to the venue around lunch time, maybe earlier, wait around for the headliner to soundcheck until they tell you it's your turn, which invariably becomes a quick run through, one half hour before the doors open. It's very common for a band on the road, or local opener to spend a lot of their day waiting around. For example, a venue I play at pretty regularly generally has load in at 5:00 p.m. with the downbeat for the opener being around 8:30 or 9:00pm so there's certainly a LOT of downtime, especially when that time is spent watching microphones being set up, up troubleshooting, etc. becuase you never quite know when it’s your turn.

I know it sounds like I am being a whiny baby and you wouldn’t be wrong, but this is all to say that I do think sound checks are a good thing, or as I said above, a necessary evil. Sound checks allow time for amps to match room sounds, drums to be dialed in, vocals to be heard, anything that would help a band just feel better knowing that when they hit the stage things will not be a nightmare, because they sometimes can be. Sound checks allows a sort of soothing of anxiety, but the irony is that soundtracks can become an aggravation. 

What I've noticed from personal experience is that people can get testy, sassy even or even yell at each other during sound checks. I am curious and aim to consider why this happens and an obvious reason of course would be the aforementioned waiting around, which is never fun and can stoke any anxious mind. Sound checks are also the very last time anyone has control over their situation because once the show starts, control over variables like the room sound, the sound person, the crowd, whatever, goes out the window. When the show starts, it’s all happening and you must hold on for dear life. With a soundcheck, you are able start a song and stop it when something is off, or you can twiddle amp knobs to your heart's content or you can tune the snare drum or whatever is needed to feel more at ease but once the show starts, you gotta hold on and let it happen. So there's a tension between having control of a situation and the short amount of time that you're allotted to actually get that control.  

However, either on stage or before, what can be controlled is how much one trusts themselves, trusts their reliance on their parts and more importantly, how well they trust their bandmates. For me, trusting in the players goes a long way when feeling ill at ease about sound or performance or venue. This is why, to me at least, sound checks are great but if I don’t get one, I wouldn’t be heartbroken. Frankly, I’d rather get those few hours back especially when I am playing a hometown show, but that’s me… Everyone is different as is every circumstance, every show, and everyday so I’m not trying to solve any riddles or dish advice, it’s just something I was curious about since the last couple of sound checks for my last two gigs were a little bit tense.

With that said, maybe it is good to have that tension before you play, so when the lights go out and you’re on, that tension can be used to your advantage to play with passion, pain and to really release yourself on stage.

Thanks for reading. If you have any fun soundcheck experiences or disagree with me, let ‘er rip in the comments. I’d love to hear it.

I hope you’re all happy, healthy and healing.