Today is one of the first larger concerts after the pandemic and I work as the venues stage manager. I don’t have any sound engineer duty this night, but of course I spend lot of time at FOH to check that the PA sound as it supposed to and that the sound and light engineer has everything they need from the venue that I am working for.
When the sound check starts, I notice that the distortion in my left ear are having a really bad day today. Everything sounds distorted to it, and I am having difficulties to hear nuances and the frequencies as I am used to.
The dynamic sounds heavily compressed and I am having a hard time to tell if the sound engineer is having the instrument levels right. Everything is just blurring together in to one big mess in my ears. If I had been behind the mixing console today, I would not have been doing a good mix, that’s for Shure
Right now, I am just feeling sad, and starts to questioning the job I am having. Working with music today is not feeling fun or meaningful at all. My head starts to spin, and thoughts like “is this really what I should be spending my life with”?
If music is going to sound like this even in the future it is not enjoyable at all, and there is no meaning at all trying to continue working with sound. That is what my mind is telling me at this moment.
I know that these thoughts come up occasionally, and disappear other day. But this time, it really doesn’t feel good at all.
The joy I have felt before working with music, did really compensate for the long working hours, often 16 hours a day, and to sacrifice weekends and evenings with my family. But if music will sound like this from now on – than it is just not worth it anymore. Today it just feels like a meaningless work with very bad working conditions.
And this is what I have built my whole life for – a life dedicated to work with music production.
I know that I will have a lot of these questions answered as soon as I get to meet my local health center for a hearing test that I have been waiting for. I need that so bad at this moment, since I can’t really trust my hearing at this point. I just have to figure out what is going on with my hearing.