it’s been a minute since i’ve sung into a microphone. for that matter, i haven’t spoken into a microphone in a while either. i haven’t run cables or tested monitors, used earpieces or balanced sound in a space. i haven’t hung condenser mics over my piano or booms in front of the keyboard. no neumanns or shures, no audix.
it’s not like you forget, though.
we walked past the meadow off-trail and nature had clearly sent in her sound engineer. the meadow hawkweed microphones stood ready and able to amplify all the ambient sounds of the woods. it made me giggle a little thinking about these tiny microphone-like clusters soaking up all the noises around them, running them through some sort of nature-equalizer and tossing them back out through an invisible speaker system.
in every good venue sound system, decisions are made for each and every performance. tiny – sometimes barely perceptible – turns of the dials, slides of the sliders, mutes and unmutes all define what the listener will hear. in the best scenario, the listener hears sound as it really is, nothing distorted. in the best scenario, sound is pure, unadulterated, unfiltered, offered as true, crisp, present, full-frequency-range. the piano sounds luxurious; the voice rides above it. exquisite.
how would nature balance it all – the call of birds, the busy peeper-frogs, the wind in the high leaves of the forest, the wings of butterflies, the tease of chipmunks and squirrels in the underbrush, the crunch of human footfall, conversation, hushed tones of worry, laughter, breath. would nature pare down all tones of negativity, choosing instead to pan to the positive? or would nature allow for all of it – a cacophony of life as it exists in the moment?
the draw of the microphone is powerful. i wonder if the butterflies nearby felt it too.
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