Hi,
A lots of years ago, a man who wore a wig to hide his baldness, and high
heel boots because he was short, and swore blind he's sung backing vocals
on a load of hit songs with no backing vocals whatsoever told me how he
didn't need monitors, because he'd just gotten used to hearing himself
through FOH.
At the time, much as (dispite his other faults), he was a damn good singer,
I took his claims with a pinch of salt, and used a monitor wherever
possible.
Now that I'm older, it turns out his claim is actually correct. After
you've done it enough, you can indeed isolate your voice from everything
else enough to know what you're doing, same with instruments and the like.
If you do need the in-ear monitors though, just install yours in the
opposite ear to said kindly band member who tells you the next song.
Another thing you can do is get them to tell you the next say three songs,
so you're not obviously turning to the same side after each song.
Take care,
Chris Norman
On Mon, 12 Apr 2021 at 15:02, tim.pennick <dmarc-noreply@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
Hi All,
With the possibility of actual live gigs once again becoming a slightly
alarming reality, one of the bands I play in has started to think about
possible new kit. We like the idea of in Ear Monitors, as opposed to
fold-back speakers to avoid having to lug around extra hardware. However,
as I understand these IEM systems, the idea is to cut out as much as
possible of the ambient sound on stage, and just feed a nicely controlled
mix through the phones. What worries me about this is that I’ve always
relied on being able to ask other band-members to remind me of the next
song on the set-list. I assume that cutting out the ambience would prevent
me from communicating with other people on stage, and I’m wondering how
other blind musicians cope with this scenario.
Equally a problem is that I now do a bit of backing vocals which was never
previously the case. I’d think this would mean I’d need to cut my vocal
mic if I was about to shout to another band member for a remind of the
above type. Do people use a local switch to cut off the signal from their
mic in this sort of situation?
Regards and thanks for any thoughts,
Tim Pennick
