I've always been the kind of person who has trouble specializing. It's hard for me to focus on just one thing when I've got ten other things I want to do, too. The upside of this is that I know a little about a lot of things. The downside is that I'm not particularly good at anything. The term Jack-of-all-trades-master-of-none might as well have been coined to describe me.
But for the last several years, it's been very clear that one of my skills is more in demand than any other: Sound Design. This is partly because I'm good at it, and partly because sound design is a neglected field. There aren't that many people who do it, and there are even fewer who do it well. Many in the theatre community think so little of Sound Design that you can't even win a Tony for it anymore (more on that here).
But for the last several years, it's been very clear that one of my skills is more in demand than any other: Sound Design. This is partly because I'm good at it, and partly because sound design is a neglected field. There aren't that many people who do it, and there are even fewer who do it well. Many in the theatre community think so little of Sound Design that you can't even win a Tony for it anymore (more on that here).
What About Improv Tech?
In improv (the closest thing I have to a single passion), the situation is, if anything worse. Most improvisers are not technicians, and most improv troupes form and solidify in performance spaces with only the simplest technical capabilities. As a result, very few improvisers have any conception of what can be done with improvised tech. So even in more established improv troupes and theaters with greater technical capabilities, the actual use of tech tends to be pretty conservative. Drop music between scenes, bring the lights up and down, that sort of thing.
And running the technical aspects often falls to whoever will agree to do it, rather than to someone with any amount of expertise or skill. Which of course continues the cycle of not expecting much from tech. You don't think tech can do much, so you don't bother looking for someone who can do well, so you get a tech who can't do much. Self-fulfilling prophesy. And then, since you only get bad tech people, you don't respect your tech people, and since you don't respect them, good tech people don't want to work with you. Which is just as well, because you probably wouldn't let them do anything interesting anyway.
Luckily, I've been blessed to work with directors whose minds are open to the possibilities, both open to the technicians' ideas about what tech can be, and full of their own ideas as well. And when that happens, it's magic. It inspires everyone, even the improvisers who've never done tech and who've never worked with tech suddenly see the possibilities. And the art that we make gets that much better.
And running the technical aspects often falls to whoever will agree to do it, rather than to someone with any amount of expertise or skill. Which of course continues the cycle of not expecting much from tech. You don't think tech can do much, so you don't bother looking for someone who can do well, so you get a tech who can't do much. Self-fulfilling prophesy. And then, since you only get bad tech people, you don't respect your tech people, and since you don't respect them, good tech people don't want to work with you. Which is just as well, because you probably wouldn't let them do anything interesting anyway.
Luckily, I've been blessed to work with directors whose minds are open to the possibilities, both open to the technicians' ideas about what tech can be, and full of their own ideas as well. And when that happens, it's magic. It inspires everyone, even the improvisers who've never done tech and who've never worked with tech suddenly see the possibilities. And the art that we make gets that much better.
It Gets Better
So how do you get good at improv tech? Well, you do it. But it's not enough just to do it, you have to do it with the mindset that improvised tech is something that can be done well. That sounds simple, but as I've already mentioned, there are a lot of people who don't understand that it can be done well. That there is a difference between good and bad sound. You don't have to be good right away, but if you have the vision of what tech can be, you'll get there. You'll probably get there sooner than you think because the bar is so low, but once you've started impressing people, you still can't stop, because you know, even if they don't, that it gets much better.
One of the crucial skills in improvised tech, and actually the thing I intended to talk about when I started writing this blog post, is knowing a LOT of music. You can't pull just the right song for just the right time if you don't have enough songs floating around in your brain (and available for you to play, either on your computer or via the internet) that one of them must be right. Even if we're only talking about drop music between scenes, the difference between a song and the song is tremendous. I've had to keep playing what was supposed to be a 5-second drop of a song playing for several minutes because the cast was having so much fun dancing do it. Sometimes those dance parties turn into a game unto themselves. It can happen.
But it can only happen if you're making the effort.
One of the crucial skills in improvised tech, and actually the thing I intended to talk about when I started writing this blog post, is knowing a LOT of music. You can't pull just the right song for just the right time if you don't have enough songs floating around in your brain (and available for you to play, either on your computer or via the internet) that one of them must be right. Even if we're only talking about drop music between scenes, the difference between a song and the song is tremendous. I've had to keep playing what was supposed to be a 5-second drop of a song playing for several minutes because the cast was having so much fun dancing do it. Sometimes those dance parties turn into a game unto themselves. It can happen.
But it can only happen if you're making the effort.
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