Yesterday I ran our first training day for people learning how to use our sound system. I walked people through everything I could think of from how to turn everything on to ‘mixing’ the band.
Mixing is where the sound engineer decides how loud everything should be, tweaks the sound of each voice and instrument and tries to create as much clarity in the resulting sound as possible so that the band sounds great. To illustrate why we need clarity in our mix I told our volunteers a story:
When you’re sitting in a noisy restaurant, across the table from your friend, you can still hear your friend. In fact, your brain will filter out a lot of the background noise automatically so that you can hear your friend properly. This sounds like magic but it isn’t really; your ears can hear which direction different sounds come from. They can sense how far away a sound is and they can hear the volume and pitch of that sound. Your brain can filter out the voices that are coming from a different direction, that are further away, that are a different volume or pitch; and allow you to focus on the voice that you want to hear: your friend’s voice.
Reflecting back on it today I thought of this scripture:
“My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me.” (John 10:27)
Father, let us know the rhythm and timbre of your voice. Help our spirits to distinguish Your still small voice from the ruckus and hear our way closer to where you are. Cut away the noise until there’s only You.
