In One Ear, Out The Other (Jacob Danson Faraday On Cirque du Soleil)

On today’s show, we address a performer’s nightmare—the nightmare of not being able to hear yourself onstage. My guest is ethnomusicologist Jacob Danson Faraday, who takes us behind the scenes of the famed Cirque du Soleil to learn how even Cirque’s world-class musicians struggle with technology when they want to hear themselves. Building on his international career as a touring sound technician, ethnomusicologist Jacob Danson Faraday researches the working communities and hidden labor of live sound technicians on large-scale touring productions. He is a recent graduate of the PhD program in ethnomusicology at Memorial University of Newfoundland. Today Jake takes us behind the scenes of Cirque du Soleil, sharing his dissertation research on how sound engineers and musicians negotiate the power to hear oneself. Stage monitoring, the technology that allows musicians to hear the performance as they play, is a topic we rarely hear about, but it’s absolutely essential to performers. Faraday suggests that, while new in-ear monitors are marketed as a godsend for performers, they are more of a mixed blessing, “homogenizing listening” and creating new kinds of issues and anxieties for musicians.  Today’s show was edited and mixed by Jacob Danson Faraday, with additional editing by Mack Hagood. The song “Sail Away” by Colton Benjamin (2017) was obtained from the Free Multitrack Download Library on the Cambridge Music Technology website by Mike Senior, author of the excellent book Mixing Secrets For The Small Studio. Read the dissertation: Buried in the mix: touring sound technicians, sonic control, and emotional labour on Cirque du Soleil’s Corteo by Jacob Danson Faraday (2021). Join Our Patreon! Receive Bonus Material from this episode and more at Patreon.com/phantompower. Transcript[00:00:00]  Ethereal Voice: This is Phantom power. [Crowd Noise] Mack Hagood: You’re waiting in the wings of a large Las Vegas hotel nightclub wearing a powder blue tuxedo. You tentatively touch the bow tie at your throat. You don’t remember taking this gig. A hand pushes you from behind and you stumble out onto the stage. A spotlight fixes you in its gaze. And the music begins.  [Music Plays] Thank God. You know, this one, it’s an old bossa nova tune. You take a breath and start to sing, but you can’t hear yourself. You can feel vibrations in your chest and neck. But your voice, it’s not there, but it is there. They can hear it, the crowd, and whatever you’re doing, it must be terrible.  They start to laugh. [Laughing] They boo.  [Booing] But how can you sing if you can’t hear yourself? [Music Continues] Mack: Hey, and welcome to another episode and another season of Phantom Power, a podcast about sound in the arts music, and humanities, I’m Mack Hagood, and on today’s show, we address a performer’s nightmare. The nightmare of not being able to hear yourself on stage. My guest is ethnomusicologist, Jacob Danson Faraday, who takes us behind the scenes of the famed Cirque du Soleil to learn how even Cirque’s world-class musicians struggle with technology when they want to hear themselves on stage.  But first I want to share some news about this show.