I feel that I am lucky to have experienced working alongside girls and women starting at an early age. I discovered this through being a musician when I was a little boy. It occurred to me at a young age that musical instruments are played by both genders; there is no preference by the instrument whether a male or female is playing it. Playing music in the school orchestras in elementary, junior high and high school showed me that one must practice no matter their gender in order to become proficient on an instrument. I had great experiences playing good music with the boys and girls at the schools I attended, and it taught me that one’s gender is not significant in achieving good tone on a musical instrument.
While I was in the military service, there were not very many women in the specialty that I chose to undertake. It was dominated by men when it came to doing the work that I was involved in. But women were a part of what I did back then in the same specialty, and I do not remember me ever being unkind to them. We helped each other cover each objective equally; each task and mission was completed with a sense of teamwork and team spirit. But in the end, I worked with a majority of men during my service career.
When I returned to civilian life, I went heavily into the entertainment business in Los Angeles and its many facets and specialties. I chose to remain a bass player first, but I was also very interested in working in professional audio. When I began working in film postproduction audio, I discovered many women working in the film industry. They did everything that the men did; audio postproduction, film editing, automated dialog replacement (ADR), Foley, and more. I enjoyed hearing their stories and I listened when they spoke of their experiences working alongside men in the industry. They told me that there were some gender issues that they faced with men from time to time, but it only appeared with men who felt that they did not belong or could not learn the techniques required by film makers to come up with a proper finished product. I saw that this view by men was inappropriate, and the finished film products involving women were equal to and sometimes better than what the men were doing.
I learned as much as I could from both men and women when I worked in the film industry. There was a woman who would visit the audio postproduction studio that I was working in, and she gave me some great tips about how to achieve great sounding audio for the projects I was working on. She had spent a lot of time in some of the top studios in Los Angeles working with some of the top artists of the day, including the popular group Supertramp. I was very impressed with her, and I took note of how well she could hear things as she had what we call in professional audio a “golden set of ears”. She was very kind to me, and she told me some of the rules that she lived by as a female audio engineer. One thing that she learned was that she should never wear a skirt or dress to work in the studio with men. She told me that the work would not get done in a timely fashion because the men would be staring at her legs while working at the console instead of concentrating on the music that they were mixing. She told me that it was much better for her to always wear pants to work in the studio with men, and the work was better coming out of the studio from doing just that.
When I left the film industry I returned to playing the bass guitar full time. Women were in many of the bands that I played music for, and I was able to approach them as the professionals that they were. The music always came first while I played in those Los Angeles based bands; it was the sound of each band that mattered to the public. The women in those bands were an integral part of the songwriting and the sound of each of them. We worked together to achieve a common goal, to hopefully garner a good degree of success from what we were producing for people. It was hard work, and sometimes things got bumpy along the way. But we stayed together as professionals for as long as we could, and I have fond memories of those days in Los Angeles with those bands.
Fast forward some years later, I found myself working in professional audio and mixing high level corporate events and music shows in Las Vegas, Nevada. By this time, there were many more women working in the entertainment industry in all of its important positions. I have met female production managers and coordinators, master electricians, high riggers, forklift drivers, lighting specialists and audio engineers in my tenure. I can say that it has been a good experience working with them, and listening to them as well. Sometimes they would speak to me about the issues that they would encounter with men who thought that they did not belong, but it did not deter them from doing the work that they loved. Once again, what I do as an audio engineer is not gender specific. Both men and women produce great audio around the world for people, and audio itself does not concern itself with which gender is controlling it.
I have had a female assistant in several of the shows that I have done audio mixes for in Las Vegas over the last ten years. I have taken the time to deepen my own knowledge about the science and the inner workings of professional audio during that time. I created a basic audio connector course that covers the most commonly used audio connectors on all of the earth’s continents to inform people who are interested in working with audio on a professional level. I have found that many people are not completely informed about the audio connectors used in the industry, so I wanted to impart this important information to them. The women I have worked with were interested in learning more about professional audio, and when they requested it, I made sure that I sent them information in the form of sections from my basic audio connector course so that they can have this information for their lifetimes.
One woman in particular, who is a professional lighting engineer here in Las Vegas, has been a joy for me to work with. We have both been assigned to many of the same events over the last few years. She builds lighting design often from scratch at each event, but sometimes there is a protocol that the event client wishes to see during the show. We have done events at the highest level for clients here, and she has had no issues with what needed to be done. She is a true professional lighting engineer, and she is in high demand with several event clients and music groups. I remember a music event that we did together a couple of years ago for the band Puddle Of Mudd at the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino. My work at that show was the position of audio monitor engineer. The band’s management did not assign a lighting scheme to her, and she said to me that she would let the band’s music dictate the lighting for the show. She had heard the band before, so she had an idea of the music that they would play. As a result, the band looked great on stage during the show. When I look at the YouTube videos posted of the band’s performance, it looks great and it will not occur to the viewer that the lighting engineer for their performance was female. Because being a lighting engineer is also not gender specific, both men and women are very good at performing this task.
There are some other women who work in audio here in Las Vegas that I have met who are very interested in the craft. I like working with them, and they only want to do the very best that they can at every event. When they have questions for me about audio, I always answer them to the best of my ability. They have asked me about the audio connectors that audio professionals use around the world, and I have sent them sections of my basic audio connector course to help further their knowledge. Since they are a bit younger than me, I consider them to be a part of the future of professional audio engineers. I know that they will do a great job in audio because they have a real love for it; they care that each event sounds as good as it can.
While I was setting up the audio for Caterpillar at the Construction Expo 2017 at the Las Vegas Convention Center earlier this year, I met a woman who worked for the local union here who was a forklift driver. We spoke for a while, and she let me know that she had been fully accepted by her colleagues both male and female. She said that there were some tasks involving physical strength that she and other women were challenged with; she said to me that since women are physically different than men, she would seek assistance from men to perform some tasks that she needed assistance with. But beyond that, both men and women depended on her to perform her tasks without any assistance. She was kind to me and gave me some of the candy that she carried with her to help keep me going. I thanked her and let her know that I was working on writing about my experiences working with women in our industry.
In retrospect, again I am glad that I learned at an early age that women can and do perform well playing musical instruments and performing the technical tasks involved in entertainment industry events. It is my hope that women will continue to be accepted by men in the entertainment industry, and that there will be more women working within the industry in the future. After all, the tasks and skills required in the many technical disciplines that make events a success are not gender specific and are open to all who are interested no matter the person’s gender. Thank you, ladies.
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