Puppets Up! is proud to have offered an introductory 8-hour sound workshop to six participants who learned the basics of sound techniques for theatre productions!
The workshop was led by Ken Friesen, a Juno award-winning recording engineer who has worked on over 200 albums including those by The Tragically Hip, Monkey Junk, and Blue Rodeo.
In concrete terms, what did the participants learn?
Rob Riendeau shares that they learned:
“How to setup sound for live performances in the town hall with the equipment that is owned by the town (…) and also had a chance to work with the type of sound equipment that would typically be rented for the performance tents for Puppets Up!”
So, gaining experience on how to set up a show both inside and outside and learning tricks on how to make sound better was key to this initiative.
Ken Friesen has experience himself working in clubs, boardrooms, theatres, hockey rinks, and football stadiums for tours.
Speaking of the devil, what do participants say about their instructor?
“Ken absolutely knows his stuff!”
“Ken was efficient in his teaching – he got a lot out in those hours”
“Ken is very knowledgeable in his area!”
The last two quotes are from Kayla Tod and Austin Laing, two grade 12 high school students at Almonte District High School who also took the sound course.
They reveal that they will use these newly acquired skills “for the school play” and “for helping out with community events”.
Lastly, we had to ask: Was it fun?
Rob rounded off by saying:
“Ken created a friendly and low stress learning environment that allowed all participants to get over their nerves at working with all of the unfamiliar equipment. Getting to work on the digital soundboard and actually troubleshoot on the second weekend was very empowering.”
As for Kayla and Austin, they both expressed “how much fun it was to do with a buddy!”
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