{"id":2376,"date":"2013-07-29T08:49:22","date_gmt":"2013-07-29T07:49:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.curved-vision.co.uk\/presentation-skills-blog\/?p=2376"},"modified":"2013-07-29T08:49:22","modified_gmt":"2013-07-29T07:49:22","slug":"microphone-abuse","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.awareplus.co.uk\/presentation-skills-blog\/microphone-abuse\/","title":{"rendered":"Microphone abuse!"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In <a title=\"To mic or not to mic \u2013 that is the presentation question!\" href=\"http:\/\/www.curved-vision.co.uk\/presentation-skills-blog\/to-mic-or-not-to-mic-that-is-the-presentation-question\/\" target=\"_blank\">my last post<\/a>, I talked about times when you should use a microphone. I mentioned &#8211; in passing &#8211; that our default is not to use a mic, all other things being equal. Of course, all other things are rarely equal but I&#8217;m sure you get my point!<\/p>\n<p>So why the anti-microphone sentiment? Well I guess it splits into two types of issue:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>logistical issues, to do with the fact that most people and venues can&#8217;t use microphones properly and the technology ends up causing far more problems than it solves; and<\/li>\n<li>audience-related issues, to do with how people in audiences relate to microphones.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Let&#8217;s take them one at a time.<\/p>\n<h2>Logistical Issues.<\/h2>\n<p>Let&#8217;s face it, most people don&#8217;t know how to use a microphone. Put it in their hands and they somehow freak out. A few of the more common issues I&#8217;ve noticed over the years are<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>not doing a sound-check and therefore not knowing how close the mic needs to be to the speaker&#8217;s mouth. The solution is, surely, obvious!<\/li>\n<li>holding the microphone in front of their face and then turning side to side. The result is that the microphone effectively gets closer to and then further away from their mouth as their had turns: their volume goes up and down accordingly in the aural equivalent of making everyone seasick. \u00a0The solution, of course, is to turn <strong>everything<\/strong>, not just your face!<\/li>\n<li>walking too close to speakers. The resulting feedback is embarrassing. To make matters worse, many panic-stricken speakers then cover up the microphone in an attempt to block out the sound, making the situation even worse, particularly if they&#8217;re using cardiod microphones. (Don&#8217;t worry if the technical term isn&#8217;t familiar &#8211; just take it that you shouldn&#8217;t try and cover your mic!). \u00a0The solution is, of course, not to go near the speakers. (We to to the trouble of marking off the stage with coloured tape so we can see &#8216;out of the corner of our eye&#8217; where we shouldn&#8217;t walk.)<\/li>\n<li>simply walking and talking at the same time is often more than enough for many new presenters &#8211; adding the complexity of walking and talking and holding something can freak them out&#8230; or at least reduce the amount of &#8216;headspace&#8217; they have available for thinking about what they&#8217;re acutally saying as they present. The solution is, of course, to leave all the technical stuff up to the techical team&#8230; but you may not have one! :( \u00a0 \u00a0If you have any choice at all, use a Lavalier Mic (often referred to as a button mic) so that you don&#8217;t have to hold anything you don&#8217;t want to.<\/li>\n<li>pointing microphones at their noses&#8230; yes, really! \u00a0The thing is, if you glance down at a microphone, whether handheld or on a stand, there is a distorting effect caused by your eyes being above your nose, which is above your mouth. In short, if it looks like your microphone is pointing at you, it &#8216;s pointing at your nose or mouth! The solution? Make sure you point a little lower than you think you should.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>Audience-related Issues<\/h2>\n<p>Audiences relate to speakers on a personal level. Anything that reduces that relationship between the speaker and the people in their audience is a bad thing. Simple as that.<\/p>\n<p>In that regard, microphones can be bad because:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>the sound doesn&#8217;t come from where it&#8217;s expected. This is particularly true in small to medium venues where the speaker&#8217;s face can be seen. Looking at the speaker in one direction but hearing their words from another can be dis-orientating for people, reducing their ability to remember what is said.<\/li>\n<li>some microphones cover the speaker&#8217;s face and\/or pin him to one spot on the podium. Both are (for obvious reasons!) not a good idea.<\/li>\n<li>it makes the speaker look more like a performer &#8211; the audience&#8217;s psychological perception of what they&#8217;re going to experience from the speaker changes. Of course, that might be a good thing but only if it&#8217;s what you intended to happen. Standing (or sitting) there without a microphone encourages a &#8216;conversational&#8217; element to what&#8217;s going on &#8211; where-as as soon as you stand behind a microphone stand, you look (and feel) different&#8230; the presentation instinctively moves towards being more of \u00a0&#8216;telling&#8217; than &#8216;conversing&#8217; with your audience.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Okay &#8211; so that&#8217;s it! \u00a0I&#8217;m not saying don&#8217;t use microphones &#8211; as you&#8217;ll know if you&#8217;ve read the previous post&#8230; just use &#8217;em wisely! :)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In my last post, I talked about times when you should use a microphone. I mentioned &#8211; in passing &#8211; that our default is not to use a mic, all other things being equal. Of [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2180,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2376","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-presentation-tips"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.awareplus.co.uk\/presentation-skills-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2376","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.awareplus.co.uk\/presentation-skills-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.awareplus.co.uk\/presentation-skills-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.awareplus.co.uk\/presentation-skills-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.awareplus.co.uk\/presentation-skills-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2376"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.awareplus.co.uk\/presentation-skills-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2376\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.awareplus.co.uk\/presentation-skills-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2180"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.awareplus.co.uk\/presentation-skills-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2376"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.awareplus.co.uk\/presentation-skills-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2376"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.awareplus.co.uk\/presentation-skills-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2376"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}