From the Department of Professors Talking About Indie

There’s Wendy Fonarow, whose Guardian column on indie rituals is as good as her book on same.  This latest bit, on “why say ‘check 1-2′ during soundchecks, is particularly awesome:

This isn’t a matter of creativity. Saying “testing, one two” or “check, one two” is formulaic and serves the same function as other formulaic expressions, such as greetings. People often claim that formulaic expressions are meaningless, ignoring the work they do. When someone says, “How are you?” in English or “Have you eaten?” in Thai, they aren’t really asking about your well-being or your last meal, they’re expecting to receive an answer from a predictable repertoire of replies. This opens lines of communication and allows the parties to focus on other important interactive information. With formulaic speech, you don’t need to focus on content or specific words, but rather the acoustic information provided by slight variations in sound. By saying the same thing at a soundcheck, crew and performers can hear the significant contrasts in sound quality. The content of a formulaic expression is arbitrary. However, “check, one two” has a variety of sound units: the voiceless postalveolar affricate in “ch” (which has a lot of turbulence) and an alveolar plosive (which has a strong expulsion of air). Additionally, the audience are also aware of this routine and, therefore, don’t pay attention to it. If something different was said, such as a movie quote, it would draw attention to the soundcheck and create confusion. However, if you ask a crew why the soundman says “one, two”, their answer is “because you lift on three”.

Filed under: anthropology  Guardian  linguistic anthropology  soundchecks  Wendy Fonarow