No sound in consoles

[Christian]

Hi all,
When I press ctrl-Alt-F1 to bring up the first text console all sound
that is currently playing in Gnome are stopped.
If I press alt-F7 to go back to Gnome it starts playing again.
Also if I start an audio player in a console such as mplayer there is no
sound.
However, it works if doing it through a gnome-terminal.
Any tips on how this can be fixed?
Many thanks,
Christian