Public performances: music always too loud?

We recently fled in the middle of a disastrous Steve Earle/Jackson Browne concert because the overwhelming and continuously loud amplification. Largely absent were variations in dynamic range, a major element in any communication. It was almost all continuously, hurtfully loud. It was impossible to hear, let alone understand, the words. Indeed, I’ve never been to a popular music concert where the sound was too soft. Aren’t there sound checks where the main performers walk around the room to get a sense of what the audience might be hearing? Driving home from the concert, we experienced such a relief at the richness and subtlety of the sound of the CD playing.

There is a thoughtful article on this matter by Lewis Segal of the Los Angeles Times who goes to many concerts (to be “endured rather than enjoyed” because of the over-amplification):

As a critic, you’re supposed to identify and highlight the most significant achievement of an event, and sometimes that responsibility involves acknowledging that music artistically outweighs dancing — as in a collaboration between cellist Yo-Yo Ma and choreographer Mark Morris at the Irvine Barclay Theatre in 1999. Conversely, critics and audiences sit through a lot of awful music in their hunt for great ballet performances. But what happens when sheer volume obliterates not only the dancing but also nearly all the qualities of the music itself?

Amplification in the theater has changed from its original mission: to allow audiences to hear what would otherwise be inaudible and to make it possible for the artists onstage to monitor themselves and one another.

Today, other priorities determine the sound levels we encounter. For example, midway through Viver Brasil’s first act, a call-and-response passage briefly featured the unamplified singing of six dancers onstage. Surprise: They could be heard perfectly unplugged. But hearing isn’t believing anymore, and the need to make the company’s music seem not merely natural but oh, wow, awesome left everyone else in Act 1 singing and playing into microphones — even a drum ensemble powerful enough to waken the ancient Orixa gods.

In our culture, many people live with music every waking moment, but it’s rarely live or acoustic. So when we do encounter live music, we expect it to match what we accept as the norm: the presence, detail and intensity of recordings. We’ve come to prefer processed music to the real thing. (continue reading)