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Re: [microsound] beware the decibel...



Great thoughts Nick.
That is the case not only with the dB of some shows but even with the sounds.
Many people click on a PC (do not concentrate too much on 'click' and
'PC' it is only an example) or whatever and create some painful
something right in front of you as loud as possible and that's it.
Understand this "very artistic piece of fantastic live performance" or
leave.

Please don't misunderstand me. There are some noises or fields' sounds
which I really love, I mean they are all around us. But methods like
Nick mentions are simple 'show' elements. IMHO it is nothing better
than a contraversial TV/Radio/whatever show and the like.

cheers,
Andras
Bitlab/Cod

2006/7/12, nick knouf <nknouf@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>:
... is how a public service announcement at my radio station begins.

(What follows is a rant/polemic; feel free to move on if not
interested in those sorts of things.  This is entirely separate from
the recent myspace talk.  I wrote it last night when my thoughts were
more raw, and I haven't edited it in the context of a morning re-
appraisal.)

Tuesday night I went to a concert by Tetuzi Akiyama, part of the
Japanese improvisation scene.  He is most known for his "onkyo" style
of improv, focusing on austere, sparse, quiet pieces that make
intense listening demands on the audience.  The first half of his
concert focused on this style.

The second half was him, a guitar, an amp pointed directly at the
audience, and 100 decibels.

This is not my first experience with this; I cannot even begin to
count the number of experimental music/microsound concerts that I
have attended that were simply too painful to listen to.  Not because
of the content, but because of the physical strength of the sound.  I
left only 15 minutes into his set; the ringing in my ears subsided an
hour later.

"Well, dufus, you should have been wearing earplugs."  The simple
response.  Yet I have to ask what gives the musician the right to do
this *physical violence* to me?  Because it is physical violence;
through his power, he is harming me in a way we seem to be
encouraging through attendance at these concerts.  It is as if the
musician is being so egotistical to say, "My music, my sound is more
important than your ability to hear anything in the future.  I will
harm your ability to perceive sound, and there is nothing you can do
to stop it.  Oh, you can wear earplugs which will degrade your
ability to hear me, but that is the only way you will be able to
experience my works."

What other art forms allow the artist to hurt the art viewer/listener
in this way?  Conceptual/performance art, perhaps, but I know of no
visual art that is so intense that you can loose your sight by
viewing it (the beauty of the sun notwithstanding).

Amplification has been around for a number of decades now.  Okay, we
got it: you can play music loud.  You have the ability through a
simple twist of your wrist, a turn of the knob, to destroy my
hearing.  I bow before your power.

In Akiyama's case it was even worse; performance in a concrete room,
with *his back facing the amp*.  So of course he's not getting the
full brunt of the pressure waves, instead hearing the multiple
decayed reflections.  Yet the audience, which dwindled quickly, had
the choice to leave or stay.

Yes, we indeed have that choice.  But I have to ask: why do we even
need to be making this choice in the first place?  We are not teenage
punk rockers who don't know any better; we are not ravers for which
the low frequency physicality is important.  We are people who love
sound, who love the amazing ability we have to sculpt sound.  Yet too
many musicians persist in playing music at volumes that will prevent
us from experiencing these wonderful sounds in the future.

So again: I ask why?  If you play your music at physically damaging
volumes, why?  What do you hope to get out of it?  And what are you
expecting of your audience?

I'll also say that I'm 26, I hate being this curmudgeonly, but I want
to be able to hear in the future.

nick

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