The Tyranny of Pop Music

[rauschwerk]

With today's wide dynamic rage offered by digital recording techniques, there is some validity to the 'original dynamics' approach. It does, however, seem to me a waste of the dynamic range available. Some fine detail seems potentially to be lost.

Agreed. With digital systems, distortion peaks at the lowest levels due to quantisation noise.

[NatBalance]

Firstly: why not install a sound level app on your phone?

Gosh, you mean connect my phone to the Internet? Cripes, I haven't joined the 21st century to that extent yet. :)

Yes, I would be interested to see the actual values in Adobe Audition or Audacity but then I also know that some sounds can actually sound louder than they actually show on a graph.

It is the listener's job to adjust the volume to give a realistic sound level in their listening room.

Ah no, I disagree with that entirely. I think it should be the sound engineer's job to provide as natural a sound as possible, in both the shape of the sound wave and its relative amplitude (taking into account signal to noise levels and all that) and it should be the listener's job to adjust from that.

You will need to learn to get over it, I'm afraid.

But I can't hear the music.

I feel like the instigators of the organic food movement must have felt when trying to recommend a more natural balance within our food production.

[ahinton]

We seem to have come quite a long way from the subject, which is Roger Scruton's talk...

[NatBalance]

We seem to have come quite a long way from the subject, which is Roger Scruton's talk...

Well not really. I am saying that the volume of big orchestral and choral pieces on Radio 3 is turned down so much it would sound like piped or background music to me if I stopped myself from automatically turn it up. Likewise not all the piped or background music referred to in Scruton's talk is actually composed as such. It is other music just put on at a low volume.

[ahinton]

Well not really. I am saying that the volume of big orchestral and choral pieces on Radio 3 is turned down so much it would sound like piped or background music to me if I stopped myself from automatically turn it up. Likewise not all the piped or background music referred to in Scruton's talk is actually composed as such. It is other music just put on at a low volume.

But what you've been writing about is a quite different matter. Roger Scruton's talk was variously about the kinds of "pop" music that are very slender on melodic and harmonic material and piped music whose purpose is not to be listened to as one would listen consciously and with concentration because it is supposed to be "background" music designed to impinge upon the subconscious; your observations are largely not about these things, hence my #364.

[NatBalance]

But what you've been writing about is a quite different matter. Roger Scruton's talk was variously about the kinds of "pop" music that are very slender on melodic and harmonic material and piped music whose purpose is not to be listened to as one would listen consciously and with concentration because it is supposed to be "background" music designed to impinge upon the subconscious; your observations are largely not about these things, hence my #364.

I'm not sure that is true. The kind of background music I hear in shops and pubs are not usually music composed as piped music. It's well known pop songs (or well know relaxing classical music like concerto middle movements) and the like, and of course we all know what type of background music we are going to be hearing shortly in the shops, and that music was not composed as piped music. Thinking about it, actual lift type piped music I very rarely hear these days. Can't remember where I last heard it.

[Lat-Literal]

James Last died in June:

http://www.theguardian.com/music/2015/jun/10/james-last

In 2011, BBC Four broadcast "The Joy of Easy Listening".

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p00h2pmh

Seeing the programme as a part of the latest music "season" - they had, for example, produced interesting programmes on British soul and British jazz - I decided to view it and wasn't sure what to expect. Initially, there was a slight sense of distance acquired from the NME years and much more. From memory, the tone of the commentary was ironic or post-ironic - I'm not sure which it was exactly - and that should have suited my stance. However, it became irritating when applied to many of the people involved including Jimmy Webb and, actually, even Richard Carpenter who was, without question, sophisticated in almost everything he produced. There was further irritation when they then lumped in Bert Kaempfert and James Last because to my mind they were as cheese is to chalk but there was a brief interview with one of their daughters. I think it was Caterina Last. Anyhow, she was quite upset that her father had not been appreciated by critics especially given the work he had put in over many years and his popularity. What I ended up feeling was "he tried to make a lot of people happy and he made a lot of people happy". I can't really complain about it although I cannot recall anyone I've ever known owning one of his albums.

[MrGongGong]

Ah no, I disagree with that entirely. I think it should be the sound engineer's job to provide as natural a sound as possible, in both the shape of the sound wave and its relative amplitude (taking into account signal to noise levels and all that) and it should be the listener's job to adjust from that.

THERE IS NOTHING "NATURAL" ABOUT RECORDED SOUND

Which part of this do you fail to understand?

[ahinton]

THERE IS NOTHING "NATURAL" ABOUT RECORDED SOUND

Which part of this do you fail to understand?

Pretty much all of it, it would sadly seem.

Head.

Wall.

Bang.

Brick.

Ah, well. If any of us wondered about the reason for this member's chosen forum ID, they need wonder no longer.

[NatBalance]

THERE IS NOTHING "NATURAL" ABOUT RECORDED SOUND

Which part of this do you fail to understand?

You keep mentioning this but I do not see the relevance at all. Isn't a main objective of recording techniques to try to reproduce the natural sound, unless of course you want a special effect? In a local university music department one of their objectives is to try and improve on the quality of recorded and live sound so that it sounds more natural.

Don't you want recorded sound to sound like the real thing?

[ahinton]

You keep mentioning this but I do not see the relevance at all. Isn't a main objective of recording techniques to try to reproduce the natural sound, unless of course you want a special effect? In a local university music department one of their objectives is to try and improve on the quality of recorded and live sound so that it sounds more natural.

Don't you want recorded sound to sound like the real thing?

Far be it for me to respond on behalf of MrGG, but to offer my own two-pennarth on this, what you write here once again misses the point. Some record companies see recorded music as an entity in its own right whereas others do indeed aim to make recordings that sound as close as possible to what the listener would hear live, but the nature of the best is that, with the best will in the world, that can only be attempted and approached rather than actually achieved. The company that's recorded some of my work functions very much on the premise of trying to get as close as possible to "the real thing" but, since it knows very well what it's doing, it doesn't pretend to offer an experience identical to that which the listener would receive in a live performance situation. A recording is what it says it is - in other words, a copy of the real thing; that's not a criticism thereof - what else could it be?

[P. G. Tipps]

Why do we assume that 'live' is best?

Some of the best concerts I've ever 'attended' have been in my own lounge via a large screen and in high definition sound and video.

I see and hear the music-making more clearly than I ever could at a live concert.

We're now in the 21st Century, if some hadn't noticed ....

[ahinton]

Why do we assume that 'live' is best?

Because it is. Simples. But that's not really the point here, methinks.

Some of the best concerts I've ever 'attended' have been in my own lounge via a large screen and in high definition sound and video.

I see and hear the music-making more clearly than I ever could at a live concert.

We're now in the 21st Century, if some hadn't noticed ....

And, in case YOU hadn't noticed, there are still quite a few live music performances still happening!

The point here, though, is that there is an inevitable difference between a live performances and a recorded one which it seems one member here is reluctant to grasp.

[NatBalance]

The point here, though, is that there is an inevitable difference between a live performances and a recorded one which it seems one member here is reluctant to grasp.

My basic point is plain and simple and my flabber is absolutely gasted that folk do not understand it. All audio items have destinctive sound waves that have a certain shape and a certain range of amplitudes and we all know that a jet is louder than a scooter (at full volume - I have to keep saying that otherwise MrGG will give an example of a scooter being louder than a jet), a lion can out-volume a chicken, an orchestra can out-volume a string quartet. These are basics. Why are they not reproduced on radio, TV, recordings, as accurately as is possible and comfortable just as the shape of a sound wave is reproduced as accurately as is possible and comfortable, bearing in mind AHinton's comments as to absolute accuracy in #372?

UNLESS …… a special effect is required.

[ahinton]

I somehow suspect that, at this point, a few members might be losing the will to live to such an extent that they would, perhaps uncharacteristically and to their surprise, welcome a return to the writings of Mr Scruton (or the ton of the Scru, as Britten might have put it)...