The Tyranny of Pop Music

[ahinton]

or: Alla ricerca del silenzio perduto (Il Treno), for "prepared train"

Not all trains in UK these days are as well "prepared" as they might be; maybe Amtrak's are different (and Cage might have known, I suppose).

Then there's Toy Pacific 231 - not to mention Alkan's much earlier Chemin de fer à joujoux...

[ahinton]

One of the main characteristics of piped music is that it is quiet

...which is arguably rather more than can be said for - oh, never mind...

[doversoul1]

Apologies for bringing this thread back but I was intrigued by the idea of railway models, so I read around a bit (only wiki). Having picked up some interesting information, I now think I understand what NatBalance was trying to say and what jean was telling me what he was saying.

NatBalance,
Is this what you meant?
A model train is made by reducing all parts by the same scale. The same principle should apply to music programmes on Radio3. However, some model railway sets (model railways in sceneries with additional items such as cars or houses) use different scales to reduce various items in the same set thereby making a car the same size as the locomotive. This is wrong and this is the problem with R3’s programmes.

If this is what you meant, (if not, just ignore this) the problem I see in this analogy is that, with a train, every part down to the smallest pin can be physically measured and by reducing the measurements according to the chosen scale, a scale model of the train can be created. This is not the case of musical performances. I don’t think it is possible to measure every element of a musical performance even with the latest and every available technology. More importantly, I think it is safe to say that a train as a whole is the sum of its parts but in the case of musical performance, the whole is greater than the sum of its parts*, which means that even if all the elements of a performance could be measured, it would not be possible to reconstruct the original performance from the values collected. A train is a physical entity that can be objectively measured. Music as we hear it is not.
*this does not mean a great performance in artistic value.

And here is some interesting information I found (my emphasis).

Mixing of scales
It is possible to use different scales of models together effectively, especially to create a false sense of depth (referred to as "forced perspective"). Scales close to each other are also hard to tell apart with the naked eye. An onlooker seeing a 1:43 model car next to a 1:48 scale model train might not notice anything wrong, for example.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rail_transport_modelling_scales

A scale model
...is most generally a physical representation of an object, which maintains accurate relationships between all important aspects of the model, although absolute values of the original properties need not be preserved. This enables it to demonstrate some behavior or property of the original object without examining the original object itself.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scale_model

[NatBalance]

Wow, well done Doversoul. That looks very interesting what you have typed, I'll have to get back to you on that one but I've been working on this reply so this will have to go first.

OK, one last attempt. Remember this, linked by Bryn and this part highlighted by Jean?:-

Criteria of Good Sound

1. Natural tone colors of the instruments (voices)
2. Natural room acoustics
3. Natural reproduction of the ensemble in breadth and depth
4. Natural balance between the instruments
5. Natural dynamics (differences in volume) of the instruments
6. Natural musical flow of the performance/reproduction

All I am doing is adding another criteria expanding on No.5:-

7. Natural dynamics (differences in volume) between all audio items (including the spoken word).

We like to have the dynamics within a piece of music kept as natural as is comfortable for home listening do we not? Well, all I am asking is that the dynamics between one piece of music and the next are also kept (including the presenter).

That is basically it. Pick the bones out of that.

I was at a concert last night in a church. Amatuer choir and brass band and as usual the spoken word was too overpowering loud, and that's not because they were amateurs, professionals also think that volume is all that is required for clarity of the spoken word. Volume is of course required, but subtle reinforcement, they also need to make sure that the speaker does not speak too close to the mike because that creates too much base (the crooner effect), and too much base in the spoken word makes it less clear, it also makes the announcer sound like a pub quiz master.

I mentioned that I consider this discussion about volumes is most definitely still on topic because a key feature of piped music is that it is quiet. Do you realise that in general, classical music's reputation is that it is quiet? Does anyone remember the Radio 4 show Dead Ringers' take on Radio 3? Couldn't find a clip but you would hear the last chords of a classical piece then there would be silence (of course), then the anouncer would come on in a quiet creepy voice and say something like "That was Shostakovich's 5th symphony" another pause, then in a voice like Vincent Price he would say "Quiet isn't it?".

That is the reputation such massive musical forces such as orchestral and choral pieces have these days, but, all things being equal, such music is not that quiet. It can be, but it can also be very loud, louder than a normal pop group (except their electric instruments of course, and a good heavy metal strong voiced vocalist could equal or perhaps even out-volume a classical singer in some cases I reckon). That Frank Martin choral piece I linked in the Breakfast show (#498) is not actually that quiet a piece. The quiet sections are actually no quieter than Ella Fitzgerald singing Everytime We Say Goodbye. I'm not saying that the quiet passages of the Martin should be played exactly the same volume as Ella singing a ballade, I'm trying to point out how extreme the volume changes are at present, and I think one word should be drummed into sound engineers' heads with regards to volumes until they are hearing it in their sleep, and that word is SUBTLETY. To play such music SO quietly I suggest means much of the beauty and majesty of the music is being lost.

I cannot see the point in trying to introduce 'natural' balance criteria into an artificial situation, and if Clemency's voice had been balanced at the same volume as the opening of the Martin, I probably would have been reaching for the volume control at the end of each item, especially if listening in the car.

But the quiet passages would be totally lost to you in the car. I find that view very difficult to understand. People have a similar view about film. I've complained about most space films portraying sound in space, that the new actor playing Tony Archer in The Archers does not even attempt to impersonate the previous actor's voice, and the response is 'Oh it doesn't matter, it's not real anyway'. Is not the whole point of drama and acting to try to portray reality? Does it not loose it's excitment if you loose that illusion? What is the point in making special effects realistic? Let's see the strings holding up those models. Let's the see the boom microphones. What does it matter if Mr Darcy's wearing a digital watch, it's not real anyway. (Sorry, got a bit carried away there, but I did enjoy that moan, that extra moan)

I have the Gramophone cover CD of Sir Colin Davis talking about Elgar (in The Real Great Composers series). The musical examples are given a normal recorded balance, but Sir Colin is so close and heavy, that one can imagine every crumb in the poor man's windpipe - unflattering for him and a little off-putting for the listener.

Yes, this is exactly what I mean, although I can't imagine the crumbs thing, thankfully, but I know what you mean.

[MrGongGong]

[/COLOR]We like to have the dynamics within a piece of music kept as natural as is comfortable for home listening do we not?

No "we" f***ing don't

Because (again) there's nothing "natural" about any of it.


YOU might like to have in your imagination an idea of this but I wouldn't assume that it is shared with anyone else unless you ask them.

too much base

But not enough fish?

Do you realise that in general, classical music's reputation is that it is quiet?

"In general" ?

You still appear to know precious little about the recording process or understand anything about acoustics.
I would humbly suggest you take another break from this crusade and do a bit of reading, talking with folks who do know and THEN have a go at saying something about it.

Is not the whole point of drama and acting to try to portray reality?

NO it's not (I fear a discussion on the semiotics of performance coming up)

[ahinton]

I've complained about most space films portraying sound in space, that the new actor playing Tony Archer in The Archers does not even attempt to impersonate the previous actor's voice, and the response is 'Oh it doesn't matter, it's not real anyway'. Is not the whole point of drama and acting to try to portray reality?

I don't know anything about Tony Archer except that I believe him to be one of the more longstanding characters in the world's longest running radio soap and so it's hardly surprising that the actor playing him changes from time to time; why, therefore, would you "complain" as you do in that instance? He can't be the only character in that soap to have had a change of actor since it started; again, I'm unsure of my facts here but it would appear that not every character gets killed off when the actor playing him either dies or becomes incapable of continuing in the rôle.

Again, I may be out of my depth here but the notion of that soap as "portraying reality" is surely about as misguided as was its old description "an everyday story of country folk" misleading (since at least Saturdays are free from it); also, portraying reality must be quite hard to do when the thing doesn't even seem to know for sure where in the English countryside it's supposedly located (Dorset? Gloucestershire? Warwickshire?) - which is why I suspect that the way in which some of its characters speak has to be some kind of homogenised "BBC Brummerset"...

Anyway, the nearest that said soap gets to the tyranny of pop music would appear to be in its tiresome and seemingly changeless sig tune (although I'm mildly curious as to whether A Wood's My native heath predated Britten's Simple Symphony or vice versa)...

[ahinton]

No "we" f***ing don't

Because (again) there's nothing "natural" about any of it.

One thing that Nat seems unwilling or unable to grasp is perhaps best illustrated by the differences in dynamic expectation between sitting in a room of, say, 9m × 5m and listening to a broadcast or recording of Florent Schmitt's Piano Quintet and sitting in the same room listening to a string quartet and pianist actually playing it.

Another is that, when a radio announcer announces a piece that's about to be broadcast or refers to its afterwards, he/she will be in a broadcasting studio, whereas the music itself will have been performed/recorded in a quite different acoustic environment, so why would anyone eect some kind of aural commonality/conmsistency here?

NO it's not (I fear a discussion on the semiotics of performance coming up)

Oh, purLEESE no! Start that and, before you know it, the discussion will deepen into hemidemisemiotics...

Anyway, I am not aware that Roger Scruton's talk centred upon acoustics, actual or perceived natural or other balances or the shortcomings of broadcast sound levels so, if there's to be such in-depth (or out of depth) discussion of such matters, shouldn't it have a thread to itself and leave this one for the discussion of what Roger Scruton actually said?

[ahinton]

I mentioned that I consider this discussion about volumes is most definitely still on topic because a key feature of piped music is that it is quiet. Do you realise that in general, classical music's reputation is that it is quiet?

No, I don't. Why would it be? And in any case is a "reputation" as important and reliably credible as that which has it (assuming that it even does)? Listen to certain passages in Mahler 6 or 8, Gurrelieder, Brian's Gothic Symphony, Shostakovich 4 and tell me what price such a "reputation".

Does anyone remember the Radio 4 show Dead Ringers' take on Radio 3?

I'm sure that many do.

Couldn't find a clip but you would hear the last chords of a classical piece then there would be silence (of course), then the anouncer would come on in a quiet creepy voice and say something like "That was Shostakovich's 5th symphony" another pause, then in a voice like Vincent Price he would say "Quiet isn't it?".

Have you ever heard the end of Shostakovich 5?

[MrGongGong]

Anyway, the nearest that said soap gets to the tyranny of pop music would appear to be in its tiresome and seemingly changeless sig tune (although I'm mildly curious as to whether A Wood's My native heath predated Britten's Simple Symphony or vice versa)...

A colleague used to work with the Dufay Collective.
They were over the moon when one of their recordings was used as background music in the "Hasset Room" of the Bull, if I remember rightly they felt that this was a mark of mainstream success more than any number of appearances on the EMS.

I'm sure we are in for some more micro-textual analysis so buckle in, it's going to be a bumpy ride.

[ahinton]

A colleague used to work with the Dufay Collective.
They were over the moon when one of their recordings was used as background music in the "Hasset Room" of the Bull, if I remember rightly they felt that this was a mark of mainstream success more than any number of appearances on the EMS.

The producer probably thought that it was "Duff Hay Collective" and that this was the name of a farming co-operative - and I suspect that it was the Hassle Room and the the Bull is an abbreviation for a word twice its length...

Anyway, yes, "fame at last" - and of the kind that can only be provided by Radio 4, not Radio 3! - speaking of which David Matthews once said to me that the mark of fame for a composer would be an invitation to be a guest on that other even longer running series Desert Island Discs; I countered that the "fame at last" thing for a composer would be for a castaway to choose one of his/her pieces to take away. All conjectural, of course, since neither of us has yet experiencd either...

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

I mentioned that I consider this discussion about volumes is most definitely still on topic because a key feature of piped music is that it is quiet.

Have you ever been in Scarborough Morrison's? Sometimes it's quiet, but yesterday it was hellishly loud with "Christmas" music.

[oddoneout]

For my sins I worked in a Morrison's store for several years and the problem of the sound level of the background noise, sorry music, was ongoing. The different selections all seemed to come out at different levels so some loops would be blessedly quiet and others intrusive, and the sound system would sometimes just randomly do its own thing to add to the fun. When you are trying to serve customers(many of whom have less than acute hearing) with their choice of sliced meats and cheese at a very long counter, shouting over the piped music gets very wearing and time consuming. Management didn't care and ignored us, but if a customer had a go at them then things would improve temporarily.
For me that is the tyranny aspect, regardless of what type of music it is; there is no getting away from it, unless you physically remove yourself, which so much of the time just isn't an option.

[doversoul1]

NatBalance #590
Bryn’s link was interesting to read but if you read through jean’s post, she does say that ‘natural’ would probably not be her choice of word (to the effect), and if you read through the article itself, what this article means by ‘natural’ is to ‘create the illusion of being in the concert hall’. So you can forget about ‘natural’ as far as this article is concerned. By the way, don’t bother to reply to my post 589. I’d just as well have written it in Japanese.

Sorry, everyone. I was hoping for something more…oh, never mind. I should have known better.

[MrGongGong]

NatBalance #590
Bryn’s link was interesting to read but if you read through jean’s post, she does say that ‘natural’ would probably not be her choice of word (to the effect), and if you read through the article itself, what this article means by ‘natural’ is to ‘create the illusion of being in the concert hall’. .

....and they create their idea of this by extensive editing thus making the whole idea of it being "natural" a nonsense as what you are hearing is something that would never exist in the acoustic world.
This is all fine by me and i'm sure the good folks at IRCAM, GRM, ZKM, NOTAM, BEAST et al will be delighted that those who champion "DWM" music have at long last come over to the acousmatic fold.

[doversoul1]

NatBalance

Is not the whole point of drama and acting to try to portray reality?

Mr G. #591

NO it's not (I fear a discussion on the semiotics of performance coming up)

I too would humbly suggest you take another break from this crusade and do a bit of reading on phenomenology. It will give you a better idea about ‘natural’ and ‘reality’. THEN have a go at saying something about it.

First 2 or 3 sections should be enough to start with.

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/phenomenology/