Re: [Harp-L] LOWER VOLUME FOR LIVE MUSIC




I believe that people have gotten used to abnormally loud music pushed at them to make them feel it rather than allowing them to feel it.

I worked in a band years ago that was way too loud for my tastes, but the club owner wanted loud loud loud.


Every night a guy came in and stood right up against the PA system and stuck his head into one of the big horns that were blasting it out. He'd keep his head in the horn from the beginning to the end of the set, grab a beer and be back when we started up. I played the gig maybe 10 times and he was there without fail.

Though I doubt the guy's hearing lasted out the year, his head seemed to damp the volume appreciably, so I was reluctant to say anything.

That was at a rock and roll club. At the same time I was doing gigs at tonks and VFW halls, for a country audience. We never had to blow too loud for that crew, though I was working with different players. The style of dance reqired that you actually have full body contact with your partner, which I've heard can be fun, while nobody touched nobody on the dance floor in rock clubs, except fortuitously. I wonder if that had anything to do with the desire for greater volume.

Hmm - maybe I'm onto something here. A few years later someone took me to Studio 54 just toward the end of its heyday. I thought the music was pretty close to too loud, but people were dancing up a full-contact storm. A few days later I went to see the Plasmatics at a downtown club, mainly because their drummer was my old drummer, not because my taste failed me. The only reason people were touching there was that the dancefloor was packed with people dancing alone. The music was so much louder than at Studio 54 that I considered becoming a disco fan, especially as there were areas of Studio 54 where people were doing alot more than full contact dancing. Unfortunately the place closed down a few weeks later, as the owners had appointment to do an official government time-out.

I knew a bartender who went stone deaf in his left ear, which was the one that faced the stage in a loud music club. Took less than a year. The fact that he was born in the era of earplugs, and that he didn't use them, testifies as to how if you're really dumb you can save big money by not buying earplugs.

Unfortunately we have to work where the jobs are, but the Iceman has it right in the basket when he suggests we try to back off from 11 on the volume control.

Ken the D





This archive was generated by a fusion of Pipermail 0.09 (Mailman edition) and MHonArc 2.6.8.