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In Reply to: RE: Update on accoustically enhanced concert halls posted by Amphissa on March 08, 2011 at 12:24:14
Why? Because it's insufferable to read about the death of live, unamplified music. Even worse is to find those who support its death. It’s like reading some terrorist/racist website.
Somewhere a line has to be drawn. Somewhere amplifiers and loudspeakers stop, and real sound begins. There must be some place, some refuge where the sound of real instruments – uncontaminated, uninfected by anything electronic- may sound forth for people to hear.
Being an apologist for electronic manipulation, in my view, is like being an apologist for genocide. Every single despot has grand sounding, often iron-clad rhetoric justifying the massacre of thousands, hundreds of thousands, even millions of people. In every case, their murderous actions solved certain problems for them, usually enormous ones. The question is: was it worth it? Do we tolerate, even support genocide because it solves a set of problems for tyrants? Is evil an acceptable solution in the face of any problem?
Perhaps some may think that I'm being hyperbolic; just another nut case raving on the Internet. But, the decline and ultimate disappearance of live, unamplified music is no small event. Its loss would amount to the loss of an art form; the same as the loss of live theater, or museums of art. In such a world, who needs live actors stammering on the limitations of a stage when we’ve got movies? Who needs to look at actual paintings when we’ve got excellent reproductions on the Internet?
I think we're reaching a tipping point. It's not too late to turn the ship around. If enough people reject, revile, and complain; complain loudly...loudly enough for orchestra management to hear them, then there's a chance that electronic enhancement in concert halls may slow down. At the very least it'll have a stigma attached to it, similar to, say, transfats in food. Concert halls will proudly advertise themselves as amplification-free.
But, if we don't raise our voices; if, instead, we allow the electronic apologists to hold sway; if we swallow facile arguments about the alleged need for amplification, then the cause is lost.
It's all up to you.
Follow Ups:
You are going to stay away from this site because one guy happens to think that, like it or not, electronics will be used in concert halls?
That's pretty sad, Mike.
I do agree with one point you make. This is a pivotal time. Classical music is losing its audience. When sale of 200 CDs puts a recording at the top of the Best Seller list, which is the case in classical music, the genre is in trouble. That the concert halls are filled with the elderly is just another indication. I'm not a provocateur like Lebrecht. I don't think the music is dead. But I do think it is withering away.
I don't think anyone anywhere is advocating the idea of lining up an array of Marshall amplifiers and blowing away an audience like a rock band. But on the other hand, I don't think hanging a sign on the door saying "Electronics Free Zone" will attract a single new person to our concert halls.
"Life without music is a mistake" (Nietzsche)
"I don't think hanging a sign on the door saying "Electronics Free Zone" will attract a single new person to our concert halls."
Actually, just down the street (Telegraph Avenue) from Zellerbach Hall are signs which proudly proclaim the area as a "Nuclear Free Zone"! I think an "Electronics Free Zone" could go over well in Berkeley! :-)
Berkeley is like the 60s preserved.
Or pickled.
Something.
Whatever, man.
Far out.
"Life without music is a mistake" (Nietzsche)
I'm a classical musician Mozart and Beethoven guy, so believe me, I can appreciate unamplified music. But they lived and worked in a quieter, pre-industrial era.
Acoustic music got a lot louder in the late 19th century, and since the 1920s, electrical amplification has been integral to nearly all kinds of music, apart from those of us interested in classical music of a prior era. My theory is, music is louder to compensate for our louder post-industrial environment courtesy of cars, planes, trains, air conditioners, and all sorts of other machines. I'm not happy about it, but that roaring and screeching train has left the station.
. . . I basically agree with what you say. (Well, maybe not the terrorism and racism stuff!) I also think your alternate proposal for the question as to how to make audiences aware that electronic systems are in place is a good one: rather than my proposal of a statute requiring concert promoters to note the use of electronic systems in their advertising and publicity, it might be better to have the halls which do NOT use electronic enhancement simply to advertise that fact. I can see the slogans now: "Carnegie Hall - Electronic amplification free for over a hundred years!" (I know that's not strictly speaking true, but it's still a good slogan!)
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