Joe V's recent post re: ear protection brought this age old (for me anyway) question to mind. In fact lets just say, for some anyway, why does any musician feel any music has to be performed "loud" to be good?
I could never understand why a musician and/or band feels they have to "crank it up" to eardrum shattering volumes for it to be "good". After all when I play it back, no matter what genre I am listening to I set my volume slider on my home stereo to the same comfortable level.
Just FYI don't tell me it's an age thing as even when I was a pup I felt I could not enjoy music at high volumes. I am just thinking some of you loud rockers out there might be able to help me understand the "man it's rock it has to be loud" syndrome?
PS: Rharv, sit tight I'll be getting off of your lawn as soon as I get some feedback! :>
my take on this topic (having played in a number of bands that were asked to turn down the volume, but didn't) is below.
1) in the 70s, all the bands we emulated were playing in coliseums with stacks of marshalls... playing loud seemed like part of the paradigm we were trying to imitate
2) its hard for a live drummer to play rock music at a reasonable volume. Everybody else cranks it up in order to be heard over the drummer
3) guitar players typically want the sound of a tube amp pushed to the limit. Once he gets it, the rest of the band has to crank it up another notch to hear themselves
this is why I like playing with backing tracks... you can record the tracks at whatever volume is needed to get "that sound" then you can play it back at whatever volume is appropriate for the room you're in. Plus, there are no individual egos competing for attention.
In my opinion, what you are doing is exactly the way I like to hear live music, which is why your act is the model I'm trying to imitate. I have nothing but praise for the quality of your presentation and your easy style of bantering with the audience.
Everybody who has heard your show on StreetJelly has been blown away by it. Not only have the comments been favorable, they have been over-the-top gushing fan-girl comments.
As the hearing loss increases due to previous ""performances" - they must increase the amplitude of each successive performance in order to even hear it.
1) in the 70s, all the bands we emulated were playing in coliseums with stacks of marshalls... playing loud seemed like part of the paradigm we were trying to imitate
Response: I may buy this one as a valid reason if I could be convinced they were not adequate sound systems in that era. Also thinking this may very well may have started in the 70's, so you may have something here.
2) its hard for a live drummer to play rock music at a reasonable volume. Everybody else cranks it up in order to be heard over the drummer
Response: Original question "why" do they feel they have to crank it up other than the aforementioned lack of sound system.
3) guitar players typically want the sound of a tube amp pushed to the limit. Once he gets it, the rest of the band has to crank it up another notch to hear themselves
Response: I might buy this one also, if you translate it to read, "it's the guitar players fault", does Rharv play guitar, just wondering as that may very well be where the answer lies
Smooth apes that we are, we like to be stimulated by outside forces. Live music, especially dance music, is a physical experience. People on stage between and behind the speakers may not realize just how much so, as the very lowest notes don't develop until they are 20-30 feet out in front of the mains. The kick bass and the low notes of the bass guitar resonate in the human chest; other frequencies stimulate other parts of the body. It just helps that groove that gets people moving on the dance floor. There's a reason that suboctave synthesizers were widely adopted--it adds to the frisson we get from the rest of the signal, and why people fill their vehicles with subwoofers. They want to feel the music.
I'll leave it there. There are whole discussions about how different rhythms affect us psychophysiologically. But at heart, it all comes back to putting the boomp in the boompty-boomp-boomp.
"My primary musical instrument is the personal computer."
I agree with all of your replies to my observations. I should have added that I don't AGREE with the performance philosophy of playing loud "just because".
In the past some of my bandmates have actually stated that they played loud for the reasons stated above. Like you, I accept it as their opinion, but not as absolute truth.
(FWIW, This is one reason why I am not currently in a live band even though there is plenty of opportunity to do so. )
It's #3 in Pat's list, which if you add in live acoustic drums, in order to get similar thunder from drums, you have to beat them. At our church we finally put the drums in a Clearsonic booth. I was getting 95 dBC at the mixing board at the back of the church (approx 50'-60' distance) with just a shield in place.
So, it's a sort of chicken or egg thing, particularly with the drums thrown in.
Cool overdriven tone can be had by small amps (just google ZZ Top fake amp ), but big rock drum sound is pretty hard to accomplish without either V-drums, or enclosing them in a booth. Both are expensive and out of league for most bands.
Richard is right about the 'frisson' effect, we hear with more than just our ears. In psychoacoustics, it's called a cross-modal response. When your chest cavity gets bumped and clothing moves in response to acoustics which then causes sensation in the skin/hair cells, it adds to the overall psychophysical response. Here's something that used to be in old Brüel & Kjær booklets on human vibration: http://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=501607
See that chest cavity resonance at 50-100 Hz. Boom go the subs.
As for subs and where the energy is audible/tactile that it completely dependent on the room standing wave modal behavior and speaker placement.
"I was getting 95 dBC at the mixing board at the back of the church (approx 50'-60' distance) with just a shield in place."
I was attending a small church where they liked to play it wide open. One particular Sunday morning I could feel my heart being affected. I told the assistant that I couldn't cut it and left, with my heart feeling quite fluttery (new word).
I looked online and found that excessive volume could indeed be damaging. One example was given of a young man in the UK who was exposed to loud music in a pub which lead to His death.
Thanks for all the responses, especially the funny ones!
Kidding aside all very good reasons/explanations why some crank it up as they say. With this said I too love to feel the groove or just feel the music as pointed out in Richard and Rockstar_not's replies, but I guess I may be "special" after all, as I can still feel it at lower volumes.
I'll be sure to tell my wife that tonight.
I'd still like to hear more rationale if anyone can offer some.
Between the physicality and competing volume levels, I think you've heard all the reasons there are. Well, that, and ego. Some people just gotta go to eleven.
I remember a session in New Orleans with a particularly loud band in which I was playing lead guitar. The notes resonating in my body while playing really loud are as close as I have gotten to an out-of-body experience without being in an altered level of consciousness. (I liked it, but the neighbors didn't.)
In the more recent past, I auditioned for a band that wanted to play some funk rock. I was putting in my ear plugs when one of the band members asked me why. "To deal with the drums," I said. The drummer countered by playing at a reasonable volume during the entire session. Drummers who are more than just ROCK players can do that. Learn something new every day.
"My primary musical instrument is the personal computer."
Just thinking, Danny , that is why I like playing on Streetjelly. People can listen at the level they feel comfortable. I am not forever asking "Is it too loud?" like I do when I play at the market on Sundays. Nothing worse that having somebody come and ask you to turn it down. I prefer people to come and ask mne to turn it up!
I think that a lot of it has to do with the gear. 40 years ago, this was considered a good PA:
I can remember doing large halls with only a Bogen 100 watt PA head and a couple of small columns. The gear simply couldn't generate chest-pounding levels.
Today, the average bar band is running thousands of watts through their PA alone, not to mention the cumulative volume of high gain bass and guitar amps. Add to that the fact that the average Rock musician has an IQ of 12, minus a few points for drummers.
Personally, I don't like levels that exceed 90 dB in the middle of the dance floor.
Just thinking, Danny , that is why I like playing on Streetjelly. People can listen at the level they feel comfortable. I am not forever asking "Is it too loud?" like I do when I play at the market on Sundays. Nothing worse that having somebody come and ask you to turn it down. I prefer people to come and ask mne to turn it up!
Josie,
Just FYI I suggest I never ask at a live venue "is it too loud" as someone will surely say it is, even if it's perfect.
I use to play (note the term "use to play") what might have been the perfect gig, a very posh high-end retirement community. This was the perfect venue, location, very nice hiring agent and a great paying gig . . . with only one problem.
You see there was this one guy who sat in the front row of tables who would always complain about me being too loud. I played this monthly gig for six years before this pain in the butt moved in taking it downhill from there.
The rest of my audience knew I was not too loud, if fact to your point some of the dancers would always ask me to give them a little more volume. But after my third song in the 1st set I would see this guy whispering into the hiring director's ear and I knew what was coming next, her dreaded walk to the stage to ask me to lower the volume!
Well half way through this gig the same director would use my mic to make announcements, so this time I purposely left the volume levels at the lower settings I had changed to because of the pain in the butt in the audience. Well when she was trying to make her announcements, having everyone's attention and with no one else was speaking, she could not be heard. Of course she would ask me to turn it louder, making my point that the volume as set was too low for the gig, therefore she could save the 300.00 she was paying me and just play some music through their in house system
I played the remainder of the gig standing "two feet" in front of a Bose Tower that could not be heard in the front row of tables. And while doing so determined in my mind anyway, that sometimes it is not a bad thing to just say as much as I used to love this gig I won't be able to play it anymore.
Sorry, two years later and I guess I am still venting.:>
If you scroll down here http://www.carvinmuseum.com/decade/73-guitaramps.html to the Carvin FR1200 you will see my old amp. It consisted of 1x15”, 4x10” speakers as well as a horn all in one speaker cabinet. I did not use the horn, as it was way to harsh sounding. Setting on top of this rig was my echo-plex unit. I was playing a Carvin 6/12 double neck at that time. I used this rig to compete with our B3/Leslie player.
Those were the days
I haven't lost all of my marbles but there is a small hole in the bag someplace!
64 bit Win 10 Pro, the latest BiaB/RB, Roland Octa-Capture audio interface, a ton of software/hardware
I think this goes back to full classical orchestras and the 40's era big bands. Ever been to either one live in a medium sized hall? Benny Goodman doing In The Mood in Carnegie Hall was loud. I walked into a Harry James rehearsal in Hawaii years ago and he was doing Get Ready with 4 trumpets in front of his full big band. It was screaming loud partly because the room was empty. Same for an orchestra doing the 1812 Overture. And I just remembered I went to a classical pipe organ concert way back when at a huge theater in Philly and that was screaming loud too. You could feel that thing through the seats.
There's nothing new here, if you're sitting in the front rows and certainly if you're dancing right in front of Gene Krupa or Buddy Rich and the horns you were getting shredded.
People have loved getting blasted in more ways than one at live events since large orchestras were invented.
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