Klarinet Archive - Posting 000107.txt from 2007/07

From: "Karl Krelove" <karlkrelove@-----.net>
Subj: [kl] Loud Shows (OT)
Date: Thu, 12 Jul 2007 20:53:25 -0400

Funny I noticed Rien's tag line just after I got home from a trip we took
some students on. We went into Philadelphia to see Disney's A High School
Musical at (of all places) the Academy of Music. If anyone is unfamiliar
with the show, it's a rock musical with some "horns" in the pit but mostly
guitars, drums and synthesizer. Both the pit and the actors on stage were
amplified so loud that it was frequently painful, and I literally (apropos
Rien's tag) couldn't hear the words or, sometimes, even the tune. It was all
just a strident, painful, din. The only parts I could really make sense of
were the lines of dialog. And we were sitting (10 adults and 81 kids) in the
amphitheater - the third balcony, the highest and most distant from the
stage. The speakers were all in front surrounding the proscenium. Even the
kids thought it was loud. I can't imagine what people sitting closer had to
deal with.

The irony, which wasn't lost even on a few of the students, is that the
Academy was built as an opera house where Verdi and even Wagner were played
with no microphones (indeed, no electricity) at all. Somehow they managed to
be heard back then.

Sorry - just a rant unrelated to much of anything here, but I had to let it
out somewhere.

Now I feel (a little) better. I'll be better still when my ears stop
ringing.

:-)

Karl

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Rien Stein [mailto:rstein@-----.nl]
> Sent: Thursday, July 12, 2007 11:51 AM
> To: klarinetlijst
> Subject: [kl] Re: Il convegno
>
> Rien
>
> "The orchestra was wonderful", he said, "it played so loud I couldn't even
> hear what they were playing!"
>

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