Klarinet Archive - Posting 000129.txt from 2007/07

From: Martin Baxter <martinbaxter@-----.net>
Subj: [kl] Thanks and Loud Bands
Date: Mon, 16 Jul 2007 07:58:33 -0400

Jim, thanks for your answer to my query on Big Easy and Peter Eaton
m'piece.
now re Loud Bands:

There is a fair amount of medical evidence that each generation is
deafer than the previous one. (Didn't YOUR parents think that your
records were played too loud?). This causes each generation to play
their music louder.
Although this itself becomes a contributory cause to the increasing
deafness it is not the primary cause.

Now I have accepted this I take precautions when I go to a
concert. Even at 70 I don't need to hear a big band electronically
amplified, but I now realise that the younger members of the
audience do. Classical music audiences, especially chamber music,
contain few young people because, to quote avery musical pupil of
mine, they are too quiet to be exciting. (He goes nevertheless).

If we want to encourage the audience of the future we need to be
aware of this. If we wish to keep volumes at a level that we 'old
stagers' prefer we must remember that as we die off there will be so
few potential audience that live unamplified music will become
unviable economically. OK I love playing music in various genres
with a bunch of friends, but I would be sorry indeed if I never could
hear the kind of stuff we play played live by experts; recordings
just aren't the same.

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