Disrespecting Music

I read years ago (and cannot find the bookmark, will add later if I find it) how music was being "flattened," with the dynamic range taken out. Soft passages were made louder, really loud passages a little softer, so that the whole was of a very similar loudness.

I think I realized why this evening when driving. (Quiet driving is a really good time to think.)

We use music differently than a century ago. We don't go to a quiet hall to hear a concert, or a quiet room to hear a recording. We carry music with us, in the car or bus or down the street. That means ambient noise, and quite a lot of it. Quiet passages are lost in the road noise (as I found when we tried to listen to Beethoven when driving to Louisville) unless you turn the volume way up--which makes the forte parts problematic. So you do some flattening yourself with the volume knob. Sound engineers can do it better--they know what you need for your aural shield, and how to fiddle with the sound to make a passage sound sort of pianissimo when it is really loud enough to be heard over a garbage truck.

I wrote this in a waiting room, with soft voices behind the glass shields, a faint hiss of air handlers, and a not-so-dull roar from the highway nearby. The music playing was soft and slow--and I could hear the muted trumpet, but not the piano line or the rest of the horns. To flatten the piece would spoil the effect--so I lose either way, unless I can find it again and listen in quiet; giving the music the respect it deserves.