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pim_derks
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« on: 20:43:52, 07-04-2008 » |
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The Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra has decided a piece by Dror Feiler is just a bit too loud for its audiences and musicians. It's decided to scratch the piece from its performance schedule: http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,2144,3246808,00.html |
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"People hate anything well made. It gives them a guilty conscience." John Betjeman
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oliver sudden
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« Reply #1 on: 22:34:53, 07-04-2008 » |
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It's never a good sign for an audience when an orchestra's members start reaching for their earplugs. Well that's quite ridiculous - plenty of orchestral players use them from time to time, some even more performances than not, especially in the percussion. In itself it's a fair point that things can get damn loud up there. And as orchestras go the Bavarian RSO are pretty out there when it comes to commissioning pieces or they certainly wouldn't have gone for something by a wacko like Feiler in the first place!  |
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pim_derks
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« Reply #2 on: 16:01:29, 08-04-2008 » |
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"People hate anything well made. It gives them a guilty conscience." John Betjeman
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martle
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« Reply #3 on: 22:08:00, 22-04-2008 » |
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I was at a board meeting for the local orchestra* yesterday. This stuff is real, EU law, and about to hit hard. There are two issues: 'peak' amplitude hits (which are measured accumulatively) and 'average' exposure, measured by weekly dose. The draft legislation putatively makes employers responsible - so an orchestra that contracts players must ensure that earplugs and noise shields (which are carp) are available. An orchestra that employs 'casual' labour on a concert-by-concert basis will be obliged to forewarn players of likely amplitude levels so that they can 'budget' for their weekly intake. Now, here's the clincher. Composers are also targeted. They won't be directly accountable; but if a commissioning body has qualms about likely amplitude levels in a new piece, it may well feel obliged to stipulate dynamic restrictions from the composer. ('That FFFF has got to be pared down to FF. Sorry.') Percussion players are the most vulnerable to injury, apparently. *This was the orchestra that played a certain green peace piece in March, which certain Members attended. Butler scored 7 illegal hits (all with bass drum). |
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Green. Always green.
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oliver sudden
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« Reply #5 on: 22:33:36, 22-04-2008 » |
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The draft legislation putatively makes employers responsible - so an orchestra that contracts players must ensure that earplugs and noise shields (which are carp) are available. An orchestra that employs 'casual' labour on a concert-by-concert basis will be obliged to forewarn players of likely amplitude levels so that they can 'budget' for their weekly intake. IMESHO so they damn well should. The hazards of noise levels are real and there are measures available to deal with them - an employer has an obligation to provide a safe working environment as far as is reasonably possible. I don't find noise shields carp myself. I've done plenty of concerts I couldn't have got through without them and there have been occasions (mostly involving Varèse!) where I've found myself saying that either there are noise shields between me and the brass or I don't play the concert. On the other hand the number of 'f's on the note is very far from being the only determinant of the noise level... |
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perfect wagnerite
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« Reply #6 on: 22:44:26, 22-04-2008 » |
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This may be of interest: http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/music/article3676238.eceI enjoyed the comment that Birtwistle was mindful of the noise at work regulations while composing The Minotaur. However, there is a serious point here; it is surely unreasonable to expect players to endure damage to their hearing, and there does seem to be indisputable evidence that this happens. I should have thought that earplugs represented an inexpensive, unobtrusive and workable answer. After all, the key issue is what the players hear rather than the audience. More generally, I wonder whether we have become too used to the idea of amplification and that is why, as the article suggests, music has got louder. I recently attended a performance by the local youth big band, in a relatively small church, and the gig was massively over-amplified, putting up a painful wall of sound. What was it doing to the young players' ears, and why does an ensemble of half a dozen saxophones, four trombones etc need amplification in a room of that size? And it did nothing for the music, which simply became noise. Perhaps we as a society are turning into volume junkies. Incidentally, I was involved in some research some years ago about traffic noise and vibration and IIRC it is clearly demonstrable that low-pitched noise at a similar decibel level has a more damaging effect - which may explain why the bass drum is a particular problem. |
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At every one of these [classical] concerts in England you will find rows of weary people who are there, not because they really like classical music, but because they think they ought to like it. (Shaw, Don Juan in Hell)
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martle
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« Reply #7 on: 22:45:59, 22-04-2008 » |
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Green. Always green.
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richard barrett
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« Reply #8 on: 23:03:03, 22-04-2008 » |
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I do agree with both pw and ollie, but I'd also have to say that these issues can be dealt with in a sensitive artistic sort of way or in a hamfisted jobsworth sort of way.
What worries me is that the latter can easily be used as censorship. Returning to Dror Feiler, I suspect that the facts that the title of his piece means "State of Siege" and that it begins with the sound of prerecorded machinegun fire, and, knowing DF and his work and his outspokenness on sensitive issues (especially in Germany) like Israel/Palestine, I suspect many other features of it too, played an unstated but perhaps more decisive role in the orchestral management's decision to pull the piece. Dror will be a featured composer at this year's Huddersfield Festival so members will be able to judge for themselves what might have happened.
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Eruanto
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« Reply #9 on: 23:21:49, 22-04-2008 » |
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the number of 'f's on the note is very far from being the only determinant of the noise level... Indeed. For one thing, music which one does not like seems louder than music that one does. |
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"It is not our part to master all the tides of the world, but to do what is in us for the succour of those years wherein we are set"
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Notoriously Bombastic
Posts: 181
Never smile at the brass
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« Reply #10 on: 00:18:50, 23-04-2008 » |
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More generally, I wonder whether we have become too used to the idea of amplification and that is why, as the article suggests, music has got louder. I recently attended a performance by the local youth big band, in a relatively small church, and the gig was massively over-amplified, putting up a painful wall of sound. What was it doing to the young players' ears, and why does an ensemble of half a dozen saxophones, four trombones etc need amplification in a room of that size? And it did nothing for the music, which simply became noise. Perhaps we as a society are turning into volume junkies.
I also find it odd - on a bass trombone, I can cause quite a bit of damage. (or somewhat more responsibly, I could fill a reasonable sized church) So when I play in a rock band in a venue holding 100-200 and I'm fighting against miked up guitars, I really wonder what's going on. NB |
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stuart macrae
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« Reply #11 on: 01:34:40, 23-04-2008 » |
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I share Notoriously Bombastic's perplexity - whenever I've been to rock gigs in small venues, the sound seems incomparably louder than sitting in front of an orchestra. Now I know that's not the same as sitting right in front of the percussion and brass sections, but perhaps it's something to do with the type of sound? Rock gigs always seem very trebly to me, with the bass more 'felt' than heard. Whereas I think the really loud things in an orchestra are the low brass, timpani and bass drum. Having said that, the only person I know who has had hearing loss from orchestral playing is a piccolo player (who played in an opera house pit). Maybe acousticians can do something about all this - at least the average noise level could be reduced by damping the surfaces around the players... This is quite funny: “This is the problem you find in many places, that the conductors are conducting more and more loudly,” Ms. Käch said. “I know conductors who have hundreds of shades of fortissimo, but not many in the lower levels. Maybe the whole world is just becoming louder.”
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oliver sudden
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« Reply #13 on: 17:44:34, 23-04-2008 » |
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in a sensitive artistic sort of way or in a hamfisted jobsworth sort of way.
What worries me is that the latter can easily be used as censorship. Call me a hamfisted jobsworth if you will... ... ... ...(waits for chorus)... ...but I reckon that in fact the only way to avoid the possibility of such 'censorship' is by being anything other than sensitive and artistic and setting down exactly what's permissible in terms of noise level and what isn't, and sticking to it. I don't think anyone has the right to expect someone as part of their daily work to be sensitive and artistic about their levels of exposure to anything that causes irreversible deterioration in health. Music beyond a certain volume level does, whoever wrote it and whatever its other qualities may be. |
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richard barrett
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« Reply #14 on: 17:56:40, 23-04-2008 » |
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I don't think anyone has the right to expect someone as part of their daily work to be sensitive and artistic about their levels of exposure to anything that causes irreversible deterioration in health. That wasn't my point. My point was that the BRSO may well have got to a point where they were looking for any excuse to avoid putting on this piece and facing the attendant accusations of antisemitism, rather than looking for ways to avoid subjecting the orchestral musicians to dangerous sound-pressure levels. What I mean by "dealing with these issues in a sensitive artistic sort of way" is creating a situation (using baffles, earplugs, loudsüpeaker placement for the playback and so on) such that neither the artistic aims of the music nor the ears of the musicians are damaged. Obviously.  |
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