Can Musicians Play Quietly Anymore?

[sgcim]

Talking about the ubiquitousness of amplification and PA systems and all, maybe musicians can provide some insight on this (related) question:

How come nobody feels comfortable playing without monitors on stage anymore even in smaller groups/combos (claiming without monitor they cannot hear what they are playing and/or singing)? Is it that today's PAs overwhelm everything that they would otherwise be hearing of what they are playing? As far as I know, stages for smaller groups had the usual microphones and PA systems for the singer(s), guitar(s) and other amplified instruments way back in the 50s too (though of course smaller amps and speakers etc. than today) but AFAIK monitors were unheard of.

A side aspect of loudness too or just different conditioning of the musicians?

Just curious ...

They all use monitors because they have a sound man that controls everything you hear in the audience

I can't stand that BS, because everything is up to the sound man.

I did a SAG production of 'Smokey Joe's Cafe', and the contractor complained that he could only hear me on my solos.

It turned out the chick who was doing the sound at the theater (she went to college for sound production ) decided that was how she thought it should sound.

After the three month run, I never worked for that theater again.

Phil Woods got so sick of that BS, that he refused to use mics for his group for years.

[Jim R]

What room did you hear Shearing, and was the whole quintet playing unmiked in there?

Coconut Grove Club, on Van Ness in SF (I didn't realize it until doing a search just now, but the place was only open from 1995-1998: http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Nightclub-operator-Sam-Conti-dies-3210907.php). I don't recall with regard to mics and such, but I'd say there's a strong possibility. I've never heard less crowd noise in a club setting, and Shearing had the entire place in the palm of his hand. The music got really quiet at times, without losing any "energy".

Edited January 22, 2015 by Jim R

[BillF]

Part of the monotony of jazz which 'fans' rarely notice is the relentless loudness and lack of acoustic subtlety. Van Gelder, as an admired engineer specialised in mixing LPs up to (and beyond) distortion point, was only a symptom of turning jazz into racket. But really it was the big, shouty dance bands that created this. Count Basie!

One of the biggest volume contrasts that could be heard in jazz was between shout choruses by the Basie band and the Count's minimalist piano passages.

Edited January 22, 2015 by BillF

[mikeweil]

I have experienced many of the things mentioned in this thread. I always hated to be at the mercy of sound people who thought they knew what a drum set had to sound like instead of listening to the sound of my set and traying to get it across as good as possible. Most had no idea of dealing with a rather soft and totally undampened set, with no hole in the bass drum for the mic to put in. Most musicians are unable to hear themselves properly on stage and think amplification or monitors will help them; I rarely had problems in hearing myself in an acoustic context, besides that I know what I play ... I think it's a problem of ear training. I learned to listen from the start; others seemed to be mostly concerned with their own playing and how they sound on their own instead of going for a group sound.

You have to learn how to play softly - I had to due to the situations I was playing in. Most drummers I know can play only at a certain volume and rely on the soundmen for dynamics, or use brushes or multi-rods for softer sounds without changing their strokes. Maybe I was a bit naive when I got me a drum set after years of a percussionist, and simply tried to make it sound good acoustically, which it did - but it did not work for the sound men. They are used to picking up kick drums that sound as dead as a cardboard box. When I heard one of the best local drummers with Harold Mabern last week, his small Gretsch bass drum was absolutely dead.

Think of someone like Mel Lewis - driving the hell out of the Kenton orchestra and playing subtle stuff in a combo with probably the same kit.

Similar experiences with musicians I saw perform: Wallace Roney - hiding a mic in the bell of his trumpet although he would have been heard clearly in that small room, making him unbearably loud. In the same room they put a mic over Harold Mabern's piano (they amp the piano a little bit in every concert) and so there was a little distortion, but he didn't play that loud per se - he plays lots of thick chords, for sure.

Playing softly with a groove is an art which is dying out, it seems to me - it's real hard to do.

[Teasing the Korean]

Playing softly with a groove is an art which is dying out, it seems to me - it's real hard to do.

I've been waiting a percussionist to chime in, pardon the pun!

What do you think of the inherent volume of percussion instruments manufactured during different periods and with different materials? I play with Latin percussionists and I hear major differences between the older and newer instruments.

[mikeweil]

I noticed a tendency towards higher pitched conga drums, as the traditional lower tuned drums get in the way of the mid fequency range of guitars and keyboards, muddle it up, and they are more difficult to pick up.

Drumset bass drums are now muffled to death, producing just a kick, the soundman tickles out whatever remains of low frequencies there are at the mixing board. Mel Lewis had a low pitched bass drum with tone, but played with a real fluffy beater to be able to handle it in an unobtrusive way, but it kicked when he hit hard. Listen to the unmixed raw takes of Miles' Jack Johnson sessions - sometimes you can hear a totally unmuffled bass drum that meshed perfectly with the band's sound, but was muffled in the mix. I heard DeJohnette a few years ago, his bass drum had more lows than average, but not that much.

The 1950's timbales were brass shells and calfskin - sounded warmer than today's but have less volume, besides that calfskin is very sensitive to temperature and humidity changes - it drove the players crazy when their drumheads loosened in sweaty dancehalls.

You simply need differently sounding instruments when playing acoustically or miked - the latter inluenced recording techniques, too, due to the same close miking procedures. An instrument, even a woodblock, that sounds fine acoustically, has to be picked up with a mic at some distance, as the room shapes the sound, but that is impossible in today's studios or stages. You need instruments with different sound characteristics for recording - percussionists told me that thirty years ago.

There's hardly a band, no matter what genre, that can play in balance without amplification, even when it would be possible, even percussion bands. How can you learn when you daily experience is that the soundmen make the balance?

And, you need a room with good acoustics to play unamplified - but these are getting rare.

[ep1str0phy]

There's hardly a band, no matter what genre, that can play in balance without amplification, even when it would be possible, even percussion bands. How can you learn when you daily experience is that the soundmen make the balance?

And, you need a room with good acoustics to play unamplified - but these are getting rare.

On a purely practical level, this is a key point--and maybe it reinforces what TTK was suggesting. The aural skill set necessary to operate in a contemporary professional musical context is just different from what was probably demanded from musicians in a pre-electric era. Not only do your ears have to conform to the whims of louder instrumentation, shitty rooms, and inconsistent sound engineering, but you are also saddled with the gear (and commensurate technical demands) necessary to operate in inconsistent environments.

99% of my gigs are as an electric guitarist, though (like many electric guitarists I know) I was trained as an acoustic guitarist first. Obviously, although some of the fundamental mechanics are the same, electric and acoustic guitar are different beasts--in the former case, you're dealing with (most importantly) a multitude of incrementally sensitive volume and EQ settings and absurdly directional sound that is completely different from room to room. I guess you're expected to finesse these issues when gigging on a regular basis, but transitioning from playing with an acoustic instrument--with its consistent internal frequency response and projection--is a pain in the ass.

Granted this, in an ouroboric sort of way, many guys I've encountered have been forced to adapt to instruments that can operate in both "loud" and "soft" contexts to similar success. Most of the "acoustic" jazz I play is like this--even in casual contexts, where you're nominally playing background music. An acoustic bassist is expected to be amplification ready, and (as noted earlier on the thread) the setup job for this kind of instrument is different from that of an instrument that might be used in early jazz. We then reach this bizarre historical juncture where you're playing a soft drummerless casual gig with electric guitar, amplified acoustic bass, and electric piano.

I will add this--there's nothing fundamentally loud about electric instrumentation. On many electric instruments, it's not about volume at all--it's more the fact that certain technical options (such as pedal manipulation, EQing, the relative volume of certain things--like the quieter harmonics) are only available when run through an amplifier. The tier of punishing volume levels will only invariably come into play when dealing with the combined interaction between electric instrumentation, loud drum kits and percussion, and abysmal house sound.

[medjuck]

I saw a string quartet in a 350 seat hall last week. It was wonderful to hear unamplified music. (It's so rare that spellcheck doesn't believe that unamplified is a word-- or did I in fact spell it wrong.)

[JSngry]

ouroboric

Wonderful word, never heard it before. May I ask what was the occasion for you to have learned it?

[ep1str0phy]

ouroboric

Wonderful word, never heard it before. May I ask what was the occasion for you to have learned it?

Deeply uninteresting story, but I had a pretty long discussion with a bandmate about the proper spelling of ouroboros (v. uroboros or oroborous, etc.) and its many derivatives.

[king ubu]

Interesting discussion here! And I agree that amplification sometimes spoils what might have been a good concert ... one of the most impressive concerts I've witnessed was acoustic (except for a bass amp): Lee Konitz, Paul Motian and Steve Swallow - must have been around 1996/97, pretty large venue, but Lee easily filled it with his tone ... and Motian was quite loud actually, yet the balance they achieved was good!

On the other hand, one of the most - physically and also mentally - exhausting concerts I heard was the Brötzmann Chicago Tentet + 1 - and there, inspite of the wall of sound effect, I heard amazing riches of colours and variety - truly rich music. And I really don't think there was a quiet moment in their concert at all, yet nothing was missing, it was terrific and in its own way perfect.