Are you feeling COMPRESSED?

Matthew Neff | Feb 18, 2008 | 0

a sound wave

Dance is most often a visual expression of music. Dance is textured with dynamics to create different moods. A choreographer that hears a faint violin might be inspired to create a small movement based on the instrument's soft melody.... Yes, this is all obvious and you are saying to yourself "Duh! What's the point?"  Well, I am indirectly beginning a convo about the relationship between sound volume, and the intensity of the corresponding movement. What happens to choreography when every instrument's volume is mixed at it's maximum volume? Thanks to the digital age we now have the answer... you get a song where most sound within it is the same volume, eliminating the emotion and dynamism that goes with using volume to prove a point! Read more at the link below and learn why we could be witnessing the death ov movement dynamics...

I  am so grateful for the invention of the iPod. I never have to carry CD's with me when I am teaching or choreographing. Long gone is the backpack I would carry around that had two or three CD books. Those collections of books were heavy and I hated putting that bag on my back when I left my apt. The first mp3 players weren't easy to use and so I never got one. The iPod came along and it was an immediate replacement for most teachers. Most of the studios hated us for using them because we would have to fiddle with the sound system. They generally didn't like that we were plugging in wires to their systems. I knew what I was doing but sometimes the last person taking a wire out would really mess things up. Over the years the studios adapted and now the "iPod wire" is standard. Something odd can happen between Ipods though, and it helps tell the story within this article... Have you ever been in a class and noticed that as one song moved to the next the teacher/choreographer had to readjust the volume? It's not just because they are dumb and can't operate an iPod.

Imagine that a song is the length of 50 leather bound books side by side. Translating all that information into a digital format results in the loss of some of the appeal of some of these books. You don't have the texture of the leather. You don't have the sensation of flipping a page. You lose the physical interaction. When you finish reading a book you get to close it. So now relate that to music. All the files and recording levels of a song are mixed as different tracks. To play these tracks on the tiny iPod  headphones you aren't going to really hear everything. The sound is not live, and it hasn't been since it was in the studio. As a result we can't hear the little things, the complexities of tone and mixing that happen when all the sound waves of a live show are present... so we turn it up to compensate! We have all had experiences where a stranger will have their iPod blasting away and you can hear everything 10 feet away. It's annoying and it's also the worst sound quality anyone could ask for.  (...one time I heard an Ace of Base song coming from some goth kid's iPod. I would of imagined some hardcore metal or punk song playing but No. No. No. Apparently this goth head loves softcore 90's pop.)

Anyway, here is a video that will give you more of a visual reference to what is being digitally done with sound today. The video is from www.turnmeup.org

Does it make more sense now? Do you see how the texture is lost? It's being done more and more. Rolling Stone magazine listed albums that are recent offenders of maximizing volume levels through audio compression. I totally agree that Californication by Red Hot Chili Peppers and Infinity on High by Fall Out Boy  are awful to listen to. It's just so loud that it's just monotonous noise after a few  songs. The albums are compressed knowing that consumers are not carrying around CD players anymore. They know we are going to upload it onto our iPods. We should be able to still listen to music thew way it's intended. More and more artist and producers are pushing for this "bigger" sound to appeal to consumers. It's not appealing though. It's ruining music.

The dance community doesn't really talk about it so much but we use sound all the time. If this trend continues new music in choreography is going to have less of an emotional impact on an audience. Where is the excitement if you are starting the volume at 11? (If you don't get that joke then you need to watch Spinal Tap.) For one piece I choreographed I sat with a sound engineer and we played with levels to build the volume to a specific moment in the dance. He was really getting into playing with levels and creating an environment. I just kinda went along and thought he was doing a little too much. He's a sound geek that got excited. I let him play. I am so glad I did. During the show I snuck in the back and watched the audiences reactions. You would have thought i had choreographed them as well. They all leaned forward at the beginning to hear. As the music built they all were still leaning forward as if they were about to fall off a cliff. I even saw a few people grab under neath their seats. At the very end when the one dancer onstage exhaled her last breath the whole audience followed and fell back into their seats. I learned a valuable lesson in manipulating an environment. Parents have been screaming "Turn the music down!" since the birth of rock and roll but it's even more appropriate in our time now.  You can't have a loud sound if you forget to add in the soft sound.

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Ballet, Jazz, Hip Hop, Tap, Modern, Broadway, Ballroom, Teacher, Enthusiast, Parent, Studio, Competitions & Conventions, Performance (all tags)