onsdag 9 december 2009

Regarding dynamics in music

Pop music is seriously flawed. Oh yes it is most certainly! Sometimes verging on retarded in means of expression. And I'm not talking about the popularly supposed forced lack of "dynamics", due to violent mastering, which I personally disagree with. Dynamics in music are about so much more than pp and fff in regards to actual sound pressure level. Dynamics are present in harmonic progressions, in emotional density, in rythmic figures, in melodic lines, virtually every element of a musical piece is capable of displaying dynamics. This is where pop music often fails to deliver. Making all the parts almost equal in volume troughout a 3 minute song is not such a huge sin, considering the other means of dynamics at our disposal. Volume of course is the tool closest at hand, and the most comprehensible one, no doubt, but as musical history has panned out, as society has become less capable of actually taking in sound levels below the sounds of the world (or is it that the sounds of modern day world are really just louder? probably...), it has somewhat lost its meaning. We now have to place the volume dynamics much more narrow, because the upper limit is basically unchanged. That's all fine with me, and quite understandable, to the willing. The answer to this loss of one element of dynamics would naturally be an exploration of the other, currently available elements. But no! Quite the opposite has occured. For the sake of wide understandability, a vicious spiral of simplification. A spiral, because a big part of musical taste, as in all taste, is education. If we were to remove the dynamics of a language, narrow it down to only the most basic words, it would be more easily understandable, superficially. We would get a language, superior of actually deliviering information effectivly. But in my opinion, seriously, the poetry would really suck! Music is an artform, much like poetry, not a means of deliviering information, therefore we want a musical language that's as wide in variety as possible. The musical language taught to our kids today, through radio, TV, and other forced media, is in my opinion way too narrow, too superficial, and too bland. This stands in the way of people actually being able to comprehend, and appreciate more subtle expressions. And please keep in mind, I'm STILL not talking about sound pressure levels! I'm actually not talking down on three chord songs, love songs, or acoustic ballads with nothing but guitar and vocals either. These types of songs have several ways of expressing massive amounts of dynamics. We have successfully removed most of the dynamics in our musical language, narrowed it down to the basic words, and what we have is really an effective way of delivering musical information. But who's listening?

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