Unplugging It

About Music ... in general. Unplug it! (Just thoughts!!!)

I have, on many occasions, asked folks to evaluate music by "unplug it", as a way for folks to find something within the playing and the composition of the piece ... not for any other reason, although some other things have come up from it.

MUSIC, for thousands of years has not had amplification (there are other details, more later) to speak of other than its placement on a stage, which 500 years ago, was a large sumptuous living room, so to speak, where the sound metrics are not as important as they would be on a larger scale. 

For me, any piece of music, will stand up when unplugged and we can see the examples in Keith Emerson's work, when done by Rachel Flowers, and now Rick Wakeman is beginning to do the same on the solo piano for many YES pieces and his own, although he is not capable (or interested) in the curry version of TFTO at all ... which for my tastes is really sad, for his work there is a true example of an orchestral work with everyone together, instead of something like CTTE where his bits are on the show off/loud side to make a point ... which in this example fit things well, but in some ways, it is more than is really needed, but we remember it with affection, so my saying this seems like a knock, but it is not intended to. I love it as it is! 

Amplification is something that will need to be studied more ... and help figure out why the orchestra design placed the lower instruments behind the violins in the back, almost to the point where they can't be heard! But, when you go back to the really old days, when music and theater were one, not separate, a lot of Greek Theater is known to have been done in the early morning, because it appears that the voices carry better in the morning when it's cool than it does later when it is warmer. This is, often, a mandatory exercise for Advanced Acting classes at many Universities when they do Greek Theater. I imagine that there are similar statements about instruments carrying in various situations, but I have never really found a good study on this and my chance to ask my professors at UCSB about this, is long gone and basically impossible. Or how, Tangerine Dream, without enough electricity to even heat the hall itself, still managed an excellent show that ended up in a record as a double LP, no less!

Too much of the music we hear today, is amplified to a ridiculous point and too much of it is about effects within the music. Effects have always, in some way, been a part of the music, but they were all accoustic and not electric, and the violin, and other instruments have had their share of abuses in many  hands over the centuries, but they still survived, and the music got stronger, more than likely because the numbers in the "orchestras" got way bigger, to the point that today, the big ones are over 100 folks alone! Well, to be fair, with an orchestra that big, you really don't need the amplification a whole lot, although some things are going to be very hard to hear if they are small, and soft. 

The recording methods of the past 75 years, have kinda changed the mechanics of it all ... but I'm not a great fan of a lot of metal and over amplified music, because I'm not sure that there is anything behind it when it becomes unplugged ... and it reminds me of many bands, a few years ago that went "unplugged" and they all sounded very good ... which ought to tell you where the music is ... but you are not going to hear some of these top bands today unplugged ... except one, that has done it classically and regularly ... Marillion!

It makes a massive difference. Although a couple of things are really scary ... both The Edge (U2) and Andy Summers (The Police) showed examples in their segments with their bands in "Behind the Music" that were very scary and showed something that we probably need to address sooner or later and figure out how to notate it ... Andy played a segment without the amplification, and wow ... it was bad. He plugged it in ... it was a part of a hit song! The Edge showed something similar as to how it sounded in both cases, and how in the unplugged state it was not usable. But you think that Bono can not sing any of their pieces with just his voice? He does and he has!

My only thought and hope about all this, is that the ability to unplug it, make the music stronger, and us thinking that only amplified music is the future, is possibly naïve and not what music history is, or will forever be ... it makes us look like we have already broke up the orchestra and thousands of years of music, because it is not amplified, and I think that disregarding history and its lessons, will hurt in the end ... we will end up with nothing ... and may be that is a good thing ... start from scratch and learn something new properly?