HEllo ARdith,

On Thu 2038-May-06 16:02, Ardith Hinton (1:153/716) wrote to Richard Webb:

AH>  I've seen messages from you in other echoes, and you
AH>  strike me as a man of good sense....  :-)

RW>  Glad to hear that, I try anyway .


AH>          Please be patient with me... I'm an unfinished work.  :-)) 

DItto.


AH>  Music hath charms to soothe the savage b(r)east...
AH>  or whatever.  ;-)

RW>  Or root him to the spot in fear in the case of war
RW>  pipes >


AH>          Yes, I'd certainly include that in the "whatever"!  I'm
AH> also reminded of hearing "Onward Christian Soldiers", written by Sir
AH> Arthur Sullivan, played on a pipe organ along with a good choir. 
AH> When they got to "Hell's foundations quiver at the SHOUT of praise"
AH> the entire building shook.  Tsk, tsk.  Sullivan used parallel
AH> octaves there & according to my harmony teacher parallel octaves are
AH> against the rules.  But I think Sullivan knew what he was doing...
AH> [grin]. 

OF course he did, that's a powerful piece of music when
performed that way.  I remember that  parallel octaves thing too.  Another
theory teacher used to rail against parallel
thirds too.  ASked him one day about all these blues cats
who wrote some great music using parallel thirds >


RW>  I remember a kid whacking on a snare drum when I
RW>  was with an ear a foot or two from it adjusting the
RW>  position of a microphone in the studio.  .


AH>          IOW your attention was focused on various subleties when
AH> this kid hit you like a ton of bricks.  I can relate.  Just the
AH> other day, I happened to be sharing a washroom with another female
AH> member of our community band who was in search of toilet paper to
AH> plug her ears because she had to sit in front of the trumpets.  I
AH> can relate to that too.  While James is a drummer, however, I see
AH> he's aware of what's going on around him... as is Nora.  Not *all*
AH> drummers or trumpet players or alto saxophone players are brash,
AH> noisy extroverts....  ;-) 

Yep, told him never to do that to me again .




RW>  I always liked nice theaters, and dreaded some gyms


AH>          Bottom line is, gyms & sports arenas are not designed with
AH> folks like you & me in mind.  An example of how we tend to fall
AH> below the radar... one of my principals gave permission to the PE
AH> teacher to use my classroom for a noon hour basketball team meeting
AH> because it was close to the gym.  Neither of them bothered to ask me
AH> whether I might want to use it.  When three very large guys (all of
AH> whom played large brass instruments) arrived I encouraged them to
AH> warm up as usual.  Shortly afterwards, the meeting reconvened
AH> elsewhere.  :-)) 

  I like it.  When I did a lot of live sound i
dreaded doing those places.


RW>  Otoh the old KRNT radio theater was great to do sound
RW>  in, as was Hoyt Sherman place where they did dramatic
RW>  performances.

AH>          It seems to me that what we're doing involves both art
AH> *and* science. I was privileged to hear a concert at the Albert Hall
AH> in England... where even in the cheapest seats the sound was
AH> fabulous.  I gather "mushrooms" were added to the ceiling just over
AH> a century after the original construction.  I may not live long
AH> enough to see how the newer buildings around here can be fixed.  :-)

I don't think a lot of these modern "boxes" can be fixed
without a complete redesign of the interior.  These old
cathedrals, etc. were built with the proper acoustics for
what was intended to happen in those spaces.  But, we also
didn't have the intrusive noise sources from outside we have now, nor
climate control systems, etc.  THe horse clopping
by pulling the carriage was easily enough ignored, or
isolated.  NOt so the truck going through the gears to make
the hill.  tHen there's the nice climate control system that keeps your
tush cool or warm while you perofrm, or enjoy the performance.

TOo many people who get into performing or capturing
performances don't learn enough about the science of
acoustics and how spaces around us shape the sounds we hear.


Regards,
           Richard
--- timEd 1.10.y2k+