English
中文Musical appreciation has undergone cataclysmic change since the advent of the 20th century. Through ground-breaking developments in the inextricable combination of science, philosophy and marketing, it is indisputable that the listening experience has enjoyed a complete cultural transformation over the past hundred years and continues to accelerate into the future at a rapid rate.
In the past, the physical scenarios in which we listened to music were fundamentally determined by the composer of the music in question. Although inevitably a question of the chicken or the egg in terms of the performative resources available to them; in any case, whether by way of commissioning, social climate or divine inspiration, the logistical nature of a composition as intended by its composer would necessarily provide the starting point for its practical experience by the listener.
However, there is no longer a simple answer to the question of where we listen to music. For reasons of both economy and taste, it is generally fair to say that concert audiences have been steadily in decline over the course of the century. In an effort to continue to financially sustain performing ensembles and organizations, innovative and dramatic measures have been taken across the board as a means of marketing the Classical music experience to the public. We used to listen in halls, churches, salons, theatres, ballrooms and sometimes outdoors. To this list can now be added an infinity of possible installation spaces, not to mention, thanks to the record industry, the kitchen, the Tube, the elevator, the department store, the public toilet, the car, etcetera ad nauseum. These dramatically different locations impact the physical experience of the music that we listen to. The following study will explore these physical differences and in conclusion, suggest ways in which they might implicate differences in the esoteric realm of musical ‘meaning’ in varying performance locations.
Technology and Recording
Unarguably the single most significant development in the field of musical appreciation to date has been the dawn of the recording industry. This provided a cost-efficient opportunity for a world-class musical experience over and over again in the comfort of one’s own home. In addition to the practical differences inherent in these newly intimate listening scenarios, recording technology introduced the landmark psychological principle of acousmatic sound, referring to sound which is heard without seeing an originating cause. The source of the perceived sounds became an imaginary entity. The loudspeaker, in effect, presented a virtual acoustic space into which might be projected a mental image of any real existing acoustic space, such as the concert hall, the church, et cetera. The sudden existence of this virtual acoustic space, for better or for worse, has presented a wealth of new creative possibilities within the contexts of both musical performance and appreciation.
Contemporary listeners have become very much accustomed to the concept of the acousmatic experience by the current fashion of portable media. Now so adept in their projection of an imaginary source landscape, sublime and moving performance on a world-class scale may now be experienced on the frenetic streets of London in peak hour with the help of a good set of headphones. In this sense, does the listening location as such still hold the same import? Through the surge in popularity for personal portable media, the listening environment has been altered from a massed social experience to a very private mental context. The feasibility of genuine musical appreciation in what might seem an incompatible physical scenario invites the idea that the listener’s imaginary projection of the concert hall is now consciously extended outwards to include not only the stage and performers, but also the auditorium and the listening environment, if indeed this wasn’t already the case. Furthermore, if the recording in question is of a live performance in a specific context rather than the studio, what is technically the listening location; the Berlin Philharmonie, for example, or Picadilly Circus? Listening has most definitely taken on a sense of virtual reality.
Auditorium Acoustics
In the present day, with the universal availability in the domestic living room of accurate recordings with “correct” acoustics and original instruments, there exists (compared with, say, fifty years ago) far greater awareness of the importance of music’s architectural and acoustic context.
As might be expected, the exceptional audio quality enabled in the recording studio has had dire ramifications for the continuance of live concert performance. Through such access to a definitive and tangible musical product, a concept which notably did not exist when music was to be exclusively heard live, patrons have now become accustomed to new levels of auditory perfection. The acoustical qualities of a performance space which seats 2000, for example, will inevitably offer a varying experience of the distribution and intensity of sound from seat to seat. The generic simulation of acoustic ‘perfection’ possible in the studio obviously doesn’t account for this variation and with this in mind, listeners may well prefer to opt for the reliability of a world-class recording over the misgivings and idiosyncrasies of live performance. Thus as determined by Schroeder the three interacting problems in concert hall acoustics are
- 1. The physical problem of wave propagation and attenuation in irregularly shaped enclosures;
- 2. The psychological problem of how we, the human listeners, perceive the sound waves impinging on our ears; and, finally,
- 3. The problem of subjective preference: What do people really prefer to hear, do tastes change, and so on?
In continuing an earlier observation, in the history of Western music, compositions were invariably intended for a certain performance space based on the predominance of commissioning culture. Pre-dating the current facility of international travel, programming usually tended towards work by local living composers. It is only a more recent development that the performance canon should include works from the distant past and in doing so, this revival raised and continues to raise questions of appropriation with regards to location, instrumentation and general authenticity. This is equally the case vice versa, with historical venues having accumulated over time. Many have undergone either acoustic preservation or reconstruction to allow their continued use, but having now assumed a very broad spectrum of performance possibilities for economic purposes, the same questions of appropriation and misappropriation exist as a site for a programme which spans repertoire intended for very different acoustic environments.
Performance Installation and Marketing
In marketing terms, a fundamental factor offered by the recording industry was the opportunity for listeners to choose the quality of their musical experience. By suddenly transgressing the boundaries of cultural location, listeners were offered the chance to directly compare and contrast different interpretations of the same musical works and in doing so, to establish their own preferences and favourite performers. This competitive element in the mainstream listening culture has forced companies to think outside tradition to sell their musical product, very often by installation in an unusual or quirky venue, or using an alternative presentational gimmick. Music intended for intimate performance is regularly installed in mammoth venues such as Royal Albert Hall and the Hollywood Bowl to satiate enormous public demand. It seems fair to say that the experience of live performance can no longer be evaluated on purely aural terms, but now more than ever is crucially hinged on the visual, sociological and general experiential aspects of attending such an event, subjective to the particular desires of the listener.
Conclusion: Musical Meaning
The concept of musical meaning in itself is notoriously elusive and highly subjective, having been the subject of critical discussion for centuries. For some the trophy is conscious and intellectual, based on careful study of musical theory as it has evolved over the course of time, with the result being the satisfaction of historical contextualization. For others, musical meaning is an ultimately sensory phenomenon; harmonies and timbres strumming at the heartstrings. A further branch might consider meaning as referential by way of memory; the song which was played at their wedding, for example, or an alternatively momentous occasion. The physicalities of a performance location will most certainly impact upon the physical properties of its sonic experience, but without criteria for defining musical meaning in the first place, it is impossible to even begin to evaluate this in definitive terms in our pluralistic society.
