hardlyknower.net

If you’re making these mistakes, stop.

I own a decibel meter, which makes me a very smart and important person. As such, I have gleaned truths about the world and music – truths which, truthfully, need imparting. I fear that many of you have wasted your lives listening to music incorrectly. I would like to help you.

The ambient noise around you – the base loudness of air conditioners, wind, motorcycles, etc., is an important piece of data to have, and you can find it by downloading an app onto your phone. That would be interesting for you, but I’m going to save you the trouble by giving you all the information you need to make a truly educated decision next time you put on an album or single or Disney soundtrack: In the desert, the middle of nowhere, ambient noise is about 28 decibels; in a suburban neighorhood, it can get up to 65dB; in a city, you’re fucked.

Now, consider music; the most complex and multilayered form of human sound. A lawnmower, for contrast, is a stupid, dumb sound. It’s awful. It’s inelegant. Music, on the other hand, highly elegant. It’s refined. Even the shittiest pop song you’ve ever heard has more going on than a lawnmower – no matter whether it’s a push one or a riding one or one of those ones where you stand on it and sort of look like Han Solo encased in carbonite, but without the carbonite.

But I digress.

If you want to truly hear music, you have to get way above that ambient number. You have to crush it. Let me explain this.

Look, a rock concert is going to be at least 100dB, if it’s being run by a reasonable person. In that case, you’re going to hear every pick squeal of every guitar, you’re going to hear the modulation in the keyboard, you’re going to hear the singer’s vibrato. At 100dB, your ears are being assaulted.

And that is a good thing.

But recorded music is different.

Recorded music is the way that (to make up a number) 97% of music listening is done in the American ’20s; Spotify reigns supreme; YouTube hosts listening parties every second of every day; every store in the country plays the shittiest songs of any given genre every single moment they’re open. And recorded music is dynamic.

You’re not being blasted. You’re sitting in a wash of music, and parts of that music are louder (say, a snare drum), while other parts are quieter (a backup singer, a tasteful jaw harp). Maybe the snare is at 85dB in your listening position – be it in a car, your living room, on the subway – and therefore entirely audible and crunchy. But the tasteful jaw harp? That may be sitting much lower in the mix. In fact, it may be below the level of the ambient noise in your listening location. If that’s true, you’re never going to hear that tasteful jaw harp. It is invisible, inaudible, and inexistent to you.

And that is a tragedy.

Because it’s probably really tasteful.

I believe that every aspect of a piece of music – especially one you like – should be heard.

The only way to do that is to – in the words of one Mr. de la Rocha – turn that shit up. In order to fully appreciate music, it must be loud. You must hear every pick squeal and backup singer and jaw harp, because it’s in the music, and if it’s in the music, and you don’t hear it, what’s the fucking point?

Why would the jaw harpist put so much effort into being tasteful if no one will ever aurally taste that flavor? Why would the backup singer harmonize angelically only to be drowned out by lawnmowers?

If these people knew how you society was listening to them – quietly, so as not to cause a ruckus, or to focus on homework – I believe they would be afflicted by a malaise so severe so as to not even care if a lawnmower went by whilst they were recording their parts. They would just say, “Well, the lawnmower is going to be mixed quiet, and so am I, and no one listens loud enough to get all the details, so even though the tastefulness of my jaw harp is decreased, leave it. I have no effect on the world. I must now go eat fried chicken and smoke methamphetamines to replace the fullness I would have felt had society decided that music was better louder.”

Is that the world you want? It’s not the one I want. Not at all.

I could go further than this, but an officer of the law seems to be taking issue with my Iron Maiden marathon on my sound system. I can see on my decibel meter (which I have) that the music measures 196 decibels at four meters from the source. I will assure this policeman that I am listening at the correct volume, and that he should check next door for insufficient listening habits. Shouldn’t be more than a five second encounter.

Again: Keep it loud, or the jaw harpist will be clinically depressed.