[rodgersorgan] You have a right to remain silent,
- From: noel jones <gedeckt@xxxxxxxx>
- To: rodgersorgan@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sun, 27 Apr 2003 13:53:35 -0400
You have a right to insist the sound system be shut off!
Today at church the children signed Jesus Loves me...after a 3 minute wait
while
the sound person played the wrong tape, then searched for the right one...just
after rehearsal a few minutes before.
Then the soloist sang with tape...played perfectly except for a very high howl
of feedback throughout the whole song.
Could things get worse?
I then went to a large church where my wife is playing continuo on the
Roland/Rodgers harpsichord today.
She performed with this community chorus two years ago, also doing the Messiah
in the local college auditorium, with string quintet and it was lovely.
Today during lunch I mentioned that the sound guy would probably plug directly
into the harpsichord.
When we got to the church he had already patched directly into the harpsichord,
had 4 mikes suspended over the chorus and had soloist microphones up and
running. He seemed to be looking over the string quintet instruments rather
carefully, looking for the 1/4 sockets to plug his microphone lines into.
Following a short heated meeting whit my wife, during which I (peacemaker!)
told
him that if he didn't disengage from the harpsichord she wouldn't play. Hey, am
I tactful or what? He then turned up the stage monitors which amplified the
strings into the choir area, then turned up the soloist mic's.
At this point the string players and the harpsichordist are hearing themselves
playing and also being surrounded with the sound of themselves playing...and
hearing the soloists bigger than life.
How loud should they play? If they play soft, the sound man turns them
up...loud
and the sound man turns them down. We moved the harpsichord up into the center
of the orchestra to get it away from the choir mikes, and, as I was leaving, he
was putting microphones at each string player.
Where have we all gone wrong?
One year a delightful chamber performance of the Messiah, much as it was heard
in small venues at Handle's time...this year the power...but not the glory...of
the Mormon Tabernacle Choir and the Utah Symphony Orchestra without the payroll
to match.
What hat Edison wrought? Moderation in all things. Using electricity to power
a blower on an organ, using electricity to make the sound of a pipe organ
available to even those humble churches without the means for instruments made
of pipes.
--
noel jones, aago
athens, tennessee, usa
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