The Aesthetics of Loudspeaker Music

Loudspeaker music can be thought of as a genre, with its own characteristics, style and aesthetics. Because of the willing suspension of disbelief that is present with loudspeakers, the aesthetic qualities of loudspeaker music are not obvious. Similarly, the idiomatic tendencies and gestures that distinguish loudspeaker music from other instrumental genres tend to be obscured as well. Nonetheless, they are present and quite distinctive.

We can begin a brief examination of the aesthetics of the genre by considering the aesthetics implicit in the relevant functional applications we described earlier.

When we listen to music from loudspeakers while regarding the loudspeaker as a reproducer, we generally desire to experience the equivalent of a “musical event” such as a concert or club performance. We wish to experience the sensation of “being there” (or that “they are here”). In short, we have expectations that are related to our expectations for experiencing “live” music. We would like very much to be “transported” into that virtual concert milieu by the illusion yielded by the loudspeakers.

When we listen to music from loudspeakers while regarding the loudspeakers as mimics, we desire to experience “exactly” the sensation we would have listening to the “source” instrument(s). We would like the loudspeaker(s) and our room to “disappear,” and to have only the sensation of “musical performers” and “their space.” This is very closely related, of course, to the aesthetic desire inherent in the reproducer modality. I speculate that this perspective is most appropriate when listening to recordings of solo instruments and small ensembles.

Loudspeaker Music As a Musical Genre

When listening to popular music, which exists primarily as loudspeaker music, we generally expect and desire to experience “the song,” and we generally accept without any qualms that what we are listening to comes from loudspeakers only and is NOT a live performance. We enjoy the “entertainment effect” of music produced for loudspeaker playback.

When listening to recorded classical music, we generally expect and desire to experience music as a private entertainment, a la the Esterhazys (Haydn’s wealthy patrons), but without the expense and complication of resident composer and performers. We enjoy the “perceived quality” of the recorded performance, the virtual performance acoustics and sonic artifacts, as well as the perceived quality of our own physical surroundings.

In this case, we regard the recording as a transcription from another medium, with the willing suspension of disbelief firmly in place and little engagement with the new medium. To “transcribe” means (a) “to adapt or arrange a [musical] composition for a voice or an instrument other than the original,” and (b) “to record for [playback] at a later date” (American Heritage Dictionary). Both definitions are relevant and applicable to music played back by loudspeakers, but we tend to ignore the first definition, that process of adaptation and change in medium. Nonetheless, it is reasonable and correct to view recordings as “an arrangement of music for an instrument other than the original.”

As a general rule when transcribing, we need to consider both the nature of the original AND of the transcribed instrument. The best transcriptions illuminate both qualities of the original that might not have been obvious and qualities that were not available in the original, while maintaining the essential musical identity and “gestalt” of the original. Such considerations are perfectly true for recordings, as well as for more traditional transcriptions. We are “adapting” music to loudspeakers from its original form. From this view, “loudspeaker as reproducer” is not an appropriate perspective.

This raises some questions about loudspeaker music. What sorts of musical qualities are most idiomatic for loudspeakers (and the recording process)? What sorts of musical qualities are least idiomatic (i.e. don’t sound very good) for loudspeakers? What is the social and aesthetic experience of “listening to loudspeakers,” in comparison to “listening to live players?” What qualities of loudspeakers enhance the “loudspeaker listening” experience? It is in the consideration of these questions that we can find some insight into the nature of “loudspeaker music,” as a distinct instrumental genre of music, as distinct, clearly, as “piano music,” “orchestral music,” or “choral music,” and also distinct from issues of musical style.

Let us compare live performance vs. loudspeaker performances from this standpoint for a moment.

• Live music is public and usually occurs in crowded venues.
• Live music is highly social and ritualized.
• Live music has a strong emotional interaction between listeners and performers.
• Live music is mostly limited by human capabilities for performance (except when sound reinforcement is used).
• Live music is a one-time event not under the listener’s control.

At the same time:

• Loudspeaker music is generally performed in private.
• Loudspeaker music is casual, ubiquitous and often extremely intimate.
• Loudspeaker music has no interaction between listeners and performers.
• Loudspeaker music is not constrained by human performance limitations.
• Loudspeaker music is under the direct control of the listener, who can vary it’s spectrum and level at will. It can be played on demand, stopped, restarted and repeated exactly, ad infinitum.
• Loudspeaker music easily and often becomes internalized by the listener.

We do the bulk of our listening to loudspeakers in private spaces. We do NOT, as a rule, gather in public social groups to listen to loudspeakers (excluding dance clubs and aerobics classes!). Loudspeaker music is casual, ubiquitous and often extremely intimate. We regularly use loudspeaker music as a very strong “mood enhancer” for love-making, dining, meditation and other private ceremonies and activities, including “serious listening.” Further, we often use loudspeaker music in our homes and automobiles as a kind of “sonic perfume” (not to mention its use in stores, elevators, restaurants, telephones and AV presentations – sonic pollution as sonic perfume, or vice versa?).

Due to the machine nature of the loudspeaker drive mechanism, the performance does not vary as a function of our listening response. Further, in production, we polish performances to idealize them into best possible performances that lack live blemishes.

Loudspeaker music is not constrained by human performance limitations. Loudspeakers can play indefinitely, at any reasonable level (subject to system design limits). Loudspeakers can play higher, lower, louder, softer, faster and slower than any other instruments.

Because loudspeakers can be played on demand and repeated ad infinitum, recorded performances often become internalized, and given “recordings” obtain mythic status. Listeners often “memorize” recordings (something that almost never happens with live performance). Listeners can and do regularly “program” listening events, or sequences of recordings.

Finally, and most importantly, we must consider the remarkable emergence of loudspeaker music over the past century. In 1900, loudspeaker music (i.e. phonograph performances of music) constituted a very small portion of all music performed, surely less than 1%. A century later, it is reasonable to estimate conservatively that 99.9% of all music experienced is loudspeaker music, and that such music has become ubiquitous. This means that over the past 100 years loudspeaker music has almost entirely displaced “nonloudspeaker music.”

Due to the willing suspension of disbelief, this displacement has happened essentially without notice – our willing suspension of disbelief coupled with our preoccupation with “loudspeaker as reproducer” has masked this change in instrumental usage. We now “listen to loudspeaker music” as our primary, often only, musical activity. Further, we even have the ironical situation now in place where much live music is produced, promoted and presented for the express purpose of encouraging the loudspeaker music equivalents of that live music (i.e. “touring to sell the record”).

This watershed evolution is, to my mind, the single most important change to occur in the history of musical instruments and musical media. That it has happened without notice simply makes it all the more remarkable!