This evening - following Boris Johnson's advice - I attended my firm's Christmas party, the first for two years.
Normally it's a dinner followed by a disco... I hang around until the coffee and mince pies have been cleared away and most people have wandered on to the dance floor, then I bugger off home.
This year, to my surprise, there was a live band (...and, incidentally, no coffee or mince pies). The band consisted of a singer, a drummer, a DJ (maybe also keyboard player?), a saxophonist and a trumpeter. No bass, no guitar. They played dance/disco stuff, some of which I recognised.
What got to me was how painful it was to listen to. I'm not sure if it was sheer volume or the harsh sound of the brass instruments, but it was like an ice pick in the ear. You couldn't talk over it, you couldn't even just listen because it was too uncomfortable. I went home even earlier than usual.
I don't really go to gigs any more but I don't remember the sound having this painful quality.
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For example, a tinny radio in the background can overpower my wife's dulcet tones. Delightful as that might sometimes be, it's a recent development.
And compression / loudness wars, of course.
I have a set of earplugs on my keys at all times. Once your hearing is damaged it doesn’t recover properly, so it’s not worth the risk of not using protection
But sometimes at events like this Christmas party, people will say "oh, listen what they're playing" and I can't recognise it - I'm only hearing the bassline, or sometimes midrangey sounds, I'm not hearing the melody. I think that's only at high volume, but maybe it's not.
I'm not sure if these were real drums - I was right at the back of the very large room and I couldn't really see the band properly. I suspect it was some kind of electronic kit and the only acoustic instruments on stage were those screechy horns.
As I mentioned I don't often go to gigs, but when I do I take earplugs. I started doing that after a Judas Priest gig which left my ears ringing for several days, which gave me a bit of a fright. But I never considered I'd need them for a Christmas party!
But a DJ . Somethings not quite right
Bandcamp
Spotify, Apple et al
There's only 1 brass instrument there.
A sax is a woodwind instrument.
Flutes are also woodwind.
I have to say though - Eq-ing the PA for horn sections is a nightmare as they all have nasty bits to keep out but the freqs are all different of course. Definitely need separate mics / channels for each.
https://soundcertified.com/speaker-ohms-calculator/
Damaged in my youth
Now that I think about it, that's something I'm retrospectively quite angry about.
Funnily enough, I recently had a similar experience at a local black-tie charity event. At the end of the evening, there was a live band - drums, bass, guitar, keys and a singer who was an X-Factor finalist from way back. She could sing - excellent voice. The band were really good musicians (you could see they practice) and it started out OK but the engineer turned up the volume and ruined the sound and people stopped dancing.
Remember, it's easier to criticise than create!
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We've had 21 months of vastly reduced social activity, it's very easy to forget that life is in general a lot quieter than it used to be.