[Dixielandjazz] The Noise Dilemma (Same for OKOM Bands)

[Stephen G Barbone]

What?

Cheers,
Steve Barbone
www.myspace.com/barbonestreetjazzband


NY TIMES - April 20, 2008 - by Sarah Lyall
No Fortissimo? Symphony Told to Keep It Down

LONDON — They had rehearsed the piece only once, but already the  
musicians at the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra were suffering.  
Their ears were ringing. Heads throbbed. Tests showed that the average  
noise level in the orchestra during the piece, “State of Siege,” by  
the composer Dror Feiler, was 97.4 decibels, just below the level of a  
pneumatic drill and a violation of new European noise-at-work limits.  
Playing more softly or wearing noise-muffling headphones were rejected  
as unworkable.

So instead of having its world premiere on April 4, the piece was  
dropped. “I had no choice,” said Trygve Nordwall, the orchestra’s  
manager. “The decision was not made artistically; it was made for the  
protection of the players.” The cancellation is, so far, probably the  
most extreme consequence of the new law, which requires employers in  
Europe to limit workers’ exposure to potentially damaging noise and  
which took effect for the entertainment industry this month.

But across Europe, musicians are being asked to wear decibel-measuring  
devices and to sit behind see-through antinoise screens. Companies are  
altering their repertories. And conductors are reconsidering the  
definition of “fortissimo.” Alan Garner, an oboist and English horn  
player who is the chairman of the players’ committee at the Royal  
Opera House, said that he and his colleagues had been told that they  
would have to wear earplugs during entire three-hour rehearsals and  
performances.

“It’s like saying to a racing-car driver that they have to wear a  
blindfold,” he said.

Already there are signs that the law is altering not only the  
relationship between classical musicians and their employers, but also  
between musicians and the works they produce. “The noise regulations  
were written for factory workers or construction workers, where the  
noise comes from an external source, and to limit the exposure is  
relatively straightforward,” said Mark Pemberton, the director of the  
Association of British Orchestras. “But the problem is that musicians  
create the noise themselves.”

Rock musicians have talked openly about loud music and ear protection  
for years. The issue is more delicate for classical musicians, who  
have been reluctant to accept that their profession can lead to  
hearing loss, even though studies have shown that to be the case. At  
the same time, complying with the law — which concerns musicians’, not  
audiences’, noise exposure — is complicated.

One problem is that different musicians are exposed to different  
levels of noise depending on their instruments, the concert hall,  
where they sit in an orchestra and the fluctuations of the piece they  
are playing. In Britain, big orchestras now routinely measure the  
decibel levels of various areas to see which musicians are subject to  
the most noise, and when.

Orchestras are also installing noise-absorbing panels and placing  
antinoise screens at strategic places, like in front of the brass  
section, to force the noise over the heads of other players.

“You have to tilt them in such a way so that the noise doesn’t come  
back and hit the person straight in the face, because that can cause  
just as much damage,” said Philip Turbett, the orchestra manager for  
the English National Opera. They are also trying to put more space  
between musicians, and rotating them in and out of the noisiest seats.

At the Royal Opera House, the management has devised a computer  
program that calculates individual weekly noise exposure by cross- 
referencing such factors as the member’s schedule and the pieces being  
played.

Musicians are spacing out rehearsals and playing more softly when they  
can. As the Welsh National Opera prepared for the premiere of James  
MacMillan’s loud opera, “The Sacrifice,” last year, the brass and  
percussion sections were told to take it easy at times in rehearsal to  
protect the ears of themselves and their colleagues, said Peter  
Harrap, the orchestra and chorus director.

Conductors are also being asked to reconsider their habit of “going  
for a big loud orchestration,” said Chris Clark, the orchestra  
operations manager at the Royal Opera House. Composers, too, are being  
asked to keep the noise issue in mind. “Composers should bear in mind  
that they are dealing with people who are alive, and not machines,”  
said Mr. Nordwall of the Bavarian orchestra.

And companies are examining their repertories with the aim of  
interspersing loud pieces — Mahler’s symphonies, for instance — with  
quieter ones. They are also buying a lot of high-tech earplugs, which  
are molded to players’ ears and cost about $300 a pair. Many  
orchestras now ask their musicians to put the earplugs in during the  
loud parts of a performance.

“I have a computer program that gives me a minute-by-minute timeline  
chart through the whole piece,” said Mr. Turbett of the English  
National Opera. “I can go back to the musicians and say, ‘Between bar  
100 and bar 200, there’s a very loud passage, so please put in hearing  
protection.’ ”

But these remedies can bring problems. Some musicians in the brass and  
percussion sections resent being screened off from their colleagues,  
as if they were being ostracized. Musicians, even if they accept the  
need to use earplugs occasionally, tend to hate wearing them.

Mr. Garner, the Royal Opera House oboist, said: “I’ve spent nearly 30  
years in music and I know all about noise, and occasionally, if I’m  
not playing and there’s a loud bit next to me, I might shove my  
fingers in my ears for a few bars. But I have yet to find a musician  
who says they can wear earplugs and still play at the same level of  
quality.”

The modern noise-level-conscious orchestra is also dependent, of  
course, on the indulgence of the conductor. Arriving at an orchestra  
to find that decisions have been based solely on musicians’ noise  
exposure can be galling to the sort of conductor who likes to be in  
control, which is most of them.

Although Switzerland is outside the European Union, an extraordinary  
noise-related argument between the conductor and the Bern Symphony  
Orchestra disrupted the opening night of Alban Berg’s “Wozzeck” in  
March.

The piece called for 30 string players and 30 wind and percussion  
players, all crammed into a too-small pit. When the stage director  
complained in rehearsals that the music was too loud, the conductor  
didn’t order the orchestra to play more softly, but instead asked for  
a cover over the orchestral pit to contain the noise, said Marianne  
Käch, the orchestra’s executive director.

That meant the noise bounced back at the musicians, bringing the level  
to 120 decibels in the brass section, similar to the levels in front  
of a speaker in a rock concert. The musicians complained. The  
conductor held firm. But when the piece began, “the orchestra decided  
to play softer anyway in order to protect themselves,” Ms. Käch said.

That made the conductor so angry that he walked off after 10 minutes  
or so, Ms. Käch said. Told that there had been “musical differences”  
between the conductor and the orchestra, the perplexed audience had to  
wait for the two sides to hash it out.

In the end, the orchestra agreed to return and finish the performance  
at the loud levels. For subsequent performances, a foam cover that  
absorbed instead of reflecting the sound was placed above the pit, and  
the conductor agreed to tone things down.

“This is the problem you find in many places, that the conductors are  
conducting more and more loudly,” Ms. Käch said. “I know conductors  
who have hundreds of shades of fortissimo, but not many in the lower  
levels. Maybe the whole world is just becoming louder.”