Why buy a ticket to the Bluesfest?

You can hear the Bluesfest and many other Bayfront programs over two miles away, even with all the windows closed.  Why spend money on a ticket, find a parking place, be jostled by the crowds, and have your ears in pain, when you can listen in the comfort of your home?

Or you could find a spot on the Lakewalk or in Canal Park and hear the music just fine.  I bet you could even hear all the words sitting in Amazing Grace.

On the other hand, you won’t see the performers and you won’t enjoy sharing the music with hundreds or thousands of other fans.

Don’t get me wrong, I’ve listened to music of many genres willingly at a wide range of volume.  I prefer to decide for myself when I will subject my ears to loud music.

I’ve listened to Mu Daiko at Hamline’s Sundin Hall.  I described listening to the pounding of the Japanese drums as fun way to go deaf.  I’ve enjoyed listening to Max Dakota and his group blast forth in Beaner’s.  And I’ve gone to several concerts at Bayfront.  But as I’ve grown older, much of the over-amped music is painful to my ears.

We used to go to the Chester Bowl concerts, enjoying Willowgreen, the Upbeats, and many other groups.  We would sit in the middle rows without much discomfort to our ears.  But over the years these concerts have gotten much louder.  We can often hear some of the words about a half-mile away.  A few years ago we decided to go to a Chester Bowl concert.  When we got to the entrance to the park, the music was so loud that my ears hurt.  We turned around to go home and never went to another concert there.

I actually wonder why small spaces need microphones other than to make conversation difficult.  I’ve sung at Beaner’s and feel that I could project my voice without a mike all the way to the front alcove.  But do any of the people sitting in the front alcove really want music?  Maybe they are there to read a book or have conversation with a friend.

Even as a so-so singer I’ve been able to project my voice quite well.  I remember once practicing in the farthest corner of the social hall at the UU Church on College Street and having somebody in the garage tell me they could hear my voice.

How did the Greek actors project their voices in the amphitheaters without mikes?  How did the great orators of the 19th century project their voices without mikes?  How many operas and plays have been performed in all kinds of spaces without mikes?  At one of the school plays I remember, the teen-age actors projected their voices to back rows of an auditorium about the size of many theaters in Duluth.

Now actors have funny-looking gadgets by their cheeks.  When the UMD Theatre first used mikes I remember my disorientation of hearing their voices from the center of the ceiling.  Now it seems the speaker placement has improved so that it seems the voices are coming from where the actors are standing.

It seems that many people can’t have a moment of silence.  There has to be music on all the time, even if nobody else is interested.  Sometimes I don’t mind, especially those Essentia Health departments that play Vivaldi while you are on hold.  I just wish the playback wasn’t so erratic.  And I appreciate the sometimes piano playing in St. Mary’s Hospital lobby and the classical music that is played in the lobby of the Essentia Second Street building.  But I do mind that music that is played in the Essentia Fitness Center.  In certain places it can make conversation difficult.

Years ago I bought an iPod to drown out the Fitness Center music.  Since then I’ve moved up to an iPhone and prefer listening to podcasts.  Even then, if I stand in the “wrong” place, the ceiling speakers make it hard for me to hear the voices on the podcasts.  Besides the audio distraction, the Fitness Center has added the visual distraction of flat screen TVs, generally tuned to Sports Central or whatever SC means.  How many times do I have to watch the same touchdown?

But worse are the people that crank up their earbuds so loud that they drown out earbuds of people on neighboring machines. I haven’t done this to these “deaf” people, but I’ve pulled out my own earbuds and asked friends if they can hear them.  The answer is always “No.”  I’ve sort of learned not to call people on their loud music impinging on others; too often they get mad rather than apologetic.

My final gripe is about drivers who have their car radios so loud that one can hear them two blocks away.  And of course, very heavy on the bass.  Boom! Boom! Boom!  I have cranked up MPR when waiting at a light next to one of these people, but I can’t match them and they don’t even seem to notice.   I wonder what would happen if I cranked up the Queen of the Night’s aria from Mozart’s Magic Flute. It can be screechy.  Listen to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C2ODfuMMyss.  Actually Diane Damrau’s voice is pleasant (if you can say an evil character has a pleasant voice) and she has none of the screeching that I’ve heard from other sopranos in this role.  Another good performance is by Robin Schlotz, a 14-year-old boy soprano.  Not a single screech!  See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F9ijwfRTv0o.

Enjoy whatever you like, but consider that those around you may have different tastes or just want quiet, say for sleeping.

This also appeared in the Reader Weekly of Duluth, 2015-08-13 at http://duluthreader.com/articles/2015/08/13/5763_why_buy_a_ticket_to_the_bluesfest

Why?

Why?  Of the reporter’s “who, what, when, where, and why”, why seems too often used and too often not used enough.

“Why can’t I stay up?”  “Why do I hafta eat…” are among the persistent questions of children.

“Why don’t they …” is one of the persistent questions of adults who absolve themselves of any responsibility for actions of governments and corporations.

And sometimes we can’t really do much about many activities except ask, “Why?”  Here are a few of my annoying why’s.

Why do so many people complain about city workers standing around doing nothing but so few people complain about private contractors standing around doing nothing?  I often see more of the latter than the former.  In both cases they are generally doing one of three things.  One, they have to wait for more trucks to arrive to deliver or take away things.  Two, they have to discuss the next steps.  Three, like all of us, they need a break.

Why do people in dark cars speed through parking garages without lights and ignore people who are backing out of spaces?  Why do they think the backing drivers can see through the other parked cars?  When I was a bus driver, one of the “yard rules” was that backing buses had right-of-way.  There is no way that a driver backing a 30 or 40 foot vehicle could see through all the intervening buses.  Think of the driver of a compact car trying to see through a pickup truck while backing out.

Why do people insist on talking on cell phones while driving?  A few days ago I was walking across a parking lot and a driver was so busy on his cell phone that he didn’t even notice me.  Had I said “Boo!” he might have swerved into a parked car.

Why do drivers turning left stay behind the crosswalk, but drivers turning right go over the crosswalk?  The first may keep others from turning left on that light cycle.  The second never look to their right for pedestrians.

Why do people have to have car stereos so loud that they can be heard a block or more away?  I have been stopped alongside driver’s whose radios drowned out the sound from mine.

Why do sound systems have to be so loud that the words are distorted?  I didn’t enjoy the excellent singing of “Les Misérables” because the distortions of the over-amped sound system garbled words.

Why do sound systems have to be so loud that they can be heard a mile or more away?  Anybody with a car stereo that loud might get a ticket.

We can hear the Chester Bowl concerts over a half-mile away.  Years ago we enjoyed concerts by Willowgreen and by the Downbeats within a few dozen feet of the stage.  Then somebody decided to crank things up.  The last time I tried to go to a Chester Bowl concert, I wouldn’t even enter the park.  The sound was so loud that my ears hurt at the entrance on the Skyline Parkway.

The Bayfront concerts are even worse.  I could understand some of the words of a recent performer while standing in front of Darland Hall at UMD!  What’s that, about two miles away?  I gave up going to Bayfront concerts years ago.  I think the last time I went was when a friend was playing, and even his music was too loud.

Why do so few people show up to vote?  Don’t they realize that by not voting they get us farther from a democracy and closer to an oligarchy?  That is, “rule” of the people gives way to rule of the few.  Even if your favorite candidates are not favored by the polls, if you show up at the polls, the “winners” will have a smaller margin of “victory”.  There wouldn’t be so much talk of “landslides” if candidates won by 100,000 votes to 95,000 votes instead of 100,000 votes to 50,000 votes.  Also remember polls can be very, very wrong.  Jesse Ventura was predicted to come in third for governor, but enough people didn’t pay attention to the polls that he came in first.

Why do so many people complain about large corporations and then clammer to buy their products?  I know, I know, we need large corporations for our cars, computers, and cell phones, but we can at least get our coffee at locally-owned coffee shops.  I am amazed at the number of liberals who get their books at Amazon when they can get those same books at a locally-owned bookstore.

Why do so many people complain about government inefficiency and mistakes but ignore corporate inefficiency and mistakes?  If corporations are so good why are there so many complaints on customer support blogs?  Why are there warranties other than a revenue source?  Why are there so many typos in books and newspapers?

Finally, why do so many writers keep writing columns to change the world?  Far better writers than they have tried changing the world, but very few of them succeed.  Even then, things still go badly again.  Why?

Mel asks why is he getting older but not wiser.

Also published in Reader Weekly, 2014-08-07 at http://duluthreader.com/articles/2014/08/07/3861_why.

Another noisy summer Tuesday night

We are sitting in our home office with closed windows.  We are getting a city-sponsored concert whether we want it or not.  The park is 0.57 miles away, but the volume is as if somebody in the next block is playing a radio at full volume.  Now and then we can even distinguish a few words sung or spoken.

We used to go to the concerts now and then, but we gave up when the volume got louder.  A couple of years ago we were standing on the road about an eighth-mile from the stage.  We couldn't tolerate the volume.  We don't even look for the schedule of events anymore.

We considered going to a restaurant and hanging out until the scheduled end of the concerts, but many restaurants have live music later in the evening at, you guessed it, high volume.

Hey, I'm an old guy who likes a wide range of music, but I would like to hear music for a few more decades.  Please, promoters, preserve my hearing.