Sound Off

Allow me to take a break complaining about life and actually digress (likely into a complaint) into a topic that people might actually be interested in reading.

You’ll recall from before that I spent a week or so out at the annual city/county hootenanny (the fair, for short). Aside from wanting to declare myself as the next candidate on the bachelor and turn another perfectly innocent girl into a psychotic babbling idiot (it’s my spiritual gift, I’ve decided; so if anybody has an enemy they’d like to see turn into a psychotic babbling idiot, I’m available), I also got to talk to quite a few people about southern gospel music. Whether its been mentioned before or not, I’ve got a little gig at the local sg radio station. From the way the new ratings looked, you likely haven’t heard of it. Apparently, though, I am a hit with the ladies 55 and over. Maybe some of them have to have hot granddaughters.

Alas, I digress. If it’s not obvious, I sorta stray into the more progressive side of southern, whether it be toward country or inspo or newgrass or whatever. It’s not that I don’t like the traditional stuff; it’s great in concert. But in the age of modern compressors, equalizers, and other wonderful gadgetry, the majority of it sounds flat and hollow over the airwaves. Some of it, I’m sure, can be attributed to poor recording and production, as southern has always played catch-up to the better produced devil-music of the world, and I’m sure I’ll at least have an overnight stay in purgatory for listening to it.

But some of it is also inherent to the style. It’s been said all over the bloggy internet that southern’s a vocal-driven musical style, which is fine and all, except that (if I remember my sound theory correctly), the human voice likes to hang out anywhere from 800Hz to 4KHz (give or take—please correct me if I’m wrong and point me to an adequate sound theory book I can read in my non-existent spare time). Considering most people can hear stuff from 20Hz to 20KHz, there’s a lot of open space to fill. The piano does a decent job to fill out some of the low- and mid-range with its 28Hz to 4KHz range (ish, again). And I applaud those few individuals who can masterfully craft together an accompany track to sound rich and full with only the buck-toothed coffee table. But you really need a bass to get a full solid bottom end from 200Hz on down. An nice acoustic guitar, at 600Hz to around 8K (granted, that does cut the bottom end, but it would only muddy the bass and piano), would also gracefully enhance the middle ranges of the mix and mold them with some of the upper frequencies (the better choice for enhancing the mids is a good electric, but the electric guitar’s the debil, kinda like the foozeball). To continue to round out the upper end, add some synthesized stuff, and don’t forget about those worldy drums and insanely high cymbals.

Alas, I’ve digressed again. I told you that story to tell you this one: I like full sounding music. It doesn’t necessarily only mean rock or pop or whatever, because even a five piece bluegrass band can sound astoundingly full. But in context with this southern gospel topic, that means I play lots of instrument-driven groups like the Crabb Family , LordSong , Isaacs , Christlike, etc). Needless to say, I catch the occasional flack with the traditionally minded folk, and become more and more irritated with each and every phone call. “Are you changing formats?” “That’s not southern gospel.” “Do you read the Bible?” Comparatively, purgatory doesn’t sound too bad.

What the bloody Hades is wrong with it? Since I refuse to debate the issue on the “it’s not Christian music” point (because nobody’s gonna convince anybody else to swap sides of that fence), I give you point one: its better sounding radio. Granted, to accept this argument, you’ve got to agree to a large extent that sg radio is 1) a business that must survive alongside other businesses in a competitive market and 2) as such needs to pull down a decent slice of the listenership pie to secure the advertising dollar necessary to sustain the business. Once you’ve accepted those points, why in the world wouldn’t you want to play the fullest sounding, best produced stuff you’ve got in the library (single or no single, because we also know that sg is notorious at releasing non-radio-friendly songs)? Of course, you’ve also got to have the on-air talent to back up the music (which is another blog entry entirely), but I’ll venture a guess that the majority of the population listens to the radio to hear good music.

There’s one more assumption to the argument to accept: 3) the listenership you’re competing for is largely non-Christian and/or favors modern-sounding music. To me, that’s the final nail in the coffin for empty, hollow and (especially) the poorly produced junk that floats around sg radio. Playing inferior music to try to attract listenership is like nailing your foot to the floor so you can hit your leg with a sledgehammer. Okay, well, it’s nothing like that really, other than the results of both are extremely painful and something’s bound to get broken. But, and point number two of the argument: what good is having a message if nobody will listen to it? Again, you’ve got to largely view sg radio as an evangelistic tool to the unchurched more than a ministry tool to the average Christian, but I’ve never been able to hook my friends (churched or unchurched) on traditional sg music through anything except a live concert (and it was like beating their legs with sledgehammers to get them to go to that). But I have had friends bum a Crabby, Isaacs, or Martins CD and show interest in the music.

I now relinquish control of the musical soapbox. Your regularly scheduled insights on the stupidity of girls will return shortly.