Making Things Louder : Amplified Music and Multimodality

404 Pages·2013·1.5 MB·English

by  Johannes Mulder

Making Things Louder:
Amplified Music and
Multimodality
PhD Thesis
Johannes Mulder

University of Technology Sydney
Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences
Supervisor: Professor Theo van Leeuwen
Submitted April 2013
Certificate of
Authorship/Originality

I certify that the work in this thesis has not previously been submitted for a degree nor
has it been submitted as part of requirements for a degree except as fully
acknowledged within the text. I also certify that the thesis has been written by me.
Any help that I have received in my research work and the preparation of the thesis
itself has been acknowledged. In addition, I certify that all information sources and
literature used are indicated in the thesis.

Johannes Mulder

ii
Acknowledgments

I am very grateful to Theo van Leeuwen who both inspired and supervised this thesis.
In a relatively short time he has shared a vast amount of his own work and insights,
forming the ‘roots’ of this work. Bert Bongers’ for his invaluable and continuing
friendship, support and our never-ending critical dialogue. Tony Mitchell has kindly
and patiently proofread this dissertation, which has been crucial in eliminating the
inherent quirks of bilingualism (which in itself sounds like a Dutchism). Some of my
best friends are live sound engineers: Paul, Joke, Bart, Jeroen, Carl, Marc, you are all
part of this. Two people, Martje van Riel and Xander Lub were instrumental in
making me go back to University. I particularly want to thank my friend Arnoud van
Deelen (the self appointed chair of my fan club) for his long lasting support morally,
and financially. Finally, but foremostly I owe to my parents Ankie and Arjen, my
brother Wim and my uncle Case for sharing their unrestricted passion for music and

insatiable curiosity. Each word is dedicated to their love and support.

iii
Table of Contents

List of tables viii

Abstract ix

Introduction 1

1
  A Brief History of Amplified Sound 23

1.1
  Cultural Preparation 23

1.1.1
  Decentralisation 25

1.1.2
  Sources for this Chapter 27

1.2
  Telecommunication 29

1.2.1
  Transduction: Telephone 30

1.2.2
  Transduction: Recording 31

1.3
  Amplified Sound: Beginnings 33

1.3.1
  Greek Theatre 34

1.3.2
  Ritual and Religion 36

1.3.3
  Reverberation Time 38

1.3.4
  Echo 38

1.3.5
  Music Rooms 39

1.3.6
  Louder Musical Instruments 41

1.4
  Non-electronic Amplification 42

1.4.1
  Stethoscope 44

1.4.2
  Sound Increasing Devices 44

1.4.3
  Devil’s Dyke 45

1.4.4
  Auxetophone 48

1.4.5
  Auxtephone 51

1.4.6
  Elgephone 51

1.4.7
  Stentorphone 52

1.4.8
  Hot Air 52

1.5
  Loudspeakers: the 19th Century 53

1.5.1
  Key Players in the US 54

1.5.2
  Vacuum Tube, the Missing Link 55

1.5.3
  Magna Vox: Jensen & Pridham 56

1.5.4
  Moving Coil Patent 57

1.5.5
  Player Announcement 58

1.5.6
  Magnavox 59

1.5.7
  World War I 61

1.6
  Other Early Events 61

1.7
  Europe 62

1.8
  Roxy Rothafel 64

1.8.1
  Talkies: You Ain’t Heard Nottin’ Yet! 65

1.8.2
  Radio City Music Hall 67

1.9
  Microphones 71

1.9.1
  Pitch and Frequency 73

1.9.2
  Pressure and Velocity 75

1.9.3
  Recording and Microphones 77

1.10
  Mixing Desks 78

1.11
  Column Loudspeakers and Line Arrays 80

1.12
  To Review: History of Amplified Sound 81

2
  Sources for amplification 84

2.1
  Sources for this Chapter 85

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2.2
  Musical Instruments as Sources for Amplification 85

2.3
  Instruments Using Mechanical Amplification 87

2.4
  Acoustic Instruments 89

2.5
  Electric Instruments 90

2.5.1
  Pick Up Elements, Contact Microphones 92

2.5.2
  Distortion; Intentional Colouration 93

2.6
  Electronic Instruments 96

2.6.1
  Electronic Music, Post WWII 99

2.6.2
  Digital Instruments 101

2.7
  Mixed Music 102

2.7.1
  Doppler Effect 106

2.7.2
  Loudspeaker Orchestras 106

2.7.3
  Seven Stages 107

2.7.4
  Mixed Music – Contradictions 109

2.7.5
  Portability 110

2.7.6
  Keeping Time 112

2.8
  Voice Amplification 113

2.8.1
  Nazi Germany 115

2.8.2
  The Token Microphone 116

2.8.3
  Megaphones in Music: Façade 118

2.8.4
  American Popular Music Vocal Styles in the First Decades 120

2.8.5
  Shifts in Singing Styles 122

2.8.6
  Crooning, Microphone Recording and Early Radio 126

2.8.7
  Vocal Apocalypse 129

2.8.8
  Bessie Smith 130

2.9
  Megaphone Singing in Popular music, Larger Audiences 132

2.9.1
  From Megaphone to Microphone 136

2.10
  Bing Crosby at the Cocoanut Grove 139

2.10.1
  Other Early References 142

2.11
  Broadway Musical 144

2.11.1
  The Broadway Belt and Orchestration 145

2.11.2
  First Amplification on Broadway 147

2.11.3
  Full Amplification on Broadway 150

2.11.4
  Production Values 151

2.11.5
  Amplified Musicals and the Unions 152

2.12
  Microphone Singing; Monitoring 154

2.12.1
  The Singer’s Dilemma 155

2.12.2
  No Wires Attached 155

2.12.3
  Monitoring, History 157

2.13
  Making Things Louder… 161

2.14
  Transduction Effects 162

2.14.1
  Unmicrophonic 163

2.14.2
  Transduction Effects: HiFi, even Better Sound! 163

2.14.3
  Wavelengths and Directionality 165

2.14.4
  Transduction Effects: Microphones 165

2.14.5
  Transduction Effects: Dynamic range 166

2.14.6
  Transduction Effects: Loudspeakers 168

2.14.7
  Transduction Effects: Social Distance 169

2.15
  To Review 169

3
  Literature Review 171

3.1
  Approaches to Amplified Sound 171

3.1.1
  Emmerson 171

3.1.2
  Approaches to Amplified Sound: Berio 175

3.1.3
  Approaches to Amplified Sound: John Potter 176

v
3.1.4
  Approaches to Amplified Sound: Johnson 178

3.1.5
  Approaches to Amplified Sound: McCarthy 179

3.1.6
  Approaches to Amplified Sound: Van Leeuwen 179

3.2
  Social Distance: Hall, Van Leeuwen, Tagg 180

3.2.1
  Social Distance: Gehl, Kress 183

3.2.2
  Social Distance: Smalley 185

3.2.3
  Social Distance: Gracyk’s Rock Aesthetics 187

3.3
  Amplified Sound as a ‘Channel’ 188

3.4
  Architectural Acoustics 192

3.4.1
  Architectural Acoustics: Literature 193

3.4.2
  Critical Reception of Assisted Resonance and Acoustic Enhancement 195

3.4.3
  A Second Additional Function 199

3.5
  Authors not Mentioning Amplification 199

3.6
  Critical Sounds 201

3.6.1
  Critical Sounds: Historical 201

3.6.2
  Critical Sounds: Originality and Authenticity 203

3.6.3
  Concerts, Bootlegs and Live Recordings 204

3.6.4
  Critical Sounds: Recurring Issues 206

3.6.5
  Critical Sounds: Broadway 207

3.7
  Why Loud? 210

3.7.1
  A Third Additional Function: Immersion 217

3.7.2
  Loudness as a Problem 218

3.8
  Concerts as Commodity 219

3.8.1
  Liveness 219

3.8.2
  Amplified Music for the Masses 221

3.8.3
  Adorno, Kittler and Wagner 223

3.8.4
  Mediatisation 226

3.8.5
  Megamusicals 227

3.8.6
  Dealing with Dislocation 232

3.8.7
  Live Music and Recorded Music 233

3.8.8
  The Live 234

3.8.9
  The Primacy of Recording 236

3.9
  The Acousmatic: the Living Newspaper 238

3.9.1
  The Acousmatic: Subject object 240

3.9.2
  The Acousmatic: See no evil hear no evil 242

3.9.3
  The Acousmatic: Reduced Listening 245

3.9.4
  The Acousmatic: Ecological Approach 247

3.9.5
  The Acousmatic: The Transducer as Artefact 248

3.9.6
  The Acousmatic: Scruton’s Take on the Acousmatic 250

3.10
  The Acousmatic: The See-thru Curtain 253

3.10.1
  Wagner’s Cats 253

3.11
  To Review 256

4
  Social Semiotic Multimodality and Amplified Music 258

4.1
  Technology as Extension 258

4.2
  Music and Meaning 260

4.2.1
  Philip Tagg’s Semiotics of Music 262

4.2.2
  Music and Language? 264

4.2.3
  Theoretical Approach 266

4.3
  Social Semiotics 267

4.3.1
  Multimodality 271

4.3.2
  When is Mode? 273

4.3.3
  Meaningful Music? 274

4.4
  Modal Logic and Social Semiotics 277

4.4.1
  Modality and the Authenticity of Amplified music 280

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4.4.2
  Fidelity 284

4.5
  Authenticity of Amplified Music 285

4.5.1
  Lip and other Syncing 287

4.5.2
  No singer at all 288

4.5.3
  Disappearing Performers 289

4.6
  Modality in Speech, Music, Sound 290

4.6.1
  Coding orientations 294

4.7
  The Acousmatic Modality 297

4.7.1
  Rearticulation 298

4.7.2
  Rearticulation: Pitch Extent 299

4.7.3
  Rearticulation: Durational Variety 300

4.7.4
  Rearticulation: Dynamic Range 300

4.7.5
  Rearticulation: Perspective Depth 301

4.7.6
  Rearticulation: Absorption Range 302

4.7.7
  Rearticulation: Fluctuation Range 302

4.7.8
  Rearticulation: Degrees of Friction 303

4.7.9
  Rearticulation: Degree of Directionality 304

4.7.10
  Complexity 308

4.7.11
  Balance 309

4.7.12
  Rearticulation and Modality 310

4.8
  To Review 311

5 Agency 312

5.1
  Agency 312

5.2
  Semiotic Choices 312

5.3
  Stakeholders 314

5.3.1
  The Audience as Stakeholder and as Agent 317

5.3.2
  Concert Rules 322

5.3.3
  Decorum 324

5.3.4
  The Audience and the Rules 326

5.3.5
  Broken Rules 328

5.4
  The Rider as Text 331

5.5
  Agency: Concert Promotion 334

5.5.1
  Venues and Acoustics Revisited 337

5.5.2
  Agency: Loudspeaker Systems 340

5.5.3
  Agency: Microphones 341

5.5.4
  Agency: the Balance 343

5.5.5
  Agency Deadlock 346

5.6
  Goffman’s Participation Framework 347

5.6.1
  Coparticipants 348

5.7
  Stratification: Multimodal Discourse Analysis and Amplification 349

5.7.1
  Stratification: Discourse 350

5.7.2
  Stratification: Design 352

5.7.3
  Stratification: Production 353

5.7.4
  Stratification: Distribution 354

5.7.5
  Stratification: Configurations 354

5.7.6
  Stratification: Reconfigurations 356

5.8
  To Review: Agency 358

Conclusion 360

Bibliography 370

vii
List of tables

Table 1 Spatial and temporal dislocations ................................................................... 12

Table 2 Maximum exposure times ............................................................................... 17

Table 3 Frequency and wavelengths ............................................................................ 74

Table 4 Social distances (Van Leeuwen 1999, after Hall 1966) ................................ 182

Table 5 System network for modality cues after Van Leeuwen (1999, p. 182) ........ 296

Table 6 Primary stakeholders ..................................................................................... 315

Table 7 Secondary stakeholders ................................................................................. 316

Table 8 Tertiary stakeholders .......................... ........................................................... 317

viii
Abstract

This thesis looks at the use of electronic amplification at concerts of music. A broad
introduction, constituting both a technological and a musical history, precedes a
literature review that identifies the topic as under-researched in musical, technological
and critical discourse. Proceeding from that broad approach which covers the first
three chapters the analytical focus is narrowed by applying key concepts from social
semiotic multimodal discourse analysis, as developed by amongst others Gunther
Kress and Theo van Leeuwen and rooted in the work of linguist Michael Halliday. In
addition, elements of the work of sociologist Erving Goffman are explored; notably
his use of ‘decorum’, the ‘participation framework’ and ‘production formats’.
Amplification is treated as a semiotic mode; the different meaning potentials of the
use of technology are outlined and contrasted with the notion of reproduction
technology as a neutral channel. Questions of the relation between original (or
acoustic, ie the sound that is amplified) and the amplified sound are analysed using
the concept of linguistic modality, so as to investigate how notions of musical truth
such as authenticity or fidelity, are encoded in expressions. Music is considered as
social action, and this encompasses both the music itself and the musical experience
in which it is embedded. In social semiotics making meaning is an activity, and
technological practices form an integral part of this. The final chapter therefore
interrogates matters of agency in relation to the use of amplification and its use in
musical performances.

ix
Introduction

When in 1926 at the festival of the International Society for New Music at
Frankfurt the Apocalypse had its first and so far its last performance (under
Klemperer) this extremely difficult part was taken and sung in masterly fashion
by a tenor with the voice of a eunuch, named Erbe, whose piercing
communications did actually sound like “Latest News of World Destruction.”
That was altogether in the spirit of the work, the singer had with the greatest
intelligence grasped the idea. – Or take as another example of easy technical
facility in horror, the effect of being at home in it: I mean the loud-speaker effects
(in an oratorio!) which the composer has indicated in various places and which
achieve an otherwise never realized gradation in the volume and distance of the
musical sound: of such a kind that by means of the loud-speaker some parts are
brought into prominence, while others recede as distant choruses and orchestras.
Thomas Mann, Doctor Faustus

The Bega Bowlo
In may 2012 I found myself in the concert hall of the Sydney Opera House at a tribute
concert to Jimmy Little, an indigenous Australian Country musician, a legendary
performer since the late 1950s who had passed away the month before.1 His long time
band was accompanying different singers playing many of his songs. I was struck by the
idea of witnessing a variety of North-American folk-pop music performed by indigenous
Australians in a classical concert hall built in compliance with a remnant of Western
European – the other side of the planet – culture. On a backdrop pages from a scrapbook
were projected showing a collection of tickets, flyers and other memorabilia of Jimmy

1 James Oswald Little, an Australian Aboriginal man from the Yorta Yorta people, musician and educator
(1937-2012).
1