All I was trying to do was to find out some basic technical facts relating to volume control in the context of the ongoing discussion in this column about the normally defective quality of sound in live performances of Carnatic music (Musicscan, April 9/23/30). But after getting hopelessly bogged down in high science, I've come to the conclusion that all we really need for defining the main problem in the whole set-up are three simple words: Loud, louder, loudest!
As briefly noted earlier, there are several factors which almost universally cause serious distortions in the sound of Carnatic music in live concerts. The most obvious (and perhaps most easily remediable) among them is the extremely high level at which the volume is normally set by those in charge of sound in an auditorium. This is not a new phenomenon, but a practice which prevailed even 50 years ago, though things weren't as bad then as they are today (which could be due to other reasons also.)
The excessively high volume has two different aspects, in absolute and relative terms. On the one hand, the overall volume of the sound generated by the ensemble is usually far too high for comfortable listening. On the other, the mridangam usually produces formidable sound which tends to overshadow the voice and the violin, unless the sound of the latter is boosted in accordance with the mridangam's. The problem is compounded when there's a ghatam or ganjira. (That's why in the mike-less condition insisted upon by the veteran Palghat Mani Iyer in the 1970s, there was always a certain imbalance between the percussion and the voice/violin -- in spite of the fact that his own performance, though always dynamic, was never aggressive).
Accordingly, if the sound of the percussion instruments is picked up only by the vocalist's and violinist's microphones, it might be moderate enough for achieving a more balanced overall effect. But when separate mikes are provided for percussion instruments, their sound actually gets boosted rather than toned down, often with disastrous results. Nevertheless, separate mikes are provided for every instrument, thus aggravating the problem. I have no idea when this undesirable practice began to be adopted, but I do recall that it was already well entrenched some 50 years ago.
What is truly amazing in this whole set-up is that the organisers -- who make such remarkable contribution to the propagation of Carnatic music -- somehow seem to be uniformly indifferent to the serious distortions in the sound of the very music they disseminate!
( To be continued )
