Music must blend with the surroundings it is played in. Different kinds of music sound good at different locales.
Reverb or reverberations is the persistence of sound in the listener's ear. Generally, smaller rooms have less reverberation and larger rooms have more reverberations. Less reverb makes the sound more clear and easily understood by the listener while more reverb distorts basic beats.
The Royal Opera House, Mumbai
Throughout history, different types of music have been played at different venues. Opera music used to be played at social events with people eating and talking while the singer used to sing. The venues were medium-sized and therefore a good amount of reverberations were produced. Therefore, music did not have a lot of beats and very intricate pieces.
Chester Cathedral, England
Gothic Cathedrals were very large structures and the sound reverberated very well, hence, the drums and percussion would not do very well in that setting but the room complimented the long extended notes of the organ. Similarly, symphony orchestras performed in very large venues, however, the audience at such venues unlike at operas, was supposed to be very quiet during the duration of the performance, therefore, this allowed composers to make intricate and layered pieces of music as every little detail would be heard in the quiet of the hall however they still lacked drums and similar instruments.
As time passed, music was now played on riverboats and in clubs in the 1920s. The rooms were noisy and the dancers would like certain parts of the songs and would yell out for them to be played again, but since there is only a certain amount of times you can play the same thing over and over, they started improvising over the same part, and thus jazz was born.
A Jazz Band
Around the same time, the radio also became popular thanks to the microphone. This enabled musicians to do things that could never have been done before, music could now be recorded and given various effects. Singers could sing very softly giving the impression that they were almost whispering into your ear over the radio.
Later came disco music which was much like jazz music except that in most places there was no longer a band playing, it was just recorded music. In place of the band improvising the melody, the MC would repeat the same beat improvising the lyrics.
U2 Concert
Live performances when they were the most successful ended up at the worst possible venues, acoustically, like large football stadiums, sports arenas, open grounds etc. These bands created areas called arena rock, bands like U2, Red Hot Chilli Peppers and the like created medium-paced rock ballads that worked perfectly in that setting.
More recently music is being played in our cars and we all know what driving songs are. These sounds have high-frequency ranges with the singing in the middle, some of those songs we could not stand listening to at home but, it somehow works perfectly while driving. Then came the MP3 player. In some ways, it is very much like the orchestras; in a way that every part of it can be heard just without all the natural reverberations thus, allowing for the heavy beats in today’s pop music.
Different kinds of music have their own place, traditional west African music with its loud beats and singing is perfect in the open areas of Africa where there is no reverb to distort the sound and the music is loud enough to be heard. This kind of music would sound ghastly in a Gothic Cathedral with all the reverb.
So if you hear your mother asking you to CHANGE THE MUSIC, pause for a bit, she MIGHT be right.
Change the venue or change the music.
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