Entertainment in many forms is toxically loud. I think that people have gone into hiding. Although it is difficult to quantify, I am certain that there are those who simply refuse to put themselves in harm’s way for the sake of some entertainment.
I believe that there are people here, musicians, entertainers, presenters and more, who have discovered that we do not have to be painfully loud to “sell the show”.
If you are using your L1® to deliver the goods (the music, the entertainment, the words) and doing it without inflicting pain and potentially harm …
What are you doing to tell your audience, “It’s safe to come out now”?
Originally posted by Brian Beverage I do not go to movies anymore. Even with earplugs its painful. Why do they have to have it so LOUD???. There is some great music I missing. Couldn’t BOSE come to the rescue?Ken?
At least with respect to live music, Bose has offered the world a solution. I think that there are many people here who have chosen to avail themselves to that solution and to share that with our audiences.
Perhaps the movies got loud to compete with live performances. Maybe they got loud to compete with television. Maybe they got loud and big(ger) in every way to compete with all other forms of entertainment. But whatever the reason, to the extent that there are people who make this volume issue a decision criteria in where they spend their entertainment dollars, there is an opportunity for us.
I think that movies are our competition, along with all kinds of other entertainment. We may have a competitive advantage now (with the L1®) - or rather - by turning down the volume, we may be less toxic than some of our customers’ other choices. But we also have a challenge:
How do we tell the customers - the listeners - that it is safe to come out now?
Or put another way, how do you talk to people who have left the room?
If you are looking for that really cool conversation that had the same title but had nothing to do with the question above…
Many blog systems allow readers to post comments. You could certainly leave a comment reminding people that there is real life happening just outside their front doors.
There are people who email me to ask me about the (my) local weather. I know that they could look it up on the web, but they are encouraging me to pause, get up, and go outside and look.
Maybe we should be encouraging one another to get out there and do something.
If you were poking fun at me for posting last night - hey that’s fair game. I spent almost all of yesterday’s daytime hours doing what I’ll call research and some development related to music. 8:00 AM had a quick meeting with a fellow musician, 8:30 cruised by a venue, peered in the window and pondered why the sign said they opened at 8:00 and the doors were locked. I found a place to park and did some stuff online. 9:00 had a quick meeting with someone to sell a piece of (non-Bose) gear. Yay, a few more sheckels to invest in something I would use. 9:30 - back at that venue, met with the owner to talk about the future live music there and to discuss ways to communicate with her customers about music related things that are happening there. I hung out there for a bit to talk to people I do not normally see. These were the weekday customers. I typically only see the weekend customers. Chatted up the music story. 11:30 across town brushing up on some old contacts, working out plans for some music related events in the new year. 1:00-3:00 checking out a new music store, Composite Acoustic Guitars, Roland VG99, new Taylor Electric Guitars, Larrivée Electric Guitars, and generally indulging gear lust. Repeating my mantra, “no matter what you do, it’s still just you”. Got out of there relatively unscathed. 3:00 another meeting to talk about future plans 4:00 back home - email and phone calls to finalize details shows this weekend and next. 5:00 rehearse and then hang out here reading and writing.
I immediately put that on my list of discussion topics that I have for a venue I am developing.
Each week I invite people to participate in a discussion before the music starts. Sometimes people show up early for that discussion, sometimes not.
This is one of the ways that I am trying to reach TPWHLTR The People Who Have Left The Room.
In addition to Brian Eno’s essay, I’ll probably add discussions about
Lyrics and Melody in contemporary music.
Music and the inner child (seeking also to capture the interest of new parents as well as those long ago disaffected youths who became yuppies and long to rekindle a relationship with their inner child).