Sound, society, Technology: listening bar and artistic experiments

Quando Thomas Edison invented the phonographer in the late 1800s, the first recording system based only on mechanical energy, The sound came to move a thin needle to affect wax cylinders. But when low and strong tones sent the pitcines to tilt He started to remove (or delete) certain tools from the registration rooms of the jazz. There, the ensembles did not have the same instrumentation that was listened to live: what was spread and recognized as The jazz of the origins, in reality, was different from what was actually played.

Until a few years ago (not too many) music fans made long expectations for the latest single, hours in a row for a new disc … expectations and emotions replaced today by a quick click on the musical platforms. And the album arrives directly in our smartphone, often compressed ad hoc.

Without dating on algorithms that in music lossy (“With loss”) remove less important audio data by reducing the file size, but also causing a quality loss, The paradigm has changed. If many hi-fi systems at home first allowed immersive listening, Easier today to find speakers to connect to the apps of our phones. How many, in recent months, have they found the gestures of inserting discs or CDs in audio systems? Few would confirm it. We know that among the books the gaze of the readers is more listless and distracted, but but Our ear is also an increasingly prepared listener.

Sound as physical experience

If those who know the story a little know that Many phenomena have a cyclical pacein the social the “trend” indicate when something is changing. The rebirth of musical art began in large cities – especially in Milan – to the sound of Listening Barheirs of Kissa Jazz Japanese, Jazz coffee born in the 1950s post -warmers for lovers of international music, when the records were too expensive for the purchase. Perfect audio plants in soundproofed salt They still inspire design places, with special cocktails and architecture which, even if surrounded by several people, allow good listening.

But there is more. A flagship Italian has recently inaugurated in Triennale Milano with voice: space with multifunctional harmonic case of excellent acoustic and bright skills for concerts, DJ sets, sound installations but also encounters and workshops. As many as 16 km of cables are hidden behind the walls of a room which, for many, Evocates an hypnotic Kubrick effect atmosphere. «In the 1930s, the Triennale offered a coffee, a restaurant and was danced. In the 1950s, the first experimental room of Italian television broadcasts was built »explains Carlo Antonelli, scientific consultant of a three -year voice. “This futuristic” sound cathedral “is a unique place among the museum institutions. We are still discovering its potential, to understand how it will react to different stimuli! ».

To explain music, no words are needed, it is the body that warns vibrations reproduced to perfection. And if some studies show that at 0.05 seconds from the first sound impulse the brain starts to elaborate acoustic information, let’s keep ready: «Just feel Helter Skelter Of the Beatles to understand that he has never really heard it because, by now, we perceive low quality sounds. We will teach it to young people with music tests Create ad hoc for us, repeated during the day, or lessons on albums that alternate listening and explanations. The new charm starts from the sound: If the eye collapses under the excess of stimuli, the ear warns emotions that the gaze no longer takes. This is why audio is important in everyday life, like Podcasts: for many they are life companions. And as a voice we are already recording some ».

An impeccable listening offers him In Bologna the Vinyl Salaborsa Library Listening Room focusing on the return of a great “star” like vinylthe protagonist of many evenings of the aforementioned Listening Bar. A space created to promote music as a form of art and encourage the discovery of the musical tradition with about 25 thousand discs, to be heard with high-level hi-fi system, rigorously without headphones.

The experience continues in museums. Until 31 August, At the Barbican in London, the exhibition Feel The Sound Explore how the sound affects memories and sensations listening not only with earsbut with the whole body. And it does so with cutting -edge technologies and unpublished works commissioned for 11 interactive installations that invite the public to dance to the rhythm of the most original music. Meanwhile, in Los Angeles, Chromasonic Field It is a unique experience of its kind that explores the boundaries between light and music through sound and color artists, which indulge neuroarts. The goal? “See” the notes and “feel” every color.

To the pace of fashion

Not a few Brands of the Fashion System threw themselves on the track by putting their name on concerts and festivals: a combination that becomes more and more chic. It has recently landed in Berlin The Sound of Pradamusical event that explores global culture through the language of musicwanted by the brand as an example of its link with every art (to remember i The Double Clubspectacular itinerant clubs already created with the artist Carsten Höller). While in his New York boutique Valentino has just launched The sound atelier: intimate listening room with a customized audio system and “sound landscapes” created with the Italian Cultural Collective Terramento and the Sound Designer Giorgio Di Salvo (creator, not surprisingly, of the audio design of a three -year voice). “Although with less quality, technology has been walking for years by listening to favorite songs in the city, in a forest … and this is a great privilege” concludes Antonelli. Meanwhile Will music become, on the contrary, will it also return to being a serious matter? Let’s hope so. Again, the right sound is in the middle.

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