Steve Swellander
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6/13/2009 10:01:24 PM
---- Updated 6/13/2009 10:05:39 PM
Acoustic Greetings
I'm Steve Swellander, a 55 year old musician from San Antonio, Texas. I've had my music posted on IAC for several years now, but this is the first time I've used the blog. My day job is as a writing professor at the University of Texas at San Antonio and Palo Alto College. Music is what I do with the time left over. Fortunately, my teaching schedule is pretty flexible with much of the summer off, so I do have opportunities to develop my music life without getting professionally bogged down with it. I don't gig a lot, but enough to keep things interesting.
My preference is acoustic music. I like to listen to electric music, in fact I'm a big fan of prog rock, but I like to play acoustic instruments. I've never even owned an electric guitar, though I do have a cheap electric bass for recording. I'm definitely not anti-technology, and I enjoy playing with digital effects in my home studio, but I also love the pure sound of natural wood instruments. I don't like pickups muchany of them though I do use one on my guitar since I finger pick. For my mandolin, mandola and bouzouki, I prefer to perform with a condenser microphone or, if the venue is small enough with hard surfaces, no amplification at all. Electronic support can never compete with pure natural dynamics. When I play completely acoustically, audiences have to be quiet to hear, like in the old more polite days, but I consider that a plus. I rather enjoy public civility, as rare as it is. I also enjoy old buildings that are designed to faithfully project sound. We have some old missions in San Antonio that are quite outstanding in this respect. I've had the joy to play mandolin in an ensemble at two of them. At Mission Concepcion, the music rose into the chapel dome and seemed to rain back down on us. It is so much more extraordinary than listening to yourself blast through a humming monitor speaker.
Ah, but there aren't very many spaces like that left. It's a noisy world we live in. I work part time as a sound engineer at a local church, and in some ways feel like I am contributing to what I hate. I don't like modern, carpeted churches that are wired for amplification. Compared to a traditional chapel with vaulted ceilings, domes and hard surfaces, modern churches are visually cold and aurally fake. I used to perform almost weekly in a church that required no amplification, and the sound was quite beautiful. I don't really like praise music, so I eventually stopped, then took the part time sound man job. I'm learning from it, but the sound doesn't move me like in a "real" church building. When acoustics are right, the sound seems to come from inside, as if from the soul. Also, dynamics build to true crescendos. They aren't just flatlined with compression as all loud. Sure, there are dynamics in electric music, but a pale comparison to natural sound. So many musicians today just play loud, with no discernible dynamics. And many public speakers don't know how to project their voices anymore. I'm glad I learned to project in drama classes and to use dynamics when singing and playing, and I would hate for the world to lose those gifts due to technology.
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Tom O'Brien
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6/14/2009 8:26:05 PM
---- Updated 6/14/2009 8:28:53 PM
Hi Steve,
I agree with you completely about acoustic instruments. Until very recently in human history, that's the only kind we had! I've gotten in trouble saying this before, but often times I wish there were no electronics - that we couldn't amplify or record music. A long time ago, if you wanted music, somebody had to make it. And if they wanted anyone to listen, they had to be a decent player. These days you can make so many cool sounds with an electric guitar that you don't really have to be a virtuoso. Same goes for recording technology - you can make a so-so musician sound pretty good if you produce him right.
I also know what you mean about old churches. I used to do a lot of weddings. There's nothing like the booming natural acoustics of a good old church. I sang "Ave Maria" in a great old church and it was one of the nicest performances I ever gave, thanks to the building itself.
I'm at work right now (with no speakers) but I'll give your music a listen later. I'm always open to good acoustic music.
http://iacmusic.com/artist.aspx?id=128691
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