SIGNALS & NOISE (Letters to Editor) (Feb. 1990)

Abolish Schoenberg?

Dear Editor:

It saddens me to read letters like the one from John Ona ("Signals & Noise," August 1989) because they exhibit the narrow-mindedness of someone who claims to know music. I grew up learning to play "classical" music, yet I thoroughly enjoy rock and pop. But in keeping with the spirit of Ona's letter, let me add to his list of inappropriate music to review. First, get rid of Italian opera. Who wants to hear a fat lady screeching a single syllable for countless bars? Second, abolish all violin pieces; they sound so strident and whiny. Next, to be more specific, banish Ravel's "Bolero." Talk about redundancy--I've heard some heavy-metal bands with more chord changes! Of course, such suggestions are ludicrous, as are those Mr. Ona made in his letter.

Please continue to use rock and pop--and refer to them with the term "music"--when reviewing speakers, as I'm sure many of your readers do.

--Erik Tracy; San Diego, Cal.

Fifth Debris

Dear Editor:

I am writing in response to John Ona's letter, in which he states that rock and pop composers "don't know a diminished seventh from an empty fifth." It seems obvious to me that Mr. Ona has been emptying a few fifths himself. His sweeping generalizations make it painfully apparent that he has never taken the time to find out anything about the subject. Yes, John, some rock and pop is loud and crummy, but some rock and pop is soft and melodic. Some rock composers are not very talented, but some are. Some lyrics don't rhyme, but some do. (Some classic poetry doesn't rhyme either, I might add.) Lumping all rock and pop together under a label of ear-piercing, three-chord screamers is a lot like putting down the classics because "it's all fat women wearing horns and yodeling." If Mr. Ona would pay more attention to the real music and stop being blinded by his preconceptions, he might find some pretty good music waiting to be heard.

-Jon Jerome; Buffalo Grove, Ill.

A Great Cook

Dear Editor:

Thank you for the interview with Emory Cook (September 1989). I'm still enjoying the many records manufactured by his company, Cook Laboratories, most of which I purchased in the late 1950s.

I have the earthquake recording, with the music of the ionosphere--alas, somewhat damaged by poor arms and styli. The ionosphere sounds can be reproduced with a battery-operated amplifier and a speaker system with a long wire antenna connected to the output (see Exploring Light, Radio and Sound Energy, by Calvin B. Graf, TAB Books). I also have the 10-inch train record and a lot of others. Besides the wonderful Lizzie Miles recording, my absolute favorite is Blowout at the Mardi Gras, a fine New Orleans jazz recording. (Did you know that Cook also released recordings of Carlos Montoya, the guitarist?) I have only two problems with the Cook recordings when I play them: Saving them (are they to be put onto CD?) and obtaining the correct equalization, which I believe was AES-12 dB at 10 kHz. It does make the high end sound crisp when played RIAA. Thank you, Emory, for a job well done!

-Ed Defreitas; Farmington, Conn.

Double Take

Dear Editor:

Thanks for the interview with Emory Cook. It sent me scurrying to the "old stuff" on my record shelves, where I found Out of the Storm, Voices of the Sky, and Marimba Band-all Cook Laboratories releases. The last was dubbed, after the title on the jacket, "Otherwise known as ... To Hell with High Fidelity." The cover also noted: "A high-fidelity recording of a low-fidelity subject." Interesting stuff, even at this date, and an interesting man.

-Harold Yeglin; Des Moines, Iowa

For Love, Not Money

Dear Editor:

I was pleased to learn from Edward Tatnall Canby's column, "Spinning Webs and Reels" (September 1989), that some audio amateurs, or "volunteers," are still alive and well. It was to these amateurs that Audio magazine was directed in its early years. I had supposed that most of us had blown our rectifier tubes and that current no longer surged through our hand-soldered connections.

While a junior-high student, I got my first crystal set to function in 1925, built my first short-wave receiver a couple of years later, and was hooked on audio before I reached college. As a college student, I joined the IRE (now the IEEE) and later the Audio Engineering Society. I spent hundreds of hours in hands-on audio activities. Along with many failures, a few useful pieces of audio hardware resulted. Some were the subject of articles published in Audio during the '50s and '60s.

Most of my early efforts were directed toward noise reduction. More recent activities include restoration and preservation of material from old 78 rpm discs. The 78s (mainly old jazz and vocal music) are first recorded on reel-to-reel tape using appropriate noise reduction. After editing, the material is dubbed onto cassettes which are presented to the discs' owners. I keep the edited "masters" for my own library. Everybody profits, and no money changes hands. Like other "volunteers," I am occasionally asked to do live recording and to help with sound reinforcement. Where possible, I now try to leave these projects to younger "experts." Contrasting audio "volunteers" with today's professionals, Canby notes that "the greatest pleasure in most people's lives rests in the activities that can be managed without pay, beyond money. Some people catch onto this early, and their lives are the happier for it, whether for pure pleasure or for a worthy cause." I certainly agree. Of course, Audio magazine can't revert to the format of the '50s and '60s, when its editor, C. G. McProud, did so much to encourage volunteerism. But there may be enough of us to warrant more editorial consideration in the form of articles, or perhaps a department, devoted to problems we face within a limited but lively domain.

Many of us older audio people don't die--but possibly our feedback loops become less stable.

- Wayne B. Denny; Grinnell, Iowa

(Source: Audio magazine, Feb. 1990)

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