French Horn & Baseball

Yesterday, I took my dog, Bentley, for a walk down to our neighborhood park as we do every day around lunch time. On this particular walk, I noticed he was acting funny, and somewhat hesitant the closer we got to the open ball-field. I thought this was odd because he normally is pulling my shoulder out of my socket in anticipation, and excitement to go run around the field. As we approached the entrance to the park, I heard a sound that was obviously out of place. We continued to walk towards the field to investigate, and it became more apparent that the sound was someone playing a horn of some type. When we finally arrived, I realized it was a young man sitting in a chair at the edge of the field between second and third base with his music on a stand and his French horn in hand. The sound was wonderful and it didn’t hurt that he was very talented and the notes were very pure and mesmerizing.

Given that most of the music I listen to, either live or recorded, is in a room, hearing an instrument played in a “free field” environment was awesome. No reflections, just the sounds generated from the horn emanating in all directions into the air. I did pick up some fading of the sound due to the wind, but for the most part it was loud and clear.

So much time and effort is devoted these days to improving sound rooms either by diffusing sound energy, absorbing sound energy or increasing sound energy. Often times, the actual sound of the instrument including a voice get's lost in the shuffle. Many times the use of over amplification can make quality sound in a quality room sound very bad. What we get used to hearing is not what the musician meant for us to hear. I'm not saying that room treatments and sound reinforcement are a negative thing, but they need to be done in a way that makes the listening experience a more pure, and pleasant one ……just like the French horn in the park.