How architecture helped music evolve David Byrne

[Music]

[Applause]

this is the venue where as a young man

some of the music that I wrote was first

performed it was remarkably a pretty

good sounding room with all the uneven

walls and all the crap everywhere it

actually sounded pretty good

this is a song that was recorded there

this is not talking heads in the picture

anyway

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so the nature of the room meant that

words could be understood the lyrics of

the songs could be pretty much

understood the sound system was kind of

decent and there wasn’t a lot of

reverberation in the room so the rhythms

could be pretty intact - pretty concise

other places around the country had

similar rooms

this is Tootsie’s orchid lounge in

Nashville the music was in some ways

different but in structure in form very

much the same the clientele behavior was

very much the same - and so the bands at

Tootsie’s or at CBGB’s had to play loud

enough - the volume had to be loud

enough to overcome people falling down

shouting out and doing whatever else

they were doing since then I’ve played

other places that are much nicer I’ve

played the Disney Hall here and Carnegie

Hall and places like that and it’s been

very exciting but I also noticed that

sometimes the music that I had written

or was writing at the time didn’t sound

all that great and some of those halls

we managed but sometimes those halls

didn’t seem exactly suited to the music

I was making or had made so I asked

myself do I write stuff for specific

rooms do I have a place a venue in mind

when I write is that a kind of model for

creativity do we all make things with a

venue or context in mind okay Africa

most of the popular music that we know

now has a big part of its roots in West

Africa and the music there I would say

the instruments the intricate rhythms

the way it’s played the setting the

context it’s all perfect it all works

perfect the music works perfectly in

that setting there’s no big room to

create reverberation and confuse the

rhythms the instruments are loud enough

the

that can be heard without amplification

etc etc it’s no accident it’s perfect

for that particular context and it would

be a mess in a context like this this is

a Gothic cathedral in a Gothic cathedral

this kind of music is perfect

it doesn’t change key the notes are long

is almost no rhythm whatsoever and the

room flatters the music it actually

improves it this is the room that Bach

wrote some of his music for this is the

organ it’s not as big as a Gothic

cathedral so he can write things were a

little bit more intricate he can very

innovatively actually change keys

without risking huge distances

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this is a little bit later this is the

kinds of rooms that Mozart wrote I think

we’re in like 1770 somewhere around

there they’re smaller even less

reverberant so he can write really

freely music that’s very intricate and

the it works

it fits the room perfectly this is La

Scala some around the same time I think

was built around 1776 people in the

audience and these opera houses when

they were built they used to yell out to

one another they used to eat drink and

yell out to people on the stage just

like they do with CBGB’s in places like

that if they liked an area they would

holler and suggest that it be done again

as an encore not at the end of the show

but immediately and well that’s that’s

was an opera experience this is the

Opera House that vogner built for

himself and the size of the room is not

that big it’s smaller than this but well

vogner minute innovation he wanted a

bigger band he wanted a little more bomb

bass so he increased the size of the

orchestra pit so he could get more

low-end instruments in there

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okay this is Carnegie Hall obviously

this kind of thing became popular the

halls got bigger Carnegie Hall is fair

size it’s larger than some of the other

Symphony halls and they’re a lot more

reverberant than La Scala around the

same time according to Alex Ross who

writes for The New Yorker this kind of

rule came into effect that audiences had

to be quiet

no more eating drinking and yelling at

the stage or gossiping with one another

during the show they had to be very

quiet so those two things combined meant

that a different kind of music

worked best in these kind of halls it

meant that there could be extreme

dynamics which there weren’t in some of

these other kinds of music quiet parts

can be heard that would have been

drowned out by all the gossiping and

shouting but because of the

reverberation in those rooms like

Carnegie Hall the music had to be maybe

a little less rhythmic in a little more

textural

with Mahler

it looks like Bob Dylan but it’s smaller

that was Bob’s last record yeah popular

music coming along at the same time this

is a jazz band

according to Scott Joplin the bands were

playing on riverboats

and in clubs again it’s noisy they’re

playing for dancers and there’s certain

sections of the song the songs had

different sections and they that the

dance was really liked and they say play

that part again well there’s only so

many times you can play the same section

of a song over and over again for the

dancers so the band started to improvise

new melodies been a new form of music

was born

these are played mainly in small rooms

people are dancing shouting and drinking

so the music has to be loud enough to be

heard above that same thing goes true

for okay that’s beginning of the century

for the whole 20th century popular music

whether it’s rock or Latin music or

whatever it doesn’t really change that

much it changes about a third of the way

into the 20th century when this became

one of the primary venues for music and

this was one way that the music got

their microphones enabled singers in

particular and musicians and composers

to completely change the kind of music

that they were writing so far a lot of

the stuff that was on the radio is live

music but singers like Frank Sinatra

could use the mic and do things that

they could never do without a microphone

other singers after him went even

further funny

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sweet chet baker man this kind of thing

would have been impossible without a

microphone would have been impossible

without recorded music as well and he’s

singing right into your ear he’s

whispering into your ears the effect is

just electric it’s like the guy is

sitting next to you whispering who knows

what into your ear so at this point

music diverged there’s live music and

there’s recorded music and they no

longer have to be exactly the same

now there’s venues like this a

discotheque and there’s jukeboxes and

bars where you don’t even need to have a

band it doesn’t need to be any live

performing musicians whatsoever and the

sound systems are good people began to

make music specifically for discos and

for those sound systems and as with jazz

the dancers like certain sections more

than they did others so the early

hip-hop guys would loop certain sections

[Music]

pmc would improvise lyrics in the same

way that the jazz players would

improvise melodies and another new form

of music was born live performance when

it was incredibly successful ended up in

what is probably acoustically the worst

sounding venues on the planet sports

stadiums basketball arenas and hockey

arenas musicians that who ended up there

did the best they could they wrote what

is now called arena rock which is medium

speed ballads

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they did the best they could given that

this is what they’re writing for the

tempos are medium it sounds big it’s

more a social situation than a musical

situation and in some ways the music

that they’re writing for this place

works perfectly so there’s more new

venues one of the new ones is the

automobile I grew up with a radio in a

car but now that’s evolved into

something else the car is a whole venue

the music that I would say is written

for automobiles sound systems works

perfectly on it it might not be what you

want to listen to at home but it works

great in the car has a huge frequency

spectrum you know big bass and high end

and the voice kind of stuck in the

middle

automobile music you can share with your

friends there’s one other kind of new

venue the private mp3 player presumably

this is just for Christian music you and

in some ways just like Carnegie Hall or

that when they were told the audience

had to hush up because you can now hear

every single detail in other ways it’s

more like the West African music because

if the music and an mp3 player gets too

quiet you turn it up in the next minute

your ears are blasted out by a louder

passage so that doesn’t really work

I think pop music mainly that’s written

today to some extent is written for

these kind of players for this kind of

personal experience where you can hear

extreme detail but the dynamic doesn’t

change that much so I asked myself okay

is this a model for creation this

adaptation that we do and does it happen

anywhere else well according to David

Attenborough and some other people birds

do it too that the birds in the canopy

where the foliage is dense they’re calls

tend to be high-pitched short and

repetitive

and the birds on the floor tend to have

lower pitched calls so that they don’t

get distorted when they bounce off the

forest floor and birds like this

Savannah sparrow they tend to have a

buzzing type call and it turns out that

sound like this is the most energy

efficient and practical way to transmit

their call across the field and Savannah

other birds like this can injure have

adapted within the same species the

Tanager and the east coast of the United

States where the Forester little denser

has one kind of call and the Tanager on

the other side on the West has a

different kind of call so birds do it

too and I thought well if this is a

model for creation if we make music

primarily the form at least to fit these

contexts and if we make art to fit

gallery walls and museum walls and if we

write software to fit existing operating

systems is that how it works yeah I

think it’s it’s evolutionary it’s

adaptive but the pleasure and the

passion and the joy is still there this

is a reverse view of things from the

kind of traditional romantic view the

romantic view is that first comes the

passion and then the outpouring of

emotion and then somehow it gets shaped

into something and I’m saying well the

passion is still there but the vessel

that it’s going to be injected into

important to that is instinctively and

intuitively created first we already

know where that passion is going but

this conflict of views is kind of

interesting the writer

thomas frank says that this might be a

kind of explanation why some voters vote

against their best interests that voters

like a lot of us assume that if they

hear something that sounds like it’s

sincere that it’s coming from the gut

that it’s passionate that it’s more

authentic and they’ll vote for that so

that if somebody can fake sincerity if

they can fake passion they stand a

better chance of being selected in that

way which seems a little dangerous I’m

saying the two the passion the joy are

not mutually exclusive maybe what the

world means now is for us to realize

that we are like the birds we adapt we

sing and like the birds the joy is still

there even though we have changed what

we do to fit the context thank you very

much

[Applause]