Botswana: Loud Music Will Make All of Us Deaf by 2016

Botswana: Loud Music Will Make All of Us Deaf by 2016

Mmegi/The Reporter (Gaborone)

OPINION
11 June 2007
Posted to the web 11 June 2007

Rampholo Molefhe

I do not have the fullest evidence to make this point. Nevertheless, it should be made. By the year 2016, 20 percent or more of the 'juke box' generation of the early 21st century will suffer some form of hearing defect.

The community centres and social clubs have given way to nightclubs and bars where the music is played without regard for the natural hearing range of the ear. That is where my argument stumbles, but I can surely tell from my seldom visits to these 'joints' that the volumes of the walled sound boxes and the wild guitars of the people who are trying to emulate Zairean or Congolese music, that the level sound is far louder than what the natural ear should be able to take.

So, the size of the sound system has become more important than the quality of musicianship; the lyrics, the chord progressions and the ability of the musicians to express themselves spontaneously, or by way of prior arrangement for those who can read charts or memorise them.

This also has implications for the sensitivity of the ear to key or tuning. In the middle of all that noise, the ear has no chance of distinguishing between one note and the next. So that if one stands a few metres away, there will be clear clashes of tuning of the instruments.

Little do the modern musicians understand that the concept of the large sound was developed in the United States - and perhaps other places like Japan - in order to compete with the acoustic sound that came out of the protest music of the 60s.

That era produced Bob Dylan, Taj Mahal, Richie Haven, Odetta and several others.

The 'rock' idiom was also beginning to wane, creating a void or niche where the nightclub could replace the 'live' music.

The drug culture and social fragmentation of the '60's had created a ready audience for the gangsters, prostitutes, tourists and truckers who wanted to while the night away at the nightclub after 'a hard day's' work.

The idea then, was to keep the premises dimly lit to allow for a conducive atmosphere for mating and carrying out illicit deals. The loud volumes would stupefy the clients, disorienting them about the time of day or night.

That environment would isolate the venue from the rest of the world 'outside'. The clients were likely to be doped, drunk or crazy, making them somewhat oblivious of time, volume or their sexual behaviour.

It did not take long before Barry Gordy and the black community realised the damage that this madness had brought upon the already troubled inner city blacks.

They created Motown, Diana Ross, The Temptations, Michael Jackson to create an alternative sound for the 'discos, nightclubs, motor vehicles and social functions.

Needless to say, James Brown, Wilson Picket and Tiny Tim had already been at it for years. Motown expounded on that and it has now become a dominant - rather than a minority niche - in the popular music of the United States and the world, filtering out into Rhythmn and Blues or R&B, Rap and other idioms that were nurtured under the difficult environs of inner city America.

North America is a very big and populous place with a market large enough to support most works of excellence and junk.

Perhaps because Botswana is comparatively such a small market, the artists are vulnerable to the temptation to borrow from the junk end of American music - and even African music in some instances - to capture the tiny and gullible clientele that visits the stadia, nightclubs and so-called festivals where noise-making is the order of the day.

Hopefully, when the 'juke box' generation passes, another shall be born that will tune its ear to the plentiful acoustic, semi-acoustic and other varieties of cultured music. We should not all be deaf by then!