Today we went to a concert with Helen Sj\u00f6holm and Magnus Carlson, and Sveriges Radios Symfoniorkester. They sang pop songs, mostly older ones, mostly moody and melancholy – Nick Cave, Depeche Mode, David Bowie etc.<\/p>\n
Helen Sj\u00f6holm is one of my favourite Swedish artists – I love her voice and the way she sings. I had no idea who Magnus Carlson was (turns out he is quite well known) but Helen Sj\u00f6holm on her own would be enough for me.<\/p>\n
The concert was nice, but no more than that. I had hoped for something better. I didn’t think the songs they performed really let her shine – the programme seemed to consist of songs that they liked, and that the audience would like, rather than songs that suited her voice and style best. I came there to listen to Helen Sj\u00f6holm, but got more enjoyment out of listening to Magnus Carlson. <\/p>\n
And, like almost all concerts, the sound was too loud and unbalanced in my opinion.<\/p>\n
I understand that most singers need amplification. But a symphonic orchestra should be able to fill a concert hall with sound without any amplification. Now Adrian was holding his hands over his ears and complaining the music was too loud, and I had to agree. It was not quite loud enough to hurt my ears, but definitely louder than I had expected. It had truly never crossed my mind that we would need to bring hearing protectors to a concert with a symphonic orchestra.<\/p>\n
Adrian likes music and I had hoped he might actually enjoy this concert. Perhaps not as much as Eric and I, but some. He didn’t get a chance because he was too busy covering his ears.<\/p>\n
I also wish the sound technicians prioritized the singers more. The song and the singer’s voice is what it is all about, to me. I want the song to soar, and the orchestra to back and accompany it. Most concerts amplify them to about equal “weight”.<\/p>\n
If I was filthy rich and had nothing better to do with my money, I would pay for private concerts with my favourite singers – sound engineered to fit my taste and not to the needs of people with dull or damaged hearing!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Today we went to a concert with Helen Sj\u00f6holm and Magnus Carlson, and Sveriges Radios Symfoniorkester. They sang pop songs, mostly older ones, mostly moody and melancholy – Nick Cave, Depeche Mode, David Bowie etc. Helen Sj\u00f6holm is one of my favourite Swedish artists – I love her voice and the way she sings. I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7152","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-art_entertainment","category-music"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.toomik.net\/helen\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7152","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.toomik.net\/helen\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.toomik.net\/helen\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.toomik.net\/helen\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.toomik.net\/helen\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7152"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.toomik.net\/helen\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7152\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7154,"href":"https:\/\/www.toomik.net\/helen\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7152\/revisions\/7154"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.toomik.net\/helen\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7152"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.toomik.net\/helen\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7152"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.toomik.net\/helen\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7152"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}