Wedding Deci-Bells

Hasidic Musician highlights Cheryl Kupfer's rant in the Jewish Press regarding the high volume of the music at weddings.

I have walked out of a number of simchas because of the ear-splitting decibel levels. And, when we recently had a simcha, I was very makpid on the issue. I e-mailed the band leader around ten times before the simcha reminding him that I wanted the volume controlled. At the simcha itself, I designated one of my friends to do hang out while the band did its sound check before the simcha started.

The question is why is it so loud?

My bandleader explained that what sometimes happens is that the lead singer or one of the musicians can't hear himself in the monitors and asks the sound guy (or the band member running the sound system) to pump up the volume in his mic or connection. This causes a vicious cycle where all the other musicians ask for more volume because they now can't hear themselves. The result: Ridiculous decibel levels. It sounds reasonable but I am not a musician so I don't really know.

May I suggest another reason? Insecurity bourne of years of exposure to shiny shoe music. In the shiny shoe music velt arrangers and producers try to mask essentially mediocre to lousy music with over-the-top arrangements. If they add enough synthesizers, horns and violins they figure that maybe nobody will notice that the underlying melody stinks. Perhaps this attitude has permeated some of the bands. Play loudly enough and no one will focus on whether we're really good. I don't know; it's a s'fara.

I could be wrong. It's happened before.