All members of the Kingdom Animalia have physical instincts (e.g. avoid pain, seek pleasure, etc...), in humans, the vehicles of these physical instincts are emotional instincts, and to widen our purview: the vehicles thereof are psychological instincts. We are not the only animal to have emotional instincts, and probably not the only to have psychological instincts. My aim in illuminating these vehicles is to make plain the fact that individual humans are as instinctually compelled towards certain music(s) as dogs are instinctually compelled to roll in animal excrement. Thus pop music is born. There may not be a specific dog whose excriment's scent is particularly moving to all other dogs, but there sure as hell is a combination of scents which will stir the nostrils of vast contingents of the doggy population. Same goes for music and humans.
In modern engineering there are sonic tools to elicit specific responses from your ears. A skilled producer may achieve an extreme level of precision in regards to which frequencies of which sounds should be louder or softer or echo; he or she can control which sound should come from which direction and how long or short it should be held; he or she, using modern technology, may actually contort the shapes of the sound-waves themselves. These men and women know that a bass at 50hz will make your romp shake and that a drum at 200hz will make your throat thump. They know that even with an enormously loud sound pulsing away at those low frequencies, you will still be able to hear Lady Gaga's sweet melodies overhead.
Without having a virtuoso on the Tuba, or muddying an arrangement with excessive tympani, it can be hard for some composers to reach those depths of bowel shaking ferocity which your speakers may not even pick up in electronic pieces like this (listen to the drop at .25 on your computer speakers, then do it again on some good headphones or speakers with a sub):
Composer Max Richter's response to this conundrum is to turn to electronics. Listen in the following piece to the time leading up to minute 2.50 (make sure it's absolutely blaring on loud speakers).
Make of it what you will, my point is that mastering preferences have changed overtime in addition to changes in simple timbrel preferences.
Remastering Albums and Interpreting Symphonies
The entire reason I started thinking about this topic was that I heard the remastered version of the Beatles' The White Album the other day (heaven forbid that estate go dry). While some parts sound nice and crisp, I noticed that the mastering caters to the modern pop audience and thus looses a bit of its sixties character. Particularly the bass drum was stomping on my vibe in some of the more mellow tracks because engineers these days have an evolved (for better or worse) idea of technical 'right' and 'wrong.'
Similarly, when a modern orchestra plays a symphony from the Viennese Classical era there are two schools of thought as to how the piece should be treated. In pop there's a strong sense of empirical good and bad, whereas in classical there are two equally respected schools: Classical and Romantic. An orchestra under the management of a 'Classical' music director strives to use the exact type of instruments available in the period of the composer and tenaciously obeys all tempo marks in the origional score. His or her aim is to provide the audience with the experience of the symphony exactly as it would have been heard by the composer. On the other hand, a 'Romantic' music director feels that a performance is an interpretation and that the conductor should take liberties where it serves the emotive content of the concert. The orchestra will use the best instruments at hand, perhaps extra performers will be added to beef up the aural experience. The NSO's current director Christoph Eschenbach is notorious for his slow orchestral interpretations. Beethoven himself was not known for his technical prowess but was able to rise above his contemporaries in public acclaim because every music fan for thousands of miles knew that he played with more vigor and emotion than his contemporaries. In his own words: "To play a wrong note is insignificant; to play without passion is unforgivable." What a boss.
