I got invited to a small bar to hear a friend's band play. Before my friend's band came out another band came on. Sitting through their set was an endurance test. It was an hour of bone clattering, ear splitting, wall-of-volume hell. Unfortunately, I was starting on beer one when they came out. I had hoped when I got to beer four I might find some kind of improvement, but alas, I was still in agony. How many times had I found myself in this situation? Way too many.

Now don't get me wrong, I like loud music when it's done right. However, for me the first sign of a band that has a lack of artistry is their simplistic attitude toward volume. There is a relationship between the texture of your music and its volume. Volume is a musical dimension. I'm not sure some players fully understand that different notes can have an enormous affect by changing their volume. However, if your volume baseline is to assume you're playing for deaf people, the textural affects of volume changes is lost, in my opinion. If I went to see a fine jazz pianist in a small bar and the piano was ampified to drown out my own thoughts, I'd try to weasle out a refund of my cover.

I think some bands set their volume to a eleven to cover up their lack of skills. Well, if you don't think you're good enough to provide people pleasure through your music, why bother getting up and playing in front of them in the first place?

Authors put their stories in settings. This is critical to a story's affectiveness. It's a no-brainer. I don't think a lot of new musicians think about the setting they are placing their music in. Different settings require different proportions of volume. Your guitar has a volume knob for a reason.

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