This article throws light upon the top three methods of controlling noise pollution caused by pop music. The methods are: 1. Isolation 2. Insulation 3. Volume Reduction.
Method # 1. Isolation:
The method of isolation suggests that if a pop club is located at the centre of a residential area, then moving it away from this locality will solve the problem of loud noise, at least for the neighbours.
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Individual neighbours of a pop club can also solve this problem by moving away themselves. But the difficulty in implementing these drastic solutions arises from the fact that a person who happens to have a house near a pop club may not wish to move away simply to avoid loud noise, if the locality offers other advantages.
On the other hand, the proposition of moving the pop club away from a residential locality is also not very attractive. After all, the club does need customers and, obviously, there will be more potential customers if the club is situated in a thickly-populated residential locality. Isolation, therefore, is an impracticable method for the control of pop music noise.
Method # 2. Insulation:
We consider now the method of insulation-a method widely practiced with great success in industrial situations. As it turns out, the problems of insulation in the case of pop music are, in principle, not very different from the standard problems of noise reduction by this method encountered in the case of industrial noise.
The main difference results from the fact that some social problems are superposed on the purely technical problems of insulation, when it comes to pop music.
Perfect insulation of a pop music concert cannot be achieved due to the fact that ready exits must be available to the audience in the case of fire or other emergencies. In addition, ventilation must be provided for the comfort of listeners and the customers must be allowed to enter and leave as they please. All these factors make it very difficult to seal the building completely and achieve good noise insulation.
Method # 3. Volume Reduction:
In the case of noise produced by a machine, volume reduction can usually be achieved by the reduction of its speed. In the case of excess noise produced by an electronic pop, group, volume reduction simply means turning down a volume control. Unfortunately, this is exactly the pop musicians don’t want to do.
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Nothing will induce them to turn down the volume and stay at the low sound level. Pop musicians and its enthusiasts both associate pop music with loud music and they feel that pop music does not sound right unless it is very loud.
If the musicians will not turn the volume down themselves, it must be forced upon them by the manager of the pop club. This requires, however, that the manager must be present at each performance and, moreover, he must be equipped with an accurate sound level meter to monitor the noise level objectively.
Some pop clubs did try this method, but it does not work satisfactory in practice unless the manager and the pop group have very cordial relations. If they have to constantly argue over the volume, the music suffers and then the club suffers as a consequence. What is really needed is the proper instrumentation to control the volume automatically.
We have considered above the general problems noise reduction in the case of amplified pop music. Now we discuss these problems more thoroughly in the following Section by investigating various types of establishments separately and considering their specific problems individually.