몇일전에 재미있는 글을 읽었습니다.

새로 입학하는 대학생들이 MP3퀄리티를 더 선호한다는 연구결과에 대한 글이었는데요.

참고로 전문을 붙여보았습니다.

http://radar.oreilly.com/2009/03/the-sizzling-sound-of-music.html

The Sizzling Sound of Music
by Dale Dougherty | comments: 60

Are iPods changing our perception of music? Are the sounds of MP3s the music we like to hear most?

Jonathan Berger, professor of music at Stanford, was on a panel with me at a meeting of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in Mountain View, CA on Saturday. Berger's presentation had a slide titled: "Live, Memorex or MP3." He mentioned that Thomas Edison promoted his phonograph by demonstrating that a person could not tell whether behind a curtain was an opera singer or one of Edison's cylinders playing a recording of the singer. More recently, the famous Memorex ad challenged us to determine whether it was a live performance of Ella Fitzgerald or a recorded one.

Berger then said that he tests his incoming students each year in a similar way. He has them listen to a variety of recordings which use different formats from MP3 to ones of much higher quality. He described the results with some disappointment and frustration, as a music lover might, that each year the preference for music in MP3 format rises. In other words, students prefer the quality of that kind of sound over the sound of music of much higher quality. He said that they seemed to prefer "sizzle sounds" that MP3s bring to music. It is a sound they are familiar with.

I remember wondering what audiophiles were up to, buying extremely expensive home audio systems to play old vinyl records. They put turntables in sand-filled enclosures with elaborate cabling schemes. I wondered what they heard in that music that I didn't. Someone explained to me that audiophiles liked the sound artifacts of vinyl records -- the crackles of that format. It was familiar and comfortable to them, and maybe those affects became a fetish. Is it now becoming the same with iPod lovers?

Our perception changes and we become attuned to what we like -- some like the sizzle and others like the crackle. I wonder if this isn't also something akin to thinking that hot dogs taste better at the ball park. The hot dog is identical to what you'd buy at a grocery store and there aren't many restaurants that serve hot dogs. A hot dog is not that special, except in the right setting. The context changes our perception, particularly when it's so obviously and immediately shared by others. Listening to music on your iPod is not about the sound quality of the music, and it's more than the convenience of listening to music on the move. It's that so many people are doing it, and you are in the middle of all this, and all of that colors your perception. All that sizzle is a cultural artifact and a tie that binds us. It's mostly invisible to us but it is something future generations looking back might find curious because these preferences won't be obvious to them.

On a related note, a friend commented recently that she doesn't understand why people put up with such poor sound quality for phone calls on cell phones, and particularly iPhones. "I can hardly hear the person talking to me," she said. "I don't think smart phones are making any improvement to the quality of the phone call," she added. "Is it not important anymore?" She wondered why people accepted such poor quality, and so did Jonathan Berger, but a lot of people just don't hear it the same way.


앞에서 말한것과 비슷하게

음의 퀄리티는 사람에 따라 다릅니다.

우리와 같은 오디오관련 업계에 종사하는 사람들이라면

응당 iPod의 퀄리티에 일침을 가하는 비평을 던지는 것이 사실이지만

일반 사람들에게는 그러한 비평이 의미가 없습니다. (혹은 없게 느끼고 있습니다)

사회적인 커뮤니케이션이라는 차원에서 보면 iPod의 퀄리티를 자신의 기준으로 삼는 것이

훨씬 용이할테니까요.

물론 테스트자체가 얼마나 공정하게 되었는가하는 점은 의문이 가는 부분이지만

자신만의 소리를 찾아가는 힘든, 그야말로 장인의 정신으로 작업을 하고 있는 우리들에게는

약간의 디프레스되는 소식임에는 틀림없는 것 같습니다.



하지만

반대로 저의 관점은 이러한 현상이

오디오 교육에 있어서의 나아가야 할 방향을 보여준다고 느낍니다.

즉, 익숙한 사운드를 더 좋게 느낀다...
결국 오디오 및 음향 교육에 있어서 "원음"을 듣는 훈련이 얼마나 중요한가 하는 점이죠.

좋은 컨서트 홀에서
좋은 연주자가 연주하는 바이올린 소리를 한번도 듣지 못한채

신디사이저의 바이올린의 소리만을 들어왔다면,

물론

이 시대가 공감할 수 있는 좋은 음악을 만들어내는데는 아무런 문제가 없겠지만

과거와 앞으로의 세대를 아우르는
철학이 담겨있는 사운드를 뽑아내기란 힘들지 않을까하는
조금은 교만한 생각이 듭니다.




또 최근에 많은 논란이 되고 있는

하이샘플링 녹음에 대해서도

현재 구분할 수 있는 사람의 수가 통계적으로 없다는 것을 이유로

물리적으로 분명히 존재하는 사운드의 성분과

사람의 인식과는 (앞으로도) 상관관계가 적을 것이다라고

단정짓는 것은

앞에서 얘기한

iPod의 퀄리티와 결국 다르지 않은 얘기가 아닌가 생각이 듭니다.

[계속]