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for your music. This acoustic barrier could be
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    viewed as a subtle conspiracy, a sonic wall, a way of keeping the riffraff out—
    but we won’t go there, not yet.
    POPULAR MUSIC
    At the same time that classical music was tucking itself into new venues,
    so too was popular music. In the early part of the last century, jazz devel-
    oped alongside later classical music. This popular music was originally played in bars, at funerals, and in whorehouses and joints where dancing was going
    on. There was little reverberation in those spaces, and they weren’t that big, so, as in CBGB, the groove could be strong and up front.M
    It’s been pointed out by Scott Joplin and others that the origin of jazz solos and improvisations was a pragmatic way of solving a problem that had emerged: the “written” melody would run out while the musicians were playing, and in
    order to keep a popular section continuing longer for the dancers who wanted to keep moving, the players would jam over those chord changes while maintaining the same groove. The musicians learned to stretch out and extend whatever section of the tune was deemed popular. These improvisations and elongations evolved out of necessity, and a new kind of music came into being.
    By the mid-twentieth century, jazz had evolved into a kind of classical
    music, often presented in concert halls, but if anyone’s been to a juke joint or seen the Rebirth or Dirty Dozen brass bands at a place like the Glass
    House in New Orleans, then you’ve seen lots of dancing to jazz. Its roots
    are spiritual dance music. Yes, this is one kind of spiritual music that would sound terrible in most cathedrals.
    The instrumentation of jazz was also modified so that the music could be
    heard over the sound of the dancers and the bar racket. Banjos were louder
    than acoustic guitars, and trumpets were nice and loud, too. Until amplification and microphones came into common use, the instruments written for
    and played were adapted to fit the situation. The makeup of the bands, as well as the parts the composers wrote, evolved to be heard.
    Likewise, country music, blues, Latin music, and rock and roll were all
    (originally) music to dance to, and they too had to be loud enough to be heard above the chatter. Recorded music and amplification changed all that, but
    when these forms jelled, such factors were just beginning to be felt.
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    QUIET, PLEASE
    With classical music, not only did the venues change, but the behavior
    of the audiences did, too. Around 1900, according to music writer
    Alex Ross, classical audiences were no longer allowed to shout, eat, and chat during a performance. One was expected to sit immobile and listen with rapt
    attention. Ross hints that this was a way of keeping the hoi polloi out of the new symphony halls and opera houses.2 (I guess it was assumed that the lower classes were inherently noisy.) Music that in many instances used to be for
    all was now exclusively for the elite. Nowadays, if someone’s phone rings or a person so much as whispers to their neighbor during a classical concert, it could stop the whole show.
    This exclusionary policy affected the music being written, too—since no
    one was talking, eating, or dancing anymore, the music could have extreme
    dynamics. Composers knew that every detail would be heard, so very quiet
    passages could now be written. Harmonically complex passages could be
    appreciated as well. Much of twentieth-century classical music could only
    work in (and was written for) these socially and acoustically restrictive spaces.
    A new kind of music came into existence that didn’t exist previously—and
    the future emergence and refining of recording technology would make this
    music more available and ubiquitous. I do wonder how much of the audience’s
    fun was sacrificed in the effort to redefine the social parameters of the concert hall—it sounds almost masochistic of the upper crust, curtailing their