Better Living Through Compression?

A recent Rolling Stone article entitled "The Death of High Fidelity" discusses the impact that digital culture has had on music recordings. Essentially, to keep music convenient for downloading and optimized for computer speakers or Mp3 players, the files must be compressed. Compression basically cuts out the extremes that your ear (supposedly) doesn't hear and balances the other sounds into a relatively equal volume. The result? Music that cuts through the clutter of environmental noise but loses the nuance that makes it unique. If you're scratching your head and wondering if you've heard compression before, a non-musical example is the gripping TV drama that you've been sucked into only to be knocked senseless by the loud TV commercial that interrupts the mood. It's not just louder, it's also compressed so that it really knocks you over the head with its potency.

I noticed this in my own music collection once I began converting my CDs to digital. Some of the music I loved on CD with my home stereo lost it's beauty and richness on my iPod. I've since corrected the problem by loading CDs at a higher bitrate. The problem now days is that many CDs themselves are compressed from the beginning. As a result, they sound great in a noisy car or restaurant, but they lose their dynamic and even sound noisy in an audiophile environment. Here's a quote from the article from Daniel Leviton, author of This is Your Brain on Music:

"The excitement in music comes from variation in rhythm, timbre, pitch and loudness," Levitin says. "If you hold one of those constant, it can seem monotonous." After a few minutes, research shows, constant loudness grows fatiguing to the brain. Though few listeners realize this consciously, many feel an urge to skip to another song."

And this leads us to God (believe it or not). In the modern Christian walk, so many have the assumption that our relationship with God is loud, constant, and ready to cut through the mix of everyday life. We've stripped the nuance of meaning from His word and taken only the bits that will help us have our "Best Life Now." When we can't sense the Spirit's presence or discern His guidance, we assume He's not there. In reality, if teh Christian walk was all peaks and no valleys, it would have the same effect on our attitude as compressed music has on our ears. It is when we need God most that we may also appreciate Him most. The Psalmist experienced times when he was afflicted and felt distant from God. But David always knew God was still there. Note the pain in verse 1-2, followed by the assurance in 11-12:

Hear my prayer, O LORD!
And let my cry for help come to You.
Do not hide Your face from me in the day of my distress;
Incline Your ear to me;
In the day when I call answer me quickly.... (Psalm 102:1-2)

My days are like a lengthened shadow,
And I wither away like grass.
But You, O LORD, abide forever,
And Your name to all generations. (Psalm 102: 11-12)

I'm always stunned by the honest acceptance of the ebb and flow of God's relationship with man as written in the Psalms. The relationship between Creator and created is not always happy clappy-- sometimes it is downright painful. Rest assured, though, it is certainly dynamic. It is filled with highs and lows, loud and soft, ballads and rockers. But when we strip our God down so He fits our lifestyle (like so many have done to their music collection) we take away the dynamic relationship that makes it beautiful. We compress it for convenient listening, and we don't even know what we're missing!