I meet with a bunch of friends every other Friday night at a local hangout for some good guitar picking and singing. And it’s pretty casual. We show up when we can and just play whatever songs we feel like playing and it’s all great fun.

But I have noticed something that seems to happen every time we play, and for lack of betters words I will call it the “volume syndrome.” It’s occurs when each player decides that their instrument should be heard over and above all of  the others.

And so, after every song, they adjust the volume control ever so slightly in an effort to stand out just a little bit from the crowd. It’s a subtle difference, but an increase nonetheless. The problem is that EVERYONE does the same thing.

The result is that over the course of the evening, there is an ever constant increase in amplitude until the point when music is so loud that nobody can hear anything!

The point of all of this is that although we each want to be heard, we can’t LISTEN if we are all trying to dominate the session at the same time. How much better it is when we occasionally “turn it down” so someone else can shine for a few moments, and then we have the opportunity to excel when it’s our turn!