Acoustically speaking: Red-the-Rooster's “cock-a-doodle-doo” can be heard throughout much of Oysterville as he watches over his flock and talks to passers-by.

In a recent discussion about music, I was called a “purist” in a tone (ahem!) which told me that the term was not being used as a compliment. But, in this particular instance as a musical purist, I have no intention of changing my ways. In fact, I believe that my opponents were not being intellectually honest, which is just a fancy way of saying I think they were lying to themselves.

Our debate had to do with the meaning of “acoustic.” I have always believed that acoustic refers to music that is not enhanced or modified by virtue of electricity or electronics. No plug-ins, no amplifiers, no mixing equipment, no microphones.

“Not so!” say many of my musician friends. “You can ‘plug in’ and still be acoustic.”

When I looked the word up in my handy-dandy Deluxe Edition of the Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary ©1998, I found: “acous.tic ə-´kü-stik of, relating to, or being a musical instrument whose sound is not electronically modified.” Yes! Exactly!

So what part of plugging in amplifiers and using microphones is “not electronically modified?” I ask. Apparently, my dictionary is way out of date (as am I) and acoustic now has a different meaning.

Says everybody’s favorite online source, Wikipedia: “Acoustic music is music that solely or primarily uses instruments that produce sound through acoustic means, as opposed to electric or electronic means… Performers of acoustic music often increase the volume of their output using electronic amplifiers…” Huh?

The definition further states: “However, these amplification devices remain separate from the amplified instrument and reproduce its natural sound accurately. Often a microphone is placed in front of an acoustic instrument which is then wired up to an amplifier.” And I further state: This discussion is bordering on double-speak.

I have seen with my own eyes (and heard with my own ears) musical instruments being plugged in directly to amplifiers. “Acoustic,” I am told. What I say is, if there are plugs and cords, there is electricity and, if there is electricity involved, the music is not acoustic.”

So… I am a purist. And it gets worse. For the past 14 or 15 years, we have been hosting “House Concerts” in our home. Our “venue” is small — we can seat 30 or 35 people, 40 in a pinch. The configuration is two rooms which open on one another — our living room and library. If you are standing at the far end of one room, you can talk in a normal voice to someone at the other end of the second room and be heard with no trouble. Why then do we increasingly have musicians insistent upon using a microphone to “save” their voices which, as we happily concede, are the first and foremost ‘instruments’ of singers?

Perhaps singing is harder on your voice than talking. I’ll have to ask my cousin Kris Jones who, after a long career in opera, is a voice coach and teacher. My own experience is limited to talking for a living (teaching) which sometimes involved speaking to a playground or cafeteria full of kids. No microphone. No problem.

And then there were my 10 or so years of community theater experience with the first incarnation of the Peninsula Players. Hilltop Auditorium, was our main venue. I remember no problem at all regarding our volume and being heard. Our director(s) just reminded us at our first few rehearsals to “speak to the back of the house.” End of discussion.

As for singing… Fortunately for audiences, I only did that as Yenta in “Fiddler on the Roof” and as Mammy Yokum in “Li’l Abner” — not much singing, to be sure, and it wasn’t the Met either in size or expectation. There were no electronics or electricity (except that generated by our amazing performances!) And there were no problems.

I doubt if I’ll ever win this argument with my musician friends. They are the music experts; I’m not. But, maybe I can win when the subject turns to chickens. We have “backyard chickens.” We supplement the feed we get from a local nursery with carefully selected table scraps and let our girls roam freely in our garden until bedtime when we lock them up safely from raccoons and other predators.

We don’t claim that our eggs are “organic” or laid by “cage free chickens” or any of that other fowl hype. We claim only that our eggs are delicious and our chickens entertaining. And acoustic! Especially the rooster!

Pacific County author and historian Sydney Stevens lives in her family’s ancestral home in Oysterville.