but don ’ t involve actual human taste tests or an output of a direct measure of spiciness in and of themselves . The much more common measurement you ’ ve likely seen with spice level is the Scoville scale . Thinking about putting a Trinidad Moruga Scorpion pepper in your taco ? Well , that is going to be about 2,000,000 Scovilles spicy . A bell pepper comes in at about 50 Scovilles . Human test subjects ( sign me up !) try different peppers and they are increasingly diluted with water until testers indicate that it is no longer spicy . The Scoville unit is an assigned value based on how many times dilution occurred in order eliminate the heat .
Maybe even more to my point here , a bell pepper for an infant would likely be perceived as being spicy . For folks like myself who love spicy food , add a Carolina Reaper pepper to just about any dish other than dessert . In the same way , what is considered ‘ loud ’ to a congregation used to only an acoustic piano and a small 100-watt portable PA system is going to be drastically different than a rockin ’ contemporary church with a large line array and rows of subwoofers .
With peppers and with worship mixing , we have the physics of the experience and we have the actual experience in context . And in both cases , there are general scales to reference , but no absolute distinction between ‘ always considered spicy ’ and ‘ not at all ever spicy ’ or ‘ always considered loud ’ and ‘ not at all loud ’ — it isn ’ t a binary and one dimensional measure . It also isn ’ t a matter of wrong . Is the baby wrong for thinking a bell pepper is spicy ? Is Mrs . Sullivan wrong for thinking the electric guitar is too loud ? Are you right for thinking that since your meter reading in the sanctuary doesn ’ t ping over the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health ( NIOSH ) limit for unsafe noise levels , it must not be too loud ? Hmm …
For regular readers of this column , you ’ ll recall many examples I ’ ve presented as to the importance of considering context . A bass guitar tone that sounds a bit anemic and topheavy when soloed may be just what the doctor ordered in a mix that was lacking rhythmic energy or suffered from an overabundance of left hand piano excursions . When thinking about how to best utilize mix feedback , it is important to reflect about context in this manner . Let ’ s take a couple possible bits of unsolicited layperson feedback and ponder how we might respond or dig deeper to move us all ahead .
HENDRIX HAS ENTERED THE BUILDING . “ I just couldn ’ t believe how loud everything was today !” Although on first glance this might seem like an unhelpful comment , there is a surprising amount of information possibly woven in there . Did anything change in today ’ s service ? For sake of illustration , let ’ s say that you did in fact add an electric guitar when you only had only acoustic guitars before . This comment about “ everything ” being louder may in fact be more