Music, technology and prerecorded tracks

[Fred Blumenthal <xd2fabl...>]

My immediate response is to agree with Mary that I don't want to go to
concerts to hear prerecorded music.  The argument against that is that
certain sounds are now available that are only available that way,
especially through sampling.  And the argument against that, in turn, is
that the concert hall is not the intrinsic medium of prerecorded music.
Would we pay money to listen to music that was entirely prerecorded, like
Morton Subotnik's "Silver Apples of the Moon?"  (I'm showing my age, but
you get the idea.)

Music begins as ceremony, among other things.  I say that not only because
this ListServ concerns itself with hazones and klezmer music that
originated with life-cycle events, but also as applied to other cultures,
to purely art music, to music throughout the ages, to music for dance, etc.
There was debate recently about whether or not it was worth it to pay $36
for concert tickets, when the same amount of money would buy at least two
CDs.  Again as audience members we re-enact ceremonies, and this is part of
what makes us feel good about, and makes us participants in, music.

My apologies for my "diarrhea of the typewriter," but one more thing Mary
mentioned triggered a further thought.  The most excited I ever became
while listening to music was a live performance of Stravinsky's "Oedipus
Rex."  The performance was heavily flawed, but that was part of what made
it so electrical.  And when performances are perfect, that's part of what
makes them wonderful, too.  A performer expresses a certain measure of
chutzpah to perform in public.  Prerecording music, whether by writing it
down or by creating it in a computer, isn't artistically flawed, but it is
artistically different from music performed live.

Fred Blumenthal
xd2fabl (at) us(dot)ibm(dot)com


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