Oh boy. Lmao. Talk about a deep ol' rabbithole. I think when we talk about being "deceived", that's a "category error". It assumes that recorded music and live performance of music are the same thing, and they're not.
Oh boy. Lmao. Talk about a deep ol' rabbithole. I think when we talk about being "deceived", that's a "category error". It assumes that recorded music and live performance of music are the same thing, and they're not.
They're not,
They're not,
They're not.
I have to repeat this for emphasis, because too many smart people have either conflated the two, or thoughtlessly accept the conflation.
They are two different extensions of the same art form, and one should not be mistaken for the other. A record is literally that; a permanent "record" of an otherwise ephemeral artwork. The alleged "deceptions" arise solely from the tools and tactics the technicians use to satisfy the demands of such permanence; such that the process of the record's creation takes on a life of its own.
This should be a stipulation, not a revelation. And yet, many people (including very many on this app) continue to view the two separate experiences as from the same bag; or worse yet, view live performance as some "poorer brother" of recorded (and enhanced) performance. The question is, which one contains the "soul" of the artists' art? That depends upon the artist, and what they are expressing through it. Some express different facets through each; The Beatles + The Who being prime examples. And that should be cool too.
The problems begin when it ain't; and that's a habit of mind too many folks inside and outside the music business have adopted.
I'm probably saying all this shit wrong. But as a live musician who makes records bc he has to, who works for a guy who's pretty much the opposite; it's something I feel in my bones.
Live Music is one experience; a record is another.
Embrace each for what they are, and *only* what they are, and you'll never feel "deceived".
Oh I totally agree. Not sure if you've ever read David Byrne's book "How Music Works" but he has this incredible passage at the beginning about how the environment a song is heard in is so crucial and all songs don't have to work in all environments, yet we expect them to.
Great piece, Chris. On this specific question of the live and the recorded, yes they may be separate things but the distinction has increasingly become blurred over the years. As Philip Auslander's book Liveness: Performance in a Mediatized Culture, argues, the use of technology in live performance has made it hard to tell what is 'live' in the music itself (https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/_/rL5CzwEACAAJ?hl=en). Perhaps 'liveness' is more a quality of a group of people coming together in a place at a particular time and what unfolds there rather than some inherent aspect of what is coming out of the speakers.
Oh boy. Lmao. Talk about a deep ol' rabbithole. I think when we talk about being "deceived", that's a "category error". It assumes that recorded music and live performance of music are the same thing, and they're not.
They're not,
They're not,
They're not.
I have to repeat this for emphasis, because too many smart people have either conflated the two, or thoughtlessly accept the conflation.
They are two different extensions of the same art form, and one should not be mistaken for the other. A record is literally that; a permanent "record" of an otherwise ephemeral artwork. The alleged "deceptions" arise solely from the tools and tactics the technicians use to satisfy the demands of such permanence; such that the process of the record's creation takes on a life of its own.
This should be a stipulation, not a revelation. And yet, many people (including very many on this app) continue to view the two separate experiences as from the same bag; or worse yet, view live performance as some "poorer brother" of recorded (and enhanced) performance. The question is, which one contains the "soul" of the artists' art? That depends upon the artist, and what they are expressing through it. Some express different facets through each; The Beatles + The Who being prime examples. And that should be cool too.
The problems begin when it ain't; and that's a habit of mind too many folks inside and outside the music business have adopted.
I'm probably saying all this shit wrong. But as a live musician who makes records bc he has to, who works for a guy who's pretty much the opposite; it's something I feel in my bones.
Live Music is one experience; a record is another.
Embrace each for what they are, and *only* what they are, and you'll never feel "deceived".
Oh I totally agree. Not sure if you've ever read David Byrne's book "How Music Works" but he has this incredible passage at the beginning about how the environment a song is heard in is so crucial and all songs don't have to work in all environments, yet we expect them to.
Great piece, Chris. On this specific question of the live and the recorded, yes they may be separate things but the distinction has increasingly become blurred over the years. As Philip Auslander's book Liveness: Performance in a Mediatized Culture, argues, the use of technology in live performance has made it hard to tell what is 'live' in the music itself (https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/_/rL5CzwEACAAJ?hl=en). Perhaps 'liveness' is more a quality of a group of people coming together in a place at a particular time and what unfolds there rather than some inherent aspect of what is coming out of the speakers.