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Re: Agreement and disagreement

Well, I never said that it was right to reinterpret. I actually said it was wrong to do so. Go back and read that point, and please refrain from trying to accuse me of saying things I most definitely did not.

I did raise issues with knowing the artist's intentions and there are issues. Performances don't always work out as intended, surprises happen, and sometimes the surprises are what makes the performance. Should you reproduce such surprises accurately when the artist tells you they were unintended? Should you try to deliver what the artist intended or what they achieved? I do side with reproducing what was achieved.

And it is worth noting that not all recordings do meet with the artist's approval. Discs have been released that the artists objected most strongly to. You simply can't assume that the recording documents the artist's intentions.

I spoke strongly in favour of accuracy as an equipment design goal and I meant that. I also have yet to find any component that does that. I said I was uncertain that delivering such a goal would satisfy the listener, though I also said I was prepared to find that I was wrong on that point if we ever really reproduced the wave form. It's impossible to say how I would react to hearing something no one has ever heard, but as I said, I think listening to recordings is a different experience to listening to a live performance. We can and do attend in different ways, so why shouldn't we find that what would genuinely satisfy us when listening to recordings is something different to what satisfies us when we listen to live music. And as I said, I've listened to both live and recorded and I've played publicly as an amateur artist. I do have a bit of experience as a performer as well as a listener.

As far as accurately reproducing the waveform goes, which waveform do you want to reproduce for a live recording? The 5th row or the 10th row? Is it re-interpretation to arrange your reproduction so that what you hear is very close to what you heard at the actual concert, even though the mics were located elsewhere?

What I am certain of is that I do think that there are issues about accuracy and faithfulness to intentions which aren't necessarily as clear cut as you try to make them seem; and also that trying to achieve a goal that our equipment currently does not support and always falling short does not seem like a recipe for contented listening to me.

David Aiken

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