.. in praise of live classical music

[jayne lee wilson]

What I found most objectionable about Greenwood's piece was the tired old opposition of "Hi-fi" and "live music", the one to be contempted and only associated with unmusical pseudo-technical obsession, the other always deified as an ideal of musical and acoustic experience, both reduced to some single, simple entity. It also shows a total lack of perception of the Classical Catalogue of recordings as a richly marvellous culture in its own right, one which can provide experiences every bit as rewarding as live performance, often more so: I've had plenty of disappointments in the concert hall, come home, and found the same music far more enjoyable, in the small hours, off disc. The fact that Greenwood has been a professional musician for 25 years doesn't lend him any honorary authority in itself: this sort of comment, pulling rank by proxy, doesn't alter the fact that, on this occasion, the Honourable Guitarist is not the master of his subject.

Neither Hi-Fi (i.e. home listening), nor the experience of live performance, can ever be held up as an ideal of anything; the musical experiences they offer, closely related yet distinct, are far too diffuse and various for that. And anyway, what ABOUT the design of high-quality, sophisticated, sound-reproducing equipment? Isn't it as much as a Labour of Love - a pursuit of Beauty and Intensity (and often truth, and accuracy - yes, "fidelity"!) as the performance of music itself? Of course it is. There are far easier ways to make money if that's all you want.

[MrGongGong]

He's been a professional musician for almost a quarter of a century .

Spot on
While I have disagreements with some of the assumptions in the piece he is hardy an "amateur musician"
I do think so many folks miss opportunities to really THINK about music and (again) we have a lit to learn from the thinking around improvisation, electroacoustic music and live electronics EVEN if we are not discussing those directly.

[french frank]

What I found most objectionable about Greenwood's piece was the tired old opposition of "Hi-fi" and "live music", the one to be contempted and only associated with unmusical pseudo-technical obsession.

I think that's a very personal reaction. To me the nub of what he says (of his own compositions) is:

"It's intended for concerts instead of recordings, which is a new way of thinking about music for me. It's led me to think differently about live music."

The primary idea is not to disparage recorded music but to describe his personal discovery of 'live' through his introduction to orchestral writing and performers. I took it as being more a realisation that there was more to music and music-making than the paraphernalia of recording, amplifying, electronica &c. Even if he made some controversial statements en passant...

(The Guardian music blog often has 'opinion pieces': I wrote one and someone commented - in block capitals - "WHY HAS THE GUARDIAN GIVEN SPACE FOR THIS? - I couldn't disagree more." The blog editor explained that it was commissioned as an 'opinion piece'. )

[Beef Oven!]

Spot on
While I have disagreements with some of the assumptions in the piece he is hardy an "amateur musician"
I do think so many folks miss opportunities to really THINK about music and (again) we have a lit to learn from the thinking around improvisation, electroacoustic music and live electronics EVEN if we are not discussing those directly.

Well said - more open-mindedness please

[french frank]

Surely everyone has an equal right and equal freedom to do whatever harmless thing they choose?

That's why I was asking a question, not making a statement. I don't think everyone must do anything in this context. Which leaves them equally free to follow the new or not to do so.

[Richard Barrett]

he is hardy an "amateur musician"

Even worse than people who don't know about music writing about music is people who do know about music writing about music as if they didn't know about it - or, as you say, people who have spent their lives making music and if they'd been a bit more curious and imaginative would know more than they (apparently) do.

That's an interesting point of yours about how learning from phenomena like improvisation and electroacoustic music can inform and deepen one's thinking about all music. I remember first joining the old Radio 3 messageboards after lurking around for a bit and perceiving that there seemed to be more people around than I'd expected with such attitudes (alongside Nutwood University's celebrated School of Ignorant Dismissal). There seem to be fewer on this forum.

[Bryn]

Even worse than people who don't know about music writing about music is people who do know about music writing about music as if they didn't know about it - or, as you say, people who have spent their lives making music and if they'd been a bit more curious and imaginative would know more than they (apparently) do.

Are you not getting dangerously close to paraphrasing Frank Vincent Zappa?

"Most rock journalism is people who can't write, interviewing people who can't talk, for people who can't read."

[Serial_Apologist]

Even worse than people who don't know about music writing about music is people who do know about music writing about music as if they didn't know about it - or, as you say, people who have spent their lives making music and if they'd been a bit more curious and imaginative would know more than they (apparently) do.

That's an interesting point of yours about how learning from phenomena like improvisation and electroacoustic music can inform and deepen one's thinking about all music. I remember first joining the old Radio 3 messageboards after lurking around for a bit and perceiving that there seemed to be more people around than I'd expected with such attitudes (alongside Nutwood University's celebrated School of Ignorant Dismissal). There seem to be fewer on this forum.

This seems to apply to those like myself who have less of a grasp of, lets say, avant-garde music from post-WW2 onwards, than of earlier music. My own appreciation of Brahms, Beethoven and Haydn has been enhanced through having listened in depth to all of the music of Schoenberg, in particular. Something to do with the relatively simple being rendered more readily appreciable by way of the more complex, which if I remember rightly, was part of the original Gestalt Psychology theory before Perls et al got their mits on it.

[Serial_Apologist]

Are you not getting dangerously close to paraphrasing Frank Vincent Zappa?

"Most rock journalism is people who can't write, interviewing people who can't talk, for people who can't read."

Zappa in one of his more Shavian statements.

[DracoM]

Having just helped to organise a fortnight music festival in small market town, what struck me very forcibly is the difference between the CD and its massaged sound, organised, edited, and packaged, as opposed to the vivid PHYSICALITY of live music making. You can feel a great pianist, rejoice at the interaction and varieties of four players in a string quartet in ways no Cd can ever really match. ppp is genuinely ppp, and fff ditto. Much more exciting, and a brass band is in yer face in a most exhilarating way.

I would always take a first-timer of any age right down to the front and plant them as close to the action as possible so they get the sound full on. And singers can startle by the powerful UN-miked presence they can generate. That raw presence is what live music can do.

[vinteuil]

I would always take a first-timer of any age right down to the front and plant them as close to the action as possible so they get the sound full on. .... That raw presence is what live music can do.

... yes: Mme V is not particularly interested in music; she puts up with my CD listening. The other day we went to a "real" concert, near the front - and she was astonished by how LOUD it was. I am hoping to use this as leverage so that I can turn up the volume on the stereo...

[jayne lee wilson]

DracoM - Again, point taken but.... I think you're generalising far too much on the basis of inevitably limited experience of HiFI Systems. Any given orchestral CD replayed through, say, the larger ATC actives, could sound anything but massaged! Your ears might easily find the presence and rawness too much of a good thing. I never got over the shock of being washed away by Vanska's The Oceanides coming at me via ATC ASL-50s. Or the sharp, cold, stony resonance of La Petite Bande playing Rameau's Hippolyte suite in the Schleiden Schlosskirche, the reach-out-and-touch-me, tubby pungency of the bassoon solos...

... Human ears cannot always bear too much reality in a loungesized space (and some of us try for years to find the presence/listenability balance..), yet these were very similar experiences to some moments of aural overload I've had in the concert hall itself, not all of them pleasant...

[amateur51]

Zappa in one of his more Shavian statements.

Shavian? Dont, you'll set 'our boys' Pee and Oven off again

That wouldn't be Fiona Shave would it?

[doversoul1]

Sorry, but I've never seen more nonsense per paragraph in an article about live and reproduced music in a very long time. ...

I agree entirely with Jayne. What an amazing nonsense the editor managed to publish!

First, the title: How classical led me to love live performance

I guess this is intended to be (mis-) read as ‘how going to live performance led me to love classical music’: a topical and nicely PC subject. However, the article has nothing to do with hearing classical music at a concert. As Jayne says, there are just too many nonsensical utterances to pick out but I think this more than suggests that this Greenwood person has very limited idea, if anything at all, about classical music concert:

If you're interested, hunt out live classical music, especially the kind that doesn't rely on PA systems.

Interested in what? If this were by a 17-year old, it would be good to read about his/her discovery but when it is by someone who is actually in music profession, it becomes rather suspicious. Ah well, I expect all the editors were on holiday and nobody read it carefully before the publication to fill the space.

[DracoM]

It is not just a matter of sheer noise.

Getting people interested in classical music is not just about decibels, but the enormous range of colours, emotions, interactions, skills and volumes, even more important it is the realisation that this is a group of real human beings making that noise, unaided, not amplified and / or multi-tracked, but playing there and then in front of you. It is the social interaction: the players are interacting with each other, and the audience is drawn into that mix.

Structures and shapes i the music comes later.