Ethical Recording Practices

[Tony John Hearne]

For me "warts and all” is, I think, the apposite phrase. My benchmark live recording - including coughs and sneezes, even at one point what is clearly a music stand falling over - is the Toscanini NBC Symphony live recording of Verdi's Messa Da Requiem All this and in mono but my speakers always catch fire whenever I hear it

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Love from London

[spaceray]

Originally posted by Peter:
Then you have the extreme of Glenn Gould who I think took 2 years to record the Bach 2 and 3 part inventions - virtually every note must have been edited, surely not necessary.

From Wondrous Strange by Kevin Bazzana
"...at first the hair trigger action Gould demanded produced a disturbing side effect:
in the middle register,at moderate and slow tempos, a hammer would sometimes glancingly strike a string a second time before returning to rest,creating a tonal anomaly Gould dubbed a "hiccup." In the first album on the newly adjusted Steinway CD 318,the Two and Three Part Inventions,the hiccup is obvious from the first bar of the first invention ,though in a disclamer on the album cover Gould professed to " now find this charming idiosyncrasy entirely worthy of the remarkable instrument which produced it."(Few listeners agreed.)After a few more years of tinkering,The "hiccup" had mostly disappeared."

[Gurn Blanston]

Space,
I knew you would know the answer to that. So Peter was right, editing was at issue, however, it sounds as though there was a good reason for it, not your average one.



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Regards,
Gurn
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That's my opinion, I may be wrong.
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[urtextmeister]

Part of the reason for Gould's excessive editing was his "hands-on" approach. He insisted on doing things himself. I guess to some degree, the Columbia technicians let him have at it. He eventually obtained his own equipment and spent many hours editing in his own apartment.

This is sort of similar to his approach to medical treatment. He knew every illness and every new medicine on the market. He was constantly popping pills based on his own theories of what was wrong with him.

Despite all the editing that goes into a Gould recording, I think the man was still a great performer. My teacher was at the Moscow conservatory, when he performed there and told me what a sensation it was to hear him play the Bach inventions. They were all bored with these required pieces, but all of sudden it became the most exciting stuff they had ever heard.

Speaking of ethics in recordings, what about this:

I was watching "the View" the other day and their special guest was George Michael. He did a song with guitars, drums, four or five backup singers, etc. It was a good performance. At one point, my wife remarked, "I think he is lip-synching."
How could this be? He had a large band there and they all appeared to be playing their instruments. The backup singers were getting into it. Then I noticed that his voice was always at a constant level, despite the waving around of his mike. The big tip-off, however, was when they ended. The song faded at the end. This would be quite a feat to do live.
I think this was an elaborately staged fake. This does not seem fair, because some pop performers do things live for, say, the Today show and usually come off sounding under pitch, out of breath, and out of balance.

[Chris]

Originally posted by urtextmeister:
Speaking of ethics in recordings, what about this:

I was watching "the View" the other day and their special guest was George Michael. He did a song with guitars, drums, four or five backup singers, etc. It was a good performance. At one point, my wife remarked, "I think he is lip-synching."
How could this be? He had a large band there and they all appeared to be playing their instruments. The backup singers were getting into it. Then I noticed that his voice was always at a constant level, despite the waving around of his mike. The big tip-off, however, was when they ended. The song faded at the end. This would be quite a feat to do live.
I think this was an elaborately staged fake. This does not seem fair, because some pop performers do things live for, say, the Today show and usually come off sounding under pitch, out of breath, and out of balance.

As I said, I wasn't going to talk about pop music here, because that's all edited to death. Heck, sometimes they haven't even finished writing the songs before they start recording parts of them. That's just the way that kind of music has evolved. Of course, there are issues about pitch correction and all of that, but that's another issue altogether.

But this stuff about faking a live performance is really not good, in my opinion. Some people say it's all about putting on a show, and that's great for people who are more interested in the hair and the clothes, but it's a big dissapointment for those of us who are interested in actually hearing songs played live. There's an energy there. An element of risk.

I think you'd be surprised to know how many "live performances" are really pre-recorded.

My favorite band, Queen, hated pretending to put on a live show. A few times when they had to do it, they really had fun with it - Freddie Mercury swinging the microphone around, not anywhere near his mouth, while he was singing. Not even making an effort to make people think it was real. Really funny stuff.

[Beyond Within]

hahaha thats awesome, I didnt know that.

"With digital technology at every's fingertips, even amateurs can edit. I know for a fact that a lot of audition recordings sent to colleges and conservatories are actually compilations of many takes. If done by a student with some expertise, they will never know.
(Don't ask me how I know. I just do)."

Not true in all cases. At Peabody they require a live audition.