Do Members use Live Music as a Reference

[jkeny]

So, I can't define it, but I know it when I hear it! Or play (create) it...

You brain can define it (it would appear) but this doesn't mean that you have conscious access to this definition - just the same as you don't have conscious access to defining what visual characteristics the brain uses to categorise signals as a horse.

 

[RogerD]

Hi RogerD,

The first time I ever heard a theremin (or actually, its cousin the ondes Martenot) was in Messiaen's Turangalîla-Symphonie, and then later, when Page used it for Led Zep performances. Such a cool sound.

Of course, we still have a human being making intentional choices of how to modulate its pitch over time. Messiaen's score here for Trois petites liturgies de la présence divine is a nice example of how some simple marking can convey intention, even on an instrument as mercurial as the ondes Martenot:

View attachment 30155

And, because it's almost a work of art in itself, an extract from Iannis Xenakis' Pithoprakta - musical intention communicated in two-dimensional form:

View attachment 30156

Hi 853guy....IIRC correctly the Theremin was used by Brian Easdale in the soundtrack for the Red Shoes and Bernard Hermann also In the Day the Earth Stood Still. Surely added a sense of the mysterious,I play them quite often.

 

[the sound of Tao]

Hearing through the noise to the source...

Yep, count me in, too!

Thanks for the heads up re: Hameroff and Penrose. Should I overcome my guilt at posting here rather than creating work as billable hours for my client I'll try and take a look.

853guy

Myself and my closest audio mate are both ex-advertising... we also self medicate with music... could be something in the water.

I now teach design and so many of my billable hours are spent in developing understanding on how we translate form and space into human experience. Music also has form and space. This includes the values of negative space (like silences) where the mind can simply rest.

Also understanding and teaching about the relationships in the process is part of my gig. In landscape design the primary relationship is between the viewer and the landscape. In live music that primary relationship would be the listener and the music... that is unless your focus is on the performer rather than the music where you could also be focussing as much on the performers technique separate to any inner substance of the music you would then be in a clearly different perceptual state as opposed to if you were just listening to the performer's music itself.

Live music could well be assessed in a range of very essential ways. First up; well, objectively and subjectively. Listening is a subjective perception but still has objective components and the sound itself can be made up of both natural and synthesised sounds (much as a landscape has natural and built environment).

The sounds (both natural and synthetic) could be further defined in context of the reality of the sound (it's objective reality (frequency, pitch, loudness, duration etc) and then also the subjective experience of that sound or related sounds as perceived culturally as music. If the recent findings on research into the sulcus are correct then a way of defining music could simply just be that the sulcus recognises it so therefore it is music to the listener tho that maybe for us an overstretch since this is yet to be defined as a universal thing. My brain thinks it is therefore it is.

I suppose the relevance of whether a sound is perceived of as natural or familiar in terms of using it as a reference or data point is that it is much easier for a listener to process a sound that is familiar (have read that many many times but will need to cite). The idea is that if we are not trying to translate an apparently new sound so then the mind can recalls its framework of understanding and correlating emotional and conceptual relationships for that sound (eg violin = romance, felt in the heart, soulful, just doesn't sound as good as when Heifetz played it etc) requiring less overall mental and chemical energy in any deeper connection of understanding which then leaves more room for us to process it just for its spatial location, pitch, loudness, rhythm etc. and assimilate it better as music.

Then there is the question of how we define natural sounds. Is a piano a natural sound if you are not brought up in a culture where piano is heard. The reality is that great papa Bach's fabulous well tempered clavier is a human and cultural construct (ahhh Bach.. sigh) so while it is contextually synthetic but also made of an arrangement of natural materials so it can perceived as natural if it has already been done so (and even more natural for someone constantly surrounded by piano sounds).

Which may account for why some instruments and more abstract constructs as instruments are just harder/more challenging to listen to and possibly less useful as a reference point when comparing our systems with live music. Also factoring in why complex rhythmic or tonal music can be harder to listen to but then much easier for us in live situations where everything is more directly what it is and also on a more musical system where tonality is just more resolved and therefore takes less energy for us to identify and process.

If we have easily identifiable and familiar instruments and you have clarity in tonality within the system it would be an easier reference to connect to. So likely some live music is a better reference for each of us than others.

I doubt Chinese opera would be as easy to assimilate or recall for some without cultural experience or cultural context, it would still have human voices but also not necessarily arranged in a familiar tonic.

In holistic terms does live music make for a relevant reference point... it could just be as simple (and pure for any individual) to apply music that has meaning for them and if the feeling and that meaning is resonant with all the other correlated experiences of that music then we have a match. For objective reference we have measure. But for subjective measurement we have only the human experience. If these ring true easily and the feelings are an effortless match then it could well be that live music is a perfectly validated reference.

 

[NorthStar]

For the Pleasure of Live Music (Acoustic) ?

 

[853guy]

You brain can define it (it would appear) but this doesn't mean that you have conscious access to this definition - just the same as you don't have conscious access to defining what visual characteristics the brain uses to categorise signals as a horse.

Well, that’s obvious… horsey ones.

 

[853guy]

Myself and my closest audio mate are both ex-advertising... we also self medicate with music... could be something in the water.

I now teach design and so many of my billable hours are spent in developing understanding on how we translate form and space into human experience. Music also has form and space. This includes the values of negative space (like silences) where the mind can simply rest.

Also understanding and teaching about the relationships in the process is part of my gig. In landscape design the primary relationship is between the viewer and the landscape. In live music that primary relationship would be the listener and the music... that is unless your focus is on the performer rather than the music where you could also be focussing as much on the performers technique separate to any inner substance of the music you would then be in a clearly different perceptual state as opposed to if you were just listening to the performer's music itself.

Live music could well be assessed in a range of very essential ways. First up; well, objectively and subjectively. Listening is a subjective perception but still has objective components and the sound itself can be made up of both natural and synthesised sounds (much as a landscape has natural and built environment).

The sounds (both natural and synthetic) could be further defined in context of the reality of the sound (it's objective reality (frequency, pitch, loudness, duration etc) and then also the subjective experience of that sound or related sounds as perceived culturally as music. If the recent findings on research into the sulcus are correct then a way of defining music could simply just be that the sulcus recognises it so therefore it is music to the listener tho that maybe for us an overstretch since this is yet to be defined as a universal thing. My brain thinks it is therefore it is.

I suppose the relevance of whether a sound is perceived of as natural or familiar in terms of using it as a reference or data point is that it is much easier for a listener to process a sound that is familiar (have read that many many times but will need to cite). The idea is that if we are not trying to translate an apparently new sound so then the mind can recalls its framework of understanding and correlating emotional and conceptual relationships for that sound (eg violin = romance, felt in the heart, soulful, just doesn't sound as good as when Heifetz played it etc) requiring less overall mental and chemical energy in any deeper connection of understanding which then leaves more room for us to process it just for its spatial location, pitch, loudness, rhythm etc. and assimilate it better as music.

Then there is the question of how we define natural sounds. Is a piano a natural sound if you are not brought up in a culture where piano is heard. The reality is that great papa Bach's fabulous well tempered clavier is a human and cultural construct (ahhh Bach.. sigh) so while it is contextually synthetic but also made of an arrangement of natural materials so it can perceived as natural if it has already been done so (and even more natural for someone constantly surrounded by piano sounds).

Which may account for why some instruments and more abstract constructs as instruments are just harder/more challenging to listen to and possibly less useful as a reference point when comparing our systems with live music. Also factoring in why complex rhythmic or tonal music can be harder to listen to but then much easier for us in live situations where everything is more directly what it is and also on a more musical system where tonality is just more resolved and therefore takes less energy for us to identify and process.

If we have easily identifiable and familiar instruments and you have clarity in tonality within the system it would be an easier reference to connect to. So likely some live music is a better reference for each of us than others.

I doubt Chinese opera would be as easy to assimilate or recall for some without cultural experience or cultural context, it would still have human voices but also not necessarily arranged in a familiar tonic.

In holistic terms does live music make for a relevant reference point... it could just be as simple (and pure for any individual) to apply music that has meaning for them and if the feeling and that meaning is resonant with all the other correlated experiences of that music then we have a match. For objective reference we have measure. But for subjective measurement we have only the human experience. If these ring true easily and the feelings are an effortless match then it could well be that live music is a perfectly validated reference.

Dear the sound of Tao, (may I call you TSOT for short?)

Oh, to be ex-advertising. One day, I tell myself… one day.

I love what you’ve written. Yes, we’re Luddites - Calvin and Hobbes in 2D attempting to describe the third-dimension. That the research is unveiling more of this dimension we can ‘view’ but not yet fully grasp is what makes it so amorphous to discuss. But what I think’s really fascinating about what you wrote is that ‘relationship’ is part of the key to developing a more comprehensive understanding of how and why music (or anything, really) is so essential to us as a species.

It’s clear we have a relationship to it. And as I’ve rather inelegantly tried to articulate, music itself (insert many disclaimers here) is fundamentally a relationship between independently measurable variables that takes on greater import and meaning when woven together into the thing our brains seem to accept as ‘music’, even if not all variables are equivalent. I think (though I hesitate to put words in his mouth - i.e., insert disclaimer here) that perhaps KostasP’s point that music lacking in explicit rhythmic structure (but which still occurs over time) can still be experienced as ‘music’ to us possibly hints that our brain has incredible capacity to adapt to new stimulus, in the same way that we can learn new words, or even as I’m doing, a new language.

Aesthetics is both sensory and emotional - that is, it’s a perceptual phenomena, and if the research above is pointing toward anything, it’s that our brain is not only responding to stimulus, it’s hardwired to actively define and re-define it (it’s not just ‘detecting’, it’s ‘organizing’). I mean, why? It’s occupied minds as brilliant as Aristotle, Plato, Plotinus, Baumgarten, Kant, Hegel, Bouhours (conceptual author of the phrase “je ne sais quoi”), Diderot, Rousseau and er… well, those of us participating on this thread. We’re in hallowed company, but only stroking the layer of ground tread before us and the path toward future neurophysiological discoveries still yet to be made.

It’s a humbling place to be, but I’m grateful we’re here.

853guy

 

[KostasP.]

853guy:

Offence no longer! Omnipotent Music accepts apologies and forgives.

Of course, our cognitive powers are extremely and often lethally potent at surmounting plausible and convincing linguistic arguments ( usually the more articulate, the more convincing ), which may actually be totally unrelated to the truth\reality but, nevertheless, are able to present alternative ‘'truths’’.......The power of language....the power of the mind!

But the power of Sounds in Motion invoking Emotion in Music collectively transcend all forms of powers, as Music often melts us all and renders us totally powerless, only to make us momentarily even more powerful. What an oxymoron!

In my post, I wanted to but did not elaborate on my somewhat aphoristic line: ‘’philological pedantics\semantics aside, in this context, music is sound; sound is music’’.

To attempt supporting the premise that the brain distinguishes between music and sound, is often contextually splitting hairs ( hence my pedantics\semantics comment ). Amir’s simple but apt example makes the contextual ‘’inseparability’’ point very well. Do you think that, all along that song, the brain bothers to separate the tone from the main music. If anything, Allan Taylor perhaps ( very cleverly ) is musically provoking us to make our own connections with the title of the song........a celestial tone perhaps!

I will leave you to ponder on this theme of «Sounds in Motion» with two sets of music. The first is « SANGAM», with Charles Lloyd (ECM) and «MAKING MUSIC» with Zakir Hussain (ECM). These are ‘’no-brainers’’.....only a heart is needed! The other set is «TAQSIM I-III by Wulfin Lieske (KREUZBERG RECORDS) and ( since you like avant-garde music) «DRONES, BARBARISMS, DIALOG\NO DIALOG by Pierre Jodlowski (KAIROS)*. These, for some, may well need both a heart and a brain. Make what you will! By the way, you will need 95 dB Max (at listening position), C weighting, Fast on an accurate SPL metre, and ....to add salt to the injury, you may also need a pair of ML CLXs!

Cheers, Kostas.

*Apologies for not being pofficient enough to supply a direct, click-on link for these Cds.

 

[NorthStar]

 

[PeterA]

Beautiful music, Bob. Thank you. Pretty cool if one can get a believable rendition of that music in his listening room.

 

[NorthStar]

I checked few before selecting that one Peter. She's a good flutist; I too play the alto steel flute (silver) on occasion. ...And the classical guitar too. ...Plus more. There is no doubt in my life; live acoustic music from what makes us vibrate is an excellent reference point to our music listening @ home.

The magic is in the ears of the beholder when that sound's transmission is playing. No one can criticize it, no one can lower the communion between the performer and the listener...the overall performance, even when the only listener in the room is the music player herself...the force. The system no matter how resolute, clean, powerful it is, simply vanishes magically, disappears and only the vibes from the music take over our entire body and soul. ...Speechless, motionless, all tears of deep emotional fulfillment. We find our comfort zone, an intimate and personal experience that no one else but us can dream of...living in the now in space.

What's best? A combination of everything.

 

[witchdoctor]

I am curious to learn what percentage of the membership uses live music as a reference against which to judge the success of an audio system.

There is the argument that we should instead evaluate a system in terms of how accurately it copies the original recording, because that is all that we, as consumers, have. I contend that we also have our memories of what live music sounds like, and that these memories can also guide us in our audio evaluations. The criticism, as I understand it, is that our ears and memory can not be trusted, and that the recording does not fully capture the performance, so referring to live music is fundamentally flawed.

Are these seemingly opposed approaches toward system evaluation irreconcilable?

The refernce I use is to try and replicate what the engineer heard in the studio. I don't think a microphone exists that is able to capture 100% of live music. When you go to a concert the PA system is not set up in stereo, you get what you get. To believe otherwise is the same as jerking off. It might feel good but it ain't the real thing.

 

[NorthStar]

The refernce I use is to try and replicate what the engineer heard in the studio. I don't think a microphone exists that is able to capture 100% of live music. When you go to a concert the PA system is not set up in stereo, you get what you get. To believe otherwise is the same as jerking off. It might feel good but it ain't the real thing.

A speaker's driver, a paper cone, a metal driver, a diamond tweeter, a beryllium mid-range driver, a horn, an electrostatic panel, ...none sound like a 1950 Gibson acoustic guitar, like a trombone, a piccolo flute, a clarinet, a trumpet, a saxophone, a piano, a cello, a violin, a drum, a ... it is simply acoustic physics.
And the recording machine is @ the mercy of condensers...encapsulated microphone amplifiers.

* By the way, I set up a PA system few weeks ago, in stereo.

 

[the sound of Tao]

Dear the sound of Tao, (may I call you TSOT for short?)

Oh, to be ex-advertising. One day, I tell myself… one day.

I love what you’ve written. Yes, we’re Luddites - Calvin and Hobbes in 2D attempting to describe the third-dimension. That the research is unveiling more of this dimension we can ‘view’ but not yet fully grasp is what makes it so amorphous to discuss. But what I think’s really fascinating about what you wrote is that ‘relationship’ is part of the key to developing a more comprehensive understanding of how and why music (or anything, really) is so essential to us as a species.

It’s clear we have a relationship to it. And as I’ve rather inelegantly tried to articulate, music itself (insert many disclaimers here) is fundamentally a relationship between independently measurable variables that takes on greater import and meaning when woven together into the thing our brains seem to accept as ‘music’, even if not all variables are equivalent. I think (though I hesitate to put words in his mouth - i.e., insert disclaimer here) that perhaps KostasP’s point that music lacking in explicit rhythmic structure (but which still occurs over time) can still be experienced as ‘music’ to us possibly hints that our brain has incredible capacity to adapt to new stimulus, in the same way that we can learn new words, or even as I’m doing, a new language.

Aesthetics is both sensory and emotional - that is, it’s a perceptual phenomena, and if the research above is pointing toward anything, it’s that our brain is not only responding to stimulus, it’s hardwired to actively define and re-define it (it’s not just ‘detecting’, it’s ‘organizing’). I mean, why? It’s occupied minds as brilliant as Aristotle, Plato, Plotinus, Baumgarten, Kant, Hegel, Bouhours (conceptual author of the phrase “je ne sais quoi”), Diderot, Rousseau and er… well, those of us participating on this thread. We’re in hallowed company, but only stroking the layer of ground tread before us and the path toward future neurophysiological discoveries still yet to be made.

It’s a humbling place to be, but I’m grateful we’re here.

853guy

853guy,

Yes, I am quite comfortably TSOTted sometimes... mostly after a few drinks tho. And I also agree, this is a great forum and it is really invaluable to be able pick up on threads like this and just how so many people here can trigger new ways for us all to understand how we listen to music and why we connect with it sometimes so much better than other times.

We spend so many hours, so much of a lifetime, involved in listening to music, so to actually be able to comprehend better how it all happens is really cool.

Live music is such a completely different perceptual range of mindsets than the ones we have sitting listening to recorded music in a private room. Not even sure that the fundamental purposes are actually the same. But still live music will always make for an amazing data benchmark reference for us in evaluating system performance.

The traditional purpose of live music was for people of the same community coming together to share an experience of music with each other. The music was the tie that bound them within community. This is such a very different proposition to the experience of say just one person replaying a recorded musical experience for themselves often in a room absolutely alone. Or are we? Maybe not so much with Magnepans when sometimes the phantoms of the performance are imported with the speakers lol.

I have this great flamenco album El Triangulo del Flamenco which is single miked live recordings from the flamenco triangle in Spain... the region between Cadiz, Seville and Jerez de la Fronterra. Flamenco is such a spiritual happening and the people who recorded the album felt that studio recordings of flamenco lost that moment. So they went out in the field and wild reeled.

They go from village to village and record the music being made in the village squares. You hear the people taking drinks out of the ice boxes, dogs barking in the background, the guitarists and singers just getting into the zone completely, the people around involved in the music making as is the tradition. It is such a different context of hearing that makes so much more sense out of flamenco and the passion that is the central light in that experience.

Recorded live music performances are also quite often amongst my favourite recordings. Not just because of the 'one take' purist thing but because the whole relationship of the performers and the audience that are also captured within the music as well as within the sound, the frisson that expands the whole presence envelope into a moment... Whiteheads occasions of experience that weave together to make purpose and meaning out of the experience.

Dave Brubeck's Concord on a Summer Night is just alive with the sounds of the cicadas in the background so the envelope of the recording just stretches around the performers like a bubble... and then when the crowd eventually breaks into applause it adds a whole star field of electricity into that brilliantly captured soundscape. The music making and the event and the soundscape aren't at all separable. Wish I had been there.

Going to a live performance and also then having a recording of that would be a great reference.

But no matter either way... going to music live has it's own magic and if we build our perceptual framework along the way, well thats all good.

 

[witchdoctor]

A speaker's driver, a paper cone, a metal driver, a diamond tweeter, a beryllium mid-range driver, a horn, an electrostatic panel, ...none sound like a 1950 Gibson acoustic guitar, like a trombone, a piccolo flute, a clarinet, a trumpet, a saxophone, a piano, a cello, a violin, a drum, a ... it is simply acoustic physics.
And the recording machine is @ the mercy of condensers...encapsulated microphone amplifiers.

* By the way, I set up a PA system few weeks ago, in stereo.

Well said, thank you

 

[witchdoctor]

853guy,

Yes, I am quite comfortably TSOTted sometimes... mostly after a few drinks tho. And I also agree, this is a great forum and it is really invaluable to be able pick up on threads like this and just how so many people here can trigger new ways for us all to understand how we listen to music and why we connect with it sometimes so much better than other times.

We spend so many hours, so much of a lifetime, involved in listening to music, so to actually be able to comprehend better how it all happens is really cool.

Live music is such a completely different perceptual range of mindsets than the ones we have sitting listening to recorded music in a private room. Not even sure that the fundamental purposes are actually the same. But still live music will always make for an amazing data benchmark reference for us in evaluating system performance.

The traditional purpose of live music was for people of the same community coming together to share an experience of music with each other. The music was the tie that bound them within community. This is such a very different proposition to the experience of say just one person replaying a recorded musical experience for themselves often in a room absolutely alone. Or are we? Maybe not so much with Magnepans when sometimes the phantoms of the performance are imported with the speakers lol.

I have this great flamenco album El Triangulo del Flamenco which is single miked live recordings from the flamenco triangle in Spain... the region between Cadiz, Seville and Jerez de la Fronterra. Flamenco is such a spiritual happening and the people who recorded the album felt that studio recordings of flamenco lost that moment. So they went out in the field and wild reeled.

They go from village to village and record the music being made in the village squares. You hear the people taking drinks out of the ice boxes, dogs barking in the background, the guitarists and singers just getting into the zone completely, the people around involved in the music making as is the tradition. It is such a different context of hearing that makes so much more sense out of flamenco and the passion that is the central light in that experience.

Recorded live music performances are also quite often amongst my favourite recordings. Not just because of the 'one take' purist thing but because the whole relationship of the performers and the audience that are also captured within the music as well as within the sound, the frisson that expands the whole presence envelope into a moment... Whiteheads occasions of experience that weave together to make purpose and meaning out of the experience.

Dave Brubeck's Concord on a Summer Night is just alive with the sounds of the cicadas in the background so the envelope of the recording just stretches around the performers like a bubble... and then when the crowd eventually breaks into applause it adds a whole star field of electricity into that brilliantly captured soundscape. The music making and the event and the soundscape aren't at all separable. Wish I had been there.

Going to a live performance and also then having a recording of that would be a great reference.

But no matter either way... going to music live has it's own magic and if we build our perceptual framework along the way, well thats all good.

I completely agree that live music recordings are preferable. If you want a GREAT resource check out www.concertvault.com and www.qello.com. I use an Asus Xonar U7 card to upmix the signal to 192/24 and it is amazing. Last night I watched a Bob Dylan from the Newport Folk Festival in 1962-63-64 on Qello, great stuff.

 

[witchdoctor]

853guy,

Yes, I am quite comfortably TSOTted sometimes... mostly after a few drinks tho. And I also agree, this is a great forum and it is really invaluable to be able pick up on threads like this and just how so many people here can trigger new ways for us all to understand how we listen to music and why we connect with it sometimes so much better than other times.

We spend so many hours, so much of a lifetime, involved in listening to music, so to actually be able to comprehend better how it all happens is really cool.

Live music is such a completely different perceptual range of mindsets than the ones we have sitting listening to recorded music in a private room. Not even sure that the fundamental purposes are actually the same. But still live music will always make for an amazing data benchmark reference for us in evaluating system performance.

The traditional purpose of live music was for people of the same community coming together to share an experience of music with each other. The music was the tie that bound them within community. This is such a very different proposition to the experience of say just one person replaying a recorded musical experience for themselves often in a room absolutely alone. Or are we? Maybe not so much with Magnepans when sometimes the phantoms of the performance are imported with the speakers lol.

I have this great flamenco album El Triangulo del Flamenco which is single miked live recordings from the flamenco triangle in Spain... the region between Cadiz, Seville and Jerez de la Fronterra. Flamenco is such a spiritual happening and the people who recorded the album felt that studio recordings of flamenco lost that moment. So they went out in the field and wild reeled.

They go from village to village and record the music being made in the village squares. You hear the people taking drinks out of the ice boxes, dogs barking in the background, the guitarists and singers just getting into the zone completely, the people around involved in the music making as is the tradition. It is such a different context of hearing that makes so much more sense out of flamenco and the passion that is the central light in that experience.

Recorded live music performances are also quite often amongst my favourite recordings. Not just because of the 'one take' purist thing but because the whole relationship of the performers and the audience that are also captured within the music as well as within the sound, the frisson that expands the whole presence envelope into a moment... Whiteheads occasions of experience that weave together to make purpose and meaning out of the experience.

Dave Brubeck's Concord on a Summer Night is just alive with the sounds of the cicadas in the background so the envelope of the recording just stretches around the performers like a bubble... and then when the crowd eventually breaks into applause it adds a whole star field of electricity into that brilliantly captured soundscape. The music making and the event and the soundscape aren't at all separable. Wish I had been there.

Going to a live performance and also then having a recording of that would be a great reference.

But no matter either way... going to music live has it's own magic and if we build our perceptual framework along the way, well thats all good.

If you like live recordings check out the gold mines at www.concertvault.com and www.qello.com. I use an Asus Xonar U7 soundcard to connect my PC to my rig. It upmixes to 192/24 PCM and sounds great.