REAL MUSIC:
This is my twenty-eighth season with the Philadelphia Orchestra.
(The old Academy of Music looks and sounds
better than the new Kimmel Center.)
I've had concert series in several places I've lived,
the latest being the Scottsdale Center for the Performing Arts
where I've seen and heard
Emanual Ax,
Yefim Bronfman,
Dave Brubeck,
Arlo Guthrie,
Hilary Hahn,
Lynn Harrell,
Yo Yo Ma,
Loreena McKennett,
Marian McPartland,
Gil Shaham, and others.
Live music is a wonderful gift made all the more wonderful
in an age where musicians and listeners can travel.
I've heard unamplified, live, local music in Zambia, India, and China.
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FAKE MUSIC:
One of our great achievements
has been transporting the sound of a musical event
from one place to another via radio
and from one time to another via recording.
The high point of production recording media
was two-track, reel-to-reel
tapes
which lasted until 1960 (so they count in my 1957-2006 time window)
until four-track tapes took over to save money.
Vinyl, long-playing, stereophonic
records
were popular and cheap,
compact disks gave up sound quality to be made more cheaply,
and somehow buyers pay a premium for them. Go figure!
Popular music is actually produced in a studio today
with no live-music original to be reproduced
by our hifi equipment.
I have found the
quest
for closer-to-original sound
increases the joy of both live and recorded music for me.
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