I was on the picket line for Notre Dame de Paris, the French-language mega-hit that ran in Montreal a few years ago. There were several issues at the heart of the picket, one of which was the use of pre-recorded music with NO live musicians. The technology has been available to put a recording over a PA for at least fifty years, so the ones who objected to NDdP were not necessarily anti-technology. Another of the points was one of fraud, as NO mention was made of pre-recorded tracks in any of the pre-show publicity, yet the ticket price reflected live-musician prices. It wasn't only the orchestra that was recorded, but the chorus as well, and even the principal characters each had their own track recorded, ready to be turned on in case they weren't in voice that night or if they wanted to save their voices for an extra performance that day or another daytime interview/performance. The musicians that were recorded for the soundtrack were NOT adequately compensated for what their tracks were being used for, either, as NO royalties were paid to the mostly Italian and French musicians.
When it comes down to it, why should ANYONE go to a live show? You can sit comfortably on your own sofa at home with the volume set as you like, with great camera angles professionally edited to give you a better point of view, and several takes in a world-class studio to find the best performance, and all edited and mixed to sound way better than any live performance could ever hope to sound. So what is the attraction? To answer my own question, live performance is the attraction. They are all out there on that stage performing their pants off to reach YOU and your pals now, tonight, in this room. In any case, all the technology in the world is useless without true artists manning the controls, and some sensitive audience members to receive it. As one of my musician friends put it, "Now any idiot can press the button, and he does!"
Christopher
On Jan 29, 2005, at 12:02 PM, M. Perticone wrote:
hello lon,
i mean no offense to you either, really, but what do you think about all
those real engravers that lost their job?
and what about algorithmically composed music? should be banned in favor of
flesh-and-bone composers?
should i turn off my pc and hire two or three secretarial workers? should i
stop using my e-mail program so the post office increments its income?
peace, marcelo
As to Hiro's story about losing his gig because the company got sued by
the union for replacing players with sequenced parts--all I can say is
that they deserved to get sued, and I hope the union won. I'm sorry
you lost work, Hiro, but however great your sequences were, they
couldn't have been as good as having real players, and what about
putting those players out of work? Our union here in LA is currently
picketing the Pantages Theatre for using a "virtual orchestra." I mean
no offense to you, Hiro. I just hate to see musicians losing work to
samplers. Perhaps in the (hopefully very far!) future people will
forget what real instruments sound like. I hope I'm dead and gone by
then, because that will be a very sad day.
All the best to all,
Lon
******************************************** Lon Price, Los Angeles <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> <http://hometown.aol.com/txstnr/>
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