You raise some valid points, David. I agree that editing in the process of making CDs, going into 1000 edits, IS "fake". It's not a "performance". However, I don't think that video is the "answer". How can we keep the bar high? Personally, I think video, which came to the fore in the early '1980's, was the WORST thing that ever happened to popular music. It shifted the focus from sound to images. Music became secondary. I have actually had people say to me, "Well the song's not all that great, BUT YOU SHOULD SEE THE VIDEO!" Now, everybody with GarageBand thinks they'll be the next rock star, and everybody with a camcorder thinks they'll be the next viral youtube star. There are no producers to say, "Not good enough, lads (or lasses). Go back and polish it some more." Serious amateurs have no excuses: the technology is astoundingly cheap and leaps and bounds above what the Beatles had to use. What serious amateurs DON'T have is a producer and record label money and marketing power to help them get to the next level. I don't think CDs push people out of the talent pool. No, I think they contribute to the already overwhelming amount of bad recordings that exist because everybody thinks they're a recording tech because they have a computer and a "condenser" microphone from Musician's Friend. More mediocre videos will simply translate over time to a lot more mediocre videos. Good video is over 90% audio... I would agree that you are right: there IS the opportunity for artists to work to the highest possible standard and "hit a homerun" with their video. But, will anybody be able to sift it out and watch it? Hopefully artists WILL continue to pursue a grand slam. Like you, I retain hope that people will find quality live performance of lute and other early music, and see how cool it really is. It's amazing what one can find on YouTube. But there's even another component: unless you're an audiophile, why buy music when you can hear and watch it on YouTube for free? We live in a very strange world! All the best, Tom > CDs are fake; YouTube is relatively real (with caveats) > My take on this, FWIW, is that CDs do tremendous harm to the music > world. The editing, the processing, the compression, that is all > bad enough. But the real evil is that it prevents the serious > amateur from taking the next steps, by creating an imaginary hurdle > that is too high. CDs push people out of the talent pool before > they even start. Oh, so you want to learn to run? Come back when > you can run a ten second mile. Also, really talented people who are > looking for a real challenge, can now try to hit a home run without > being able to walk to the 360 foot centerfield wall and drop the > ball over. They can climb the mountain without a magical > transporter beam. They will go for it. We need a bigger base to > keep music, early music, classical music afloat. And here it comes. > People should feel free to share whatever they want on the > internet, and the viewers will watch, or not watch. More videos > means a larger audience, which will set the stage for the next > generation of players drawn from outside the traditional, tiny > circles of Early Music. Makers of CDs--and I number myself among > them--will decide whether they want to show people what they really > sound like, and be held up to the standard of their recorded works. > I am now much more comfortable releasing material that has a few > mistakes in it. Now, anything I do is compared to other real > videos, instead of fake CDs with 2,000 edits. > Millions--millions--of people who have never seen a lute before are > joining us on our musical adventure. I have to believe, I hope, > that one of the reasons that they like it, and are watching in > record numbers, is because they prefer a real apple to a plastic > one, real cheese to Velveeta, and the sound of wood and strings > instead of compression, EQ and reverb. Quality vs Quantity? The > quality is there; and it will rapidly get even better. > > -- > > > To get on or off this list see list information at > http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
Tom Draughon Heartistry Music http://www.heartistrymusic.com/artists/tom.html 714 9th Avenue West Ashland, WI 54806 715-682-9362
