Live Performance Vs Recordings

Live Performance Vs Recordings

It’s seems that everyone I talk to loves music. There is also a lot of conversation I have had where I ask the question “do you prefer hearing live music or recording” and they all tell me the same thing. They would take live performance any day.

I have been continually thinking about what makes live performance so important.

Is it being able to appreciate someone’s talent?

Is it the unpredictability as to what is coming next?

There are so many questions that pop up when I think about that.  With live music there is the ability to alter the energy levels, the dynamics the speed and play to the crowd. To a certain extent you can do that with recordings but you cant play with the overall timbre and style of the presentation. There is more artistic control over a live performance.

In all my recitals so far I have always started off the performance with a mid tempo song that is quiet but no so low that it puts people to sleep. This is my introduction and it’s my opportunity to set my stall out and simply ask the approval of the patients and draw them in to the direction of this social event.

This approach shows that I am empathetic to the audience and it also helps build the rapport required with the listeners that attention to detail is a major variable I have considered for them.

Recorded music has a certain intimacy to it. If you listen to a recording with Headphones on I find it easy to get lost and hear things that I have never heard before. I have also found that when I listen to music of a band that I love then I go and see them live there are times where I haven’t been that impressed because it doesn’t match the recording and what I know.

I have arguments for both sides and I have to come to the conclusion that there are positives in both. Live performance is more impressive to me and recordings give predictability over a state that I wish to be involved in.

Live performance is the subject hat deserves more research and what the magical feeling is that makes it so enjoyable, that state of flow that time away, that moment that is so special.

In a nut shell music is gid.