The music you know
Last night I was looking to order some music from iTunes to replace an old favorite in my archaic record library. Unfortunately, that particular recording was obscure enough that it hasn’t been reissued in an iTunes selection, or even on a regular CD or audiotape. It seems to have gone into the dustbin of history.
So now I have a choice. I can liberate my ancient records and dusty record player from storage, find a place to put them, and try to listen to them that way, scratches and all. I could even get one of those gizmos or software (for example, this) that converts records to MP3 player format and spend a ton of time driving my technically-challenged self nuts trying to do so.
Then there’s the most practical and sane approach: buy a new version of the same piece done by different artists, one that’s available in MP3 or CD format already. What stopped me? Listening to samples of those versions at the iTunes library and at YouTube.
It’s not that they were so bad. It’s just that they sounded terribly wrong to me, because my ear has become totally accustomed to the renditions I have already listened to so many times that I know every nuance, every pause, every inflection, every place the rhythm speeds up and every moment it slows down, every time the singer increases the volume to give emphasis or lowers it to a hush to convey solemnity.
Apparently that particular music in all its details has become embedded in my brain, so much so that, when I listen to previews of other versions, they almost always sound terrible to me. It might be the tempo, or the timbre of the voices, or the emotions conveyed, or any number of other things that keep shrieking “wrong, wrong, WRONG!” to me in a series of jarring surprises that register as shocks.
In the past, when I’ve ordered the new version anyway, I’ve sometimes gotten used to it over time. Once I even found I liked the new one better, after a suitable mourning period. But more often, absolutely not; I seem to lack an “override” button. I keep hearing the original in a ghostly accompaniment that follows along simultaneously with the new in my mind.
Here, by the way (and now you might think me completely mad), is the piece I was looking for last night, sung by people I’ve never heard of who do a credible job but are nothing whatsoever like my originals. I had originally bought my record—which featured the New York Pro Musica—in error, about forty years ago.
It was most decidedly not the sort of music I like. But the familiarity of repeated listenings bred not contempt, but something akin to love:
[NOTE: I did finally end up buying a new version at iTunes this morning. Aren’t I flexible?]
“Aren’t I flexible?”
I don’t know. Can you fit inside a steamer trunk while playing a tuba?
1. If copyright laws weren’t an outrageous case of crony-capitalist corporate welfare, someone would have made your favored performance freely and legally available online.
2. The piece itself I can take or leave. It would be soothing if the high notes didn’t pierce my ear.
3. Aren’t I flexible?
Commendably so, but respect your bad back.
Back in high school, without knowing much about Bach, I used some of my earnings as counterman at a greasy spoon to purchase a double album of Bach’s Brandenberg Concertos conducted by Pablo Casals at the Marlboro Music Festival. It was the first recording of the Brandenbergs I have ever heard. It is also the best recording of the Branderbergs I have ever heard. no longer have the record albums, though I have oodles of Bach CDs.
Several weeks ago I did some searching and found out that there are CDs available of Casals conducting the Branderbergs. Not all is lost.
I recently listened to an old cassette tape which had a recording of a SoCa hit from the 1982 Carnival season in Trinidad and Tobago, a time when I was working there. Unfortunately, I have no idea who sang the song, and the song title can only be inferred. While I could find other songs I remembered from 1982 Carnival on YouTube, such as Deputy, I haven’t located this particular song on YouTube. I will write the T&T Carnival Commission to see if they can help identify the title and artist.
“”It’s just that they sounded terribly wrong to me, because my ear has become totally accustomed to the renditions I have already listened to””
Therein lies the reason i’ve never been a big fan of live concerts and especially recordings of them. We would never think to ask any other artist besides a musician to go into a smoke filled venue with alcohol laden rowdy folk and give us his best work. 🙂
crony-capitalist = fascism
not capitalism..
there is no corporate welfare in capitalism
in fact there is no third party either.
its basically pinning the blame for socialism central planning in a capitalist society on capitalism.
ie… paint entrance on the exit
paint exit on the entrance
start fire in basement, yell fire
watch how the most educated trap themselves in a Hegelian dialectical horror made just for them…
WELFARE and command economy reasons of payoff and collusion, are socialism/fascism… but NOT capitalism..
i guess if we dont know our own history of paul revere, we cant be expected to know about the other stuff…
no matter how large i write, small i write, past links, and more… regardless of all that, the people want to be slaves as they dont want to read, research, learn, hold liars to the fire, and so on.
no one in leadership and other areas were they benefit lying to you, is going to clue you in…
and no… the truth will never be as nice as their lies. such is the nature of empirical limits and honest judgment. so shopping for answers you like is a great way to find the lies to decorate your life with.
I don’t know. Those guys singing that piece you linked to. Why does something about their singing vaguely remind me of that debate going on in S.F., only more ominous?
Try the Internet archive, http://www.archive.org/. It has thousands of older recordings and other audio/video/text data that are available for free. It can be weird to navigate but the amount of content is amazing. I found a recording of ‘Beautiful Ohio’ from ~1915. It was the number one song in America the day my mother-in-law was born. I made her a series of CD’s containing each number one song on her birthday for each of her 90 years. Most of the first 20 years or so I found at the archive. It’s a great resource.
If you find an acceptable version on Youtube, you can have it converted to mp3 at listentoyoutube.com
If you ever see fit to bring the turntable out of storage, I recommend the Spin It Again package by Acoustica, which does a seriously-good job of cleaning up old vinyl for conversion to digital without requiring you to know about high-pass filters or any of that other audio jargon.
It is a very simple matter to convert a vinyl LP to CD. I do it all of the time using Sony Sound Forge (one of the things I do at the local college where I am an audio production guy). Apply the “click removal” portion of the program and it sounds just fine.
Speaking of live concerts. I saw a recording of the Mamas and Papas doing “Sunday, Sunday” live. One guy was wearing a hat that looked as if it were made of a flea-ridden old carpet. A statement, I suppose.
Oh, they were awful. Couldn’t keep the tempo, or hit a note. Couldn’t have made it performing live if the audiences weren’t stoned before the first act.
They were acceptable when the studio cleaned them up.
Remember, even if you don’t feel technically savvy enough to do the vinyl digitizing yourself, I bet you could find a service bureau that would do it for you. There are lots of places that will convert VHS or 8mm movie film to DVD and I bet many of them also offer vinyl conversion services.
Well,,,,,, that didn’t sound like Merle Haggard.
I too have difficulties with “wrong” interpretations. While watching the first Shrek movie I was scandalized – who is this non-Leonard-Cohen person who is daring to sing “Hallelujah”? Well I finally got used to Rufus Wainwright’s version, but I still can’t stand Willy Nelson’s interpretation of “Whiter Shade of Pale”.
Dear Neo-neocon,
The ear tends to be lazy, craves the familiar and is shocked by the unexpected; the eye, on the other hand, tends to be impatient, craves the novel and is bored by repetition.
by English poet W.H. Auden.
When downloading tunes from iTunes, I often have to spend extra time searching for the original version, instead of the enhanced one. I absolutely hate live performance recordings.
Russell Oberlin speaks.
Russell Oberlin sings.
“I too have difficulties with “wrong” interpretations. While watching the first Shrek movie I was scandalized — who is this non-Leonard-Cohen person who is daring to sing “Hallelujah”? ”
Speaking of Leonard Cohen about whom I earlier insisted to Neo-neo, that I had no knowledge …
Turns out that while watching the director’s commentary version of the movie McCabe and Mrs. Miller, I finally noticed that the musical soundtrack was by none other than Cohen himself.
Don’t know what to make of that.