The Impact of the Recording Technology in the Performing Arts

Archive Article - Winter 2000-01

The Impact of the Recording Technology in the Performing Arts

Introduction

Music, an organized form of sound, is the most abstract of all arts. Sound has the capability of conveying enormous amounts of expressive, historical, even philosophical and psychological expressive content and information between composer, performer and listener. Musical performance was once integral part of a culture where everyone was participant. The style of playing and performance marked their era, and they were a part of a unique memory. Music allows us to tap into the social, cultural, and aesthetic traditions of different cultures and historical eras. From it, we become more aware of our shared humanity, the wisdom and the vision of others. Music was and is a way of preserving one's intuition and inspiration. It has had and will preserve how a society and culture once motivated and moved, both physically and psychologically. In this respect, music is a more precise and fruitful means of expression than any other communication tool humans have ever created.

The purpose of the article is to discuss how the development of recording technology and the availability of recordings have had an enormous impact on the process of performing, the analysis process in listening, and therefore reshaping the listeners appreciation of and the interpretation of performance by the performers.

Preservable Commodity: Recording Technology

The technology used in recording has enabled what was not possible in the past, such as listening to performance on a listener's convenience of time and location, producing a mechanically 'perfect' performance (based on the opinion of a producer) by incorporating various editing techniques, and enabling mass production of the performance to a degree that was acceptable to society at the time. Some of the examples are hearing the live performance of Chicago Symphony Orchestra in New York and Los Angeles, listening to recorded performance in the following week, or listening to the performance again and again by purchasing a CD. Therefore, the recording technology has affected both areas of altering the characteristics and the value of participating in social experience that was only possible at a concert hall by offering opportunities of musical experience that were not possible in the past.

As a result, the meaning of listening (i.e., appreciation of music and the way we value the work and performance) and practicing procedures that are employed by the instrumentalist today have been drastically reshaped and transformed into a form of linear information processors (listeners) and producers (performers). Such transformation that has taken place has created a new form of information and communication avenues that allowed society to be able to transmit artistic value as a type of commodity.

The Transmittable Artistic Value: the rise of Fragmentformance and Capitalformance

The notion of recorded music makes the meaning of one's idea transmittable in new ways. The recording technology allows the artistic value to be translated into measurable expression, therefore, transforming such expression into linear info communications channels. A characteristic of linear information allows listeners to be able to judge and weighs during the process of information. And such critique can be constructed while one listens to same music again and again from recorded performance. Therefore, the use of recorded music allows public to treat music like commodity. When it is treated like commodity, the listener has a tendency to dissect the ideas from the whole, to compartmentalize artistic expressions and value into words, therefore, transmitting to some sort of verbal measurement. The characteristics of the verbalized artistic value inclined to organize everything into a linear sequence, which tends to ignore the larger picture and the interrelation of parts - this creates fragmentformance (reflecting fragmented performance). Therefore, to meet such demand from society at the time, the impact of recording technology has forced performers today subconsciously to interpret linearly rather than comprehensively. Such interpretation tends to prioritize ideas and phrases to the ordering of a concert program. Furthermore, it promotes listeners to compare one performance to another to marginalize certain talent in a group of performers and the performance itself.

Today, the performing arts have become commodities, and commodities have become the actual subject matter of the performer's repertoire, creating capitalformance (reflecting Capitalism in a performance). Capitoalformance tends to disperse value to the individual, with less consideration of relations with the listener. As a result, today performers often express their ideas and style like an object to be measured and to be weighed and ranked, rather than stressing the completion of transactions with the composer’s original intention and listeners. This is not to criticize the level of performances. Simply, performers and listeners today expectations and beliefs about music hold disparate values from the past.

Verbally Compartmentalized Society

Music was and is the forefather of all languages and behaviors. Once, a performance gave birth to new description and new dimensions for the language. Each performance was a part of a social interaction of creating and sharing the words that could describe its uniqueness. But when music appreciation skill becomes no more than the manipulation of a collection of words (linear information), the value of relations and contacts with the listeners, the skills of imagination, non-concrete thinking, intuition, instinctive reaction, and trusting instincts, which are the core of being an artist, can all be lost. Today, there are lists of words that are often used by music critiques to categorize, prioritize and compartmentalize performers and compositions that have little or nothing to do with the performer's intention or his talent. Today, such words are used to standardize the performance. Such verbal tools are used to control and manipulate how one performer should shape their thinking to meet what is called "correct" interpretation. The recorded information has compartmentalized all behaviors, ideas, beliefs, and styles of performance so that it can be measured and be weighed. The performances that are heard today are merely the reflection of verbal criticism that may have very little or nothing to do with completion of transactions of artistic value.

It may seem as if I condemn the performers for their lack of understanding of artistic value by formulating their interpretation based on the words of musical ignoramuses. The truth is the opposite. It is the modern society that we live in which is so obsessed in controlling everything. Obsessive control, meaning that all things must put into a frame that can be measured based on their terms, therefore it can be ranked according to their needs. This allows to prioritize and marginalize all elements to a category that can be easily manipulated for personal or commercial gain. Creating and achieving such measurable instrument have affected the performers to reshape their interpretation of musical composition and alter the expectation of public from the performers and tainted human morality and virtue.

Recording technology has successfully converted the transitory into a preservable commodity, just as capitalism reduced all social relations to the equality of objects. All interpretation became transmittable by words that are linear information; therefore, everything became exchangeable and interchangeable. All performances are mechanically measured by their materiality. This may promote the level of the instrumentalists' technical skills, but it inhibits the individuals' creativity and originality, which is the core of the performing arts.

Opinion

How should one perform? And how should one listen? If it is possible, I can only attempt to describe it with words that can be measured, weighed, and ranked. When we see an image, we often locate ourselves in it; when we hear words, we measure ourselves to them. But when we hear music, we often travel into time and space, to the multi-dimensional world that allows one to discover both internal and external world simultaneously. This is not to deny the value of other arts but to suggest that all other arts breathe within orchestrated universe of sound and silence. However, recording technology has altered and reshaped not only the way we hear and feel music forever, but also the way we value all arts. It has modified the value of art like the technology being used to alter the natural environment, the way the developers see and feel how nature should be to serve the best interest of humans. Sometimes, it is best left untouched.