# Why bother with recordings anyway?



## Boychev (Jul 21, 2014)

They're never going to do the music justice, even if it's a masterful interpretation by the world's greatest on an expensive hi-fi system. In the end you're sitting alone at home listening to a box. The obvious advantages of a recording are that 1) you can listen to whatever you want at any time anywhere, 2) you can listen to it repeatedly. But you don't need to have music blasting 24/7, nor do you need all that choice - in the end, music is music, and there is something great about limiting yourself to what is available rather than constantly being on the search for the next thing, and there is something special about the performance being boxed in a room and constrained to a specific period of time, after which it's gone forever. Maybe it should be your priority to know what composers your local musical culture deems important and thus plays more often, rather than the ones nobody around seems to care about - after all, discovery and novelty for their own sakes have no value, what has value is interacting with real people and immersing oneself in one's culture. And you don't need all that repetition too, allowing the music to soak in in the back of your head until the next time you hear it months or years after is better than obsessing about it and listening on repeat.

Music has turned into some sort of a nervous tic, for me at least. Maybe CDs and streaming and portable audio and obsessive listmaking and all that ruin music. Tickets are cheap (for classical anyway) and no non-musician really needs to sit down and listen to more than 4-5 hours of music per week anyway - there are after all so many other things to do, galleries to visit, books to read, conversations to be had, etc. Hell, maybe you could spend the extra time you'll get with an instrument and learn to play pieces on your own. Even if you never reach virtuoso status, surely that would be way more fulfilling than sitting in the armchair and listening to vibrating wooden boxes.

I'm kind of disillusioned with how listening culture works nowadays. It seems like the listening turns into a secondary activity to the collecting of music (be it in a physical format or as albums in your "collection" on Spotify), like we are all some kind of hoarders, obsessed with owning rather than experiencing. Or it turns into some sort of competition for who knows or "owns" the most music. Maybe it's time to cut down on recordings and make the effort to only listen to music in a live setting. Seems like a better way to go about it.


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## tdc (Jan 17, 2011)

I like listening to specific works by certain composers, so having no recordings wouldn't work well for me. Much of what I see programmed live in my area I'm not that interested in, and some of my favorite music is virtually never performed live. How often can I go see a recital of Rodrigo piano works, or see a staging of Partch's _Delusion of the Fury_?

Live performances can also be hit and miss performance wise. Not being able to listen to one's favorite performers unless they happen to be in town doesn't sound so great. I'm all for seeing some live music, but I wouldn't sacrifice my recordings for it. I try not to buy more than I will get around listening to, so my collection at this point is not really that large anyway. I play piano and guitar for my own enjoyment. Usually about 2 to 4 hours a day or so between the two instruments. I would recommend people take up an instrument, even if only getting to an intermediate level it can be quite rewarding.

If you think collecting has become obsessive for you and something you do just for the sake of it, not the music, I would suggest scaling it back. Take up an instrument, why not?


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## Larkenfield (Jun 5, 2017)

"Maybe it's time to cut down on recordings and make the effort to only listen to music in a live setting..."

Where are my gold ingots for live concerts that I can melt down for high ticket prices? 

Tickets for an upcoming Stravinsky concert with the LA Phil range from $116 to $179. Ouch.

I'm still all for live music as much as possible and I've heard my share, including Claudio Arrau, Alfred Brendel, and Itzhak Perlman... all unforgettable concerts because they were live.


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## larold (Jul 20, 2017)

I too am not satisfied with what is performed where I live. My local orchestra plays Friday night; their concert is built around Beethoven's "Emppror" concerto. I'd have been thrilled to hear this in concert in 1975 but not 2019. If I go to my grave and never hear the emperor concerto again I won't assume I missed anything. 

The other stuff on the concert -- Hovhannes' Mysterious Mountain and the Grieg Peer Gynt suite -- also hold no allure for me.

I live 90 minutes from an international orchestra, a half-hour from a university with a large music program, and in the hometown of a local orchestra. I find myself going to one concert a year on average. The rest of the time the program is built on warhorses and other music I've heard 10,000 times that I don't care to hear and certainly am not going to pay to hear.

Recordings are my relief from this and my option to hear something anytime no one plays in concert. I agree there is a certain possible negative intensity to collecting that transcends the music but without the music it is little more than foot shuffling. In the end the music is the thing.


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## Triplets (Sep 4, 2014)

I find the OP to have written a very thoughtful post that rings a chord with me, but the above answers are equally cogent.
I do also become frustrated with the idea that I am listening to a vibrating aluminum box, and sometimes I feel so spoiled for choice that I can’t really settle in and enjoy what is currently playing. And then there are the distractions—this weekend I tried several times to listen to Mahler’s Sixth and never made it past I because of family interruptions.
However, I live in Chicago, and ticket prices to the currently on strike (we were supposed to be there Saturday night) are the same as LA, so I can’t afford more than 7 or so a year. We treasure the live concerts and even when hearing “warhorses “ I always learn so much more about music that I thought I knew completely.
So Concerts and recordings are complementary, not mutually exclusive. I understand the OP complaints that by over listening—background listening and such—we dilute the experience. However I would rather have a less than perfect relationship with Music than none at all


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## joen_cph (Jan 17, 2010)

tdc said:


> I like listening to specific works by certain composers, so having no recordings wouldn't work well for me. Much of what I see programmed live in my area I'm not that interested in, and some of my favorite music is virtually never performed live. How often can I go see a recital of Rodrigo piano works, or see a staging of Partch's _Delusion of the Fury_?
> 
> Live performances can also be hit and miss performance wise. Not being able to listen to one's favorite performers unless they happen to be in town doesn't sound so great. I'm all for seeing some live music, but I wouldn't sacrifice my recordings for it. I try not to buy more than I will get around listening to, so my collection at this point is not really that large anyway. I play piano and guitar for my own enjoyment. Usually about 2 to 4 hours a day or so between the two instruments. I would recommend people take up an instrument, even if only getting on an intermediate level it can be quite rewarding.
> 
> If you think collecting has become obsessive for you and something you do just for the sake of it, not the music, I would suggest scaling it back. *Take up an instrument, why not?*


Agree with this post. Concerning the last remark, there's a clear tendency that musicians tend to collect less recordings - this is my experience from decades of collecting. Of course there are exceptions from this rule.

As regards classical live concerts, it must be said that there are so many disturbing elements: noises, visuals, arbitrary programmes, poor acoustics and often average, poor or uinteresting music-making, the impossibility of replay, the fixed time and location, etc.


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## NLAdriaan (Feb 6, 2019)

Piketty also works in classical music.... 

I guess that the market for classical music recordings is completely saturated. Here you will find endless heated discussions about recordings by dead conductors from the stone age that will 'never be surpassed'. And from the classic canon, you will find hundreds of interpretations of the same piece. Both technical/soundwise and for interpretations, we could probably do without new recordings of the classical repertoire whatsoever.

But I think listening to a recording can as well be an 'experience' as going to a live concert. The intimacy of your own listening space and your own music choice, wherever that is, also in a crowded area with headphones, will be able to carry you away as easy as you might experience in the concert hall.

I do however favour more adventure, more variety in live music programming. I happen to live in a small country with a relatively very high quality and quantity of live concerts available. But when I narrow it down to classical music (if we already agree on what that is), I think the available forces could create more adventure. 

The classical music market is manically looking for 'the best' interpretation/musician of the same music, instead of listening to music one does not yet know. So, there are a few musicians in demand (because of recordings contracts) that travel over the world, often playing a very small standard repertoire and then there are many, many musicians that are almost as good but without a recording contract and therefore not on a stage. 

An example of a musician that didn't bother about markets and economics and so ignored the rules of the music business, was Sviatoslav Richter. He would go on tour for 6 months to whatever stages he found, often unplanned, and he would play for whoever came to listen. The classical music world would look entirely different if there were more musicians like Richter, who can resist the temptation of $$$ and just go their own way with their talents.


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

I get part of the point. I get that constant listening can become an unhealthy obsession. But I don't get how someone else can tell me how much music I _should _be listening to in a week! Nor do I think the obsessive part is unavoidable even if you listen constantly to recorded music. If my listening becomes hollow or a drag or is dulled in some way then I adapt fairly quickly by not listening or by changing to something very different (jazz or rock if none of the various classical periods and genres are doing it for me). Most days I have a pretty incredible (I think the word transcendental might be appropriate) experience with something I listen to. The OP says concerts are cheap but they are beyond my pocket, particularly because I live in a rural area. Recorded music is a compensation.

As for recording quality, I do know that some people need music to sound as good as live but that isn't my experience. I find that my ears adapt to even quite old (historical) sound in a few minutes if the music/performance is compelling.

I agree about the list-making etc ... although occasionally it is a fun game or involves interesting comparisons.


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## mbhaub (Dec 2, 2016)

If I lived in a place like Berlin, London, or New York, where world-class concerts are aplenty, maybe I wouldn't have collected so much. But I doubt it for the reason Iarold provides. Orchestras great and small are stuck in a rut; they play the same repertoire over and over with little imagination. You should see how many orchestras world-wide are doing Beethoven, Beethoven, Beethoven next year! It's incredible and irritating. I've heard all of it many, many times. But in the sanctity of my listening room with high-end electronics I can enjoy the works of Raff, Rubinstein, Pfitzner, Korngold, Schmidt and many others that never seem to get played live in concert. I can sit back and listen to recordings from the Golden Age of conducting and hear the thrilling performances of Toscanini, Reiner, Walter, Koussevitsky, Monteux and so many more.

Then there's the cost factor - for less than $20 I can own a cd. To go to a live concert I have to get dressed decently, drive downtown, pay for parking (often more than the cd costs), buy a ticket - from $30 to $100 or more - put up with noisy audience members and everything else. Or, I could stay home, sit in a comfortable recliner, have a bottle of scotch nearby and have a perfectly good time.

No one fools themselves that any recording on any playback system is like the real deal. The sense of space is missing, although some home theatre systems have settings that can be amazingly lifelike. But our ears compensate and there are times when I do think a good recording can actually sound better than a live concert.

I have been an avid (some say sick) collector for many decades. Sitting in front of that "vibrating box" has been worth every nickel and minute spent. And I did learn to play an instrument, several in fact - and do quite well, so well that I'm out rehearsing and performing so much that it has seriously cut down on my listening time.


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## Becca (Feb 5, 2015)

While I have been a typical collector in the past, now I try to focus on recordings made at live concerts. What is great is how many really interesting performances are showing up from the late 50s to 80s - and most of them in really good stereo sound.

P.S. I am thankful for the Berlin Phil's Digital Concert Hall, the occasional live stream from the London Symphony, the Philharmonie de Paris and others.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Boychev said:


> They're never going to do the music justice, even if it's a masterful interpretation by the world's greatest on an expensive hi-fi system. In the end you're sitting alone at home listening to a box. The obvious advantages of a recording are that 1) you can listen to whatever you want at any time anywhere, 2) you can listen to it repeatedly. But you don't need to have music blasting 24/7, nor do you need all that choice - in the end, music is music, and there is something great about limiting yourself to what is available rather than constantly being on the search for the next thing, and there is something special about the performance being boxed in a room and constrained to a specific period of time, after which it's gone forever. Maybe it should be your priority to know what composers your local musical culture deems important and thus plays more often, rather than the ones nobody around seems to care about - after all, discovery and novelty for their own sakes have no value, what has value is interacting with real people and immersing oneself in one's culture. And you don't need all that repetition too, allowing the music to soak in in the back of your head until the next time you hear it months or years after is better than obsessing about it and listening on repeat.
> 
> Music has turned into some sort of a nervous tic, for me at least. Maybe CDs and streaming and portable audio and obsessive listmaking and all that ruin music. Tickets are cheap (for classical anyway) and no non-musician really needs to sit down and listen to more than 4-5 hours of music per week anyway - there are after all so many other things to do, galleries to visit, books to read, conversations to be had, etc. Hell, maybe you could spend the extra time you'll get with an instrument and learn to play pieces on your own. Even if you never reach virtuoso status, surely that would be way more fulfilling than sitting in the armchair and listening to vibrating wooden boxes.
> 
> I'm kind of disillusioned with how listening culture works nowadays. It seems like the listening turns into a secondary activity to the collecting of music (be it in a physical format or as albums in your "collection" on Spotify), like we are all some kind of hoarders, obsessed with owning rather than experiencing. Or it turns into some sort of competition for who knows or "owns" the most music. Maybe it's time to cut down on recordings and make the effort to only listen to music in a live setting. Seems like a better way to go about it.


The way see it, what Spotify has done is make recorded performances disposable and ephemeral, just like a concert. You know, you go to a concert, you hear the performance, you live with the memory. That's the way I treat most streamed recordings - I listen, and then never go back to listen again (what would the point of that be?!)

CDs were very silly because people did stupid things like "build a library" - that's as silly as The Western Canon or the Talk Classical lists of top music.

I think this is a good thing, especially in the winter when it's a pain to go out in the cold and rain to a concert.

Most concerts are a waste of time either because the musicians weren't inspired or because they have zero rapport with the audience - like there's a wall between us and them. It's the equivalent of listening to a CD, but less comfortable. I find most concerts too long, and I often don't go back after the interval. I don't like to be sitting near people who talk and cough or use their phones while the music's playing. I hate all the applause at the end, the way the performer gloats and wallows in the approbation - I normally sneak out before the dreaded encores start. Most of all I hate it when they turn the lights down and make us wait for the musician to come on stage.

As far as "doing justice" is concerned, well I'm not surprised you feel that because you're listening to Spotify. Change to a decent streaming service and put your hand in your pocket and buy a decent hifi.


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## Dorsetmike (Sep 26, 2018)

At 85 and living on a pension, I have little option but to listen to recorded music; cost of attending live performances is prohibitive on my income, as for getting to and from a live performance (even if it were near free) my lack of mobility is another prohibitive factor. Add to that the fact that hearing deteriorates with age so much of a live performance could be degraded anyway.

In my younger days when I was working I was able to attend some live performances, even so then most of my listening was to recorded or broadcast music; I never felt deprived.

I listen to between 10 and 12 hours music most days, I can listen to what I want when I want, recorded or broadcast


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

'Tickets are cheap'????

What part of the world do you live in. One concert we went to last year cost me £60 for a pair of tickets and that is in the north of England not London. I accept there is nothing like a live concert but frankly the cost can be pretty prohibitive. Thankfully today we can enjoy hearing masterpieces very easily and I won't deprive myself of the privilege. Half a loaf is better than none


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## fliege (Nov 7, 2017)

DavidA said:


> 'Tickets are cheap'????
> 
> What part of the world do you live in. One concert we went to last year cost me £60 for a pair of tickets and that is in the north of England not London.


That's what I pay in London. Clipped into the mirror frame right now I have a 28 quid ticket for the royal festival hall and a 32 quid ticket for the Barbican. Those are for decent seats (IMO) and I consider that a price. I agree it starts to seem steep if you're paying for multiple tickets. Still much cheaper than opera and major pop acts.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Why bother with recordings?

When we all get to heaven our musical appetites may well be satisfied by live performances for all eternity. Everywhere we turn there will be consorts of angels playing gambas and sackbuts and singing "Holy, Holy, Holy!"

Meanwhile, down in this vale of tears, recordings will remain the chief reason why we aren't still listening to _LaTraviata_ and Beethoven's 9th in piano transcriptions by Franz Liszt, while saving up plane, lodging and ticket money for a weekend in New York or San Francisco in hopes of hearing a performance of something that isn't a terrible disappointment.

That's why.


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## Larkenfield (Jun 5, 2017)

I no longer collect CDs, and live concerts are often expensive and conventional. But if one has the time and resources, go. As the next best thing, I’m all for watching live recorded concerts which are more like actually being there. You can see things! The facial expressions and body language. That’s what I’ve been enjoying more lately: watching live recorded concerts of many of the finest orchestras of the world, such as the Berlin Phil, the great conductors, the great soloists, on an excellent sound system. It’s an endless feast for the ears. One can see how the orchestras differ in how they present themselves and the sound is often in HD quality. Because of the cost of most live concerts, it can be prohibitive to attend on a regular basis. This is the golden age of recorded music and concerts, so enjoy it while it lasts. Through these online concerts, I’ve heard more concerts than some people have ever heard in a lifetime and you can see what’s happening with orchestras too in repertoire, structure, appearance, sound, conductor, like a never-ending cultural trip around the world. 
:tiphat:


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## MatthewWeflen (Jan 24, 2019)

Because as yet I cannot travel back in time and be born independently wealthy?

Come on. For the cost of two tickets to a symphony, a person can buy 85 CDs. How is this even a question?


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## Gordontrek (Jun 22, 2012)

I might get on board with that if I had a professional symphony orchestra at my disposal 24/7 to play whatever I want whenever I want. But since I don't, what's the next best thing?

I will always attend live concerts if I can, but since there's only so many of those going on at once, I have recordings that will satisfy my desperation for a musical fix more than adequately.


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## NLAdriaan (Feb 6, 2019)

I guess I am in heaven, as I have the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra at 30 minutes drive, the Rotterdam Phil at 45 minutes and all kinds of other very good classic acts at the same distances. old music fest, modern music, chamber music, a lively HIP culture. Music tickets start around €25 each (fine seats), which I find acceptable for top class conductors and soloists. If a soloist like Krystian Zimerman comes to play, he will play in the Concertgebouw at €€€ but a day earlier in another Dutch venue for about 50% of the ticket price. So, I won't complain anymore.


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## DaveM (Jun 29, 2015)

I would love to have a live orchestra with perhaps a guest pianist or violinist replace my recordings, but they wouldn’t fit in my car or my bed and they couldn’t keep up with me on my walks.


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## Phil loves classical (Feb 8, 2017)

I'm much more interested in interpretation than just a competent performance. My favourite performers are all retired or dead, so hearing those legendary performances on CD is keeping the magic alive to me. I would rather hear those legendary performances on CD once, than 50 Live performances that don't move me as much.


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## starthrower (Dec 11, 2010)

MatthewWeflen said:


> Come on. For the cost of two tickets to a symphony, a person can buy 85 CDs.


What symphony charges 400 dollars for a ticket?


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## Larkenfield (Jun 5, 2017)

NLAdriaan said:


> I guess I am in heaven, as I have the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra at 30 minutes drive, the Rotterdam Phil at 45 minutes and all kinds of other very good classic acts at the same distances. old music fest, modern music, chamber music, a lively HIP culture. Music tickets start around €25 each (fine seats), which I find acceptable for top class conductors and soloists. If a soloist like Krystian Zimerman comes to play, he will play in the Concertgebouw at €€€ but a day earlier in another Dutch venue for about 50% of the ticket price. So, I won't complain anymore.


Let's trade places. I live in a town near a jukebox that only plays Top 40 hits and I just ran out of quarters. But really, it sounds like you're in heaven and please enjoy these live concerts for the rest of us. The Concertgebouw is one of my favorite orchestras.


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## TwoFlutesOneTrumpet (Aug 31, 2011)

Boychev said:


> The obvious advantages of a recording are that 1) you can listen to whatever you want at any time anywhere, 2) you can listen to it repeatedly.


These are pretty damn big advantages and well worth the effort of recording.

Also, classical concert tickets are not cheap where I live, with tickets in the good seats going for $120+


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## Joe B (Aug 10, 2017)

Boychev said:


> They're never going to do the music justice, even if it's a masterful interpretation by the world's greatest on an expensive hi-fi system. *How can a masterful interpretation, recorded expertly and played back on a hi-end stereo system not do the music justice? What would?* In the end you're sitting alone at home listening to a box. *No, I disagree. Today in the car I was listening to one of the greatest baritones of all time who passed away just under 2 years ago. The fact that I have the recording is probably the greatest legacy I could ask for.*The obvious advantages of a recording are that 1) you can listen to whatever you want at any time anywhere, 2) you can listen to it repeatedly. But you don't need to have music blasting 24/7 *I don't. It sounds like you're very disappointed with your own habits and have the need to transfer these shortcomings to other people*, nor do you need all that choice*Speak for yourself! I want to have choice.* - in the end, music is music, and there is something great about limiting yourself to what is available rather than constantly being on the search for the next thing*what's GREAT about limiting yourself to what is available? And I am constantly on the search for the next piece of music that makes me thank God for my hearing*, and there is something special about the performance being boxed in a room and constrained to a specific period of time, after which it's gone forever.*And if you weren't there to hear it? What good is that?* Maybe it should be your priority to know what composers your local musical culture deems important and thus plays more often, rather than the ones nobody around seems to care about *Speak for yourself! Who determines the ones nobody cares about....YOU?* - after all, discovery and novelty for their own sakes have no value *BS*, what has value is interacting with real people and immersing oneself in one's culture *Sorry, I don't do social media!*. And you don't need all that repetition too, allowing the music to soak in in the back of your head until the next time you hear it months or years after is better than obsessing about it and listening on repeat.*Sounds like you're withdrawing from some pretty bad habits.
> And perhaps you should speak about this in the first person rather than trying to shift it to the reader.*
> 
> Music has turned into some sort of a nervous tic, for me at least.*There you go....the first thing you've said that you're owning.* Maybe CDs and streaming and portable audio and obsessive listmaking and all that ruin music.*Obviously it has for you.* Tickets are cheap (for classical anyway) and no non-musician really needs to sit down and listen to more than 4-5 hours of music per week anyway *Again, speak for yourself.* - there are after all so many other things to do, galleries to visit, books to read, conversations to be had, etc. Hell, maybe you could spend*Hell, maybe you could heed your own advice and stop preaching. Sounds like a lot of sour grape depression to me.* the extra time you'll get with an instrument and learn to play pieces on your own. Even if you never reach virtuoso status, surely that would be way more fulfilling than sitting in the armchair and listening to vibrating wooden boxes.*Feeling a little remorse are we?*
> ...


**************************


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

I think that as a society we not only gained something but also lost something with recordings. We gained convenience but lost the need to play music ourselves. We gained being able to be alone with the music but lost a sense of community. Rachmaninov reflected on this in 1928, saying that radio "makes listening too comfortable." He said that people wouldn't go to the effort of attending concerts if they had easy access to music at home. At the end of the 20th century, John Cage said that recordings had resulted in an "unmusical society." He said that breaking records would bring the music back, forcing people to sing for themselves.

Cage's idea would be too anarchic for most people to accept. Nevertheless it has more than a grain of truth to it, especially in our world of ipods and other devices where we plug in anywhere, anytime and consume music in a passive and isolated way. That's certainly not how music started, its not the function which it served for centuries before the advent of recordings. I'm most concerned about the effect of digital technology on our children. Experts have researched this and spoken about it at length, but the main point is that we have to get away from our devices a bit and reconnect with eachother, especially at the local level.

In terms of my own experience, I got into classical music in childhood and collected music throughout my teens. Like many in early adulthood I ditched most of my collection as my tastes changed. I got into jazz. A decade later I got into classical again and amassed almost 1,000 discs but in the last three years I've culled them down to about 350. I think that less is more, and as it is with my work-life balance being tipped to the former, most of what is left of the life component is spending time with family and friends.

As to concerts, I have been to a fair amount but not enough to say that I'm sick of listening to warhorses. I haven't listened to most of my favourites live, so when I see something programmed and its within my budget, I book a ticket. That said, in the last few years its only been a handful of them per year.

D.H. Lawrence said that "men are freest when they are most unconscious of freedom." That was me in my earliest forays into classical and to an extent I never want to lose that sense of listening to music and enjoying it. Personally the stereotypical traits of the hard core record collector as portrayed in Nick Hornby's novel High Fidelity - amassing vast amounts of recordings, forgetting what I own, having multiple recordings of the same piece - its the last thing I want to be. I don't want to get jaded, cynical, start comparing things in an obsessive way and sacrificing valuable time better spent doing other things. No matter how important they are, they're just objects.


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

To me, live music is much, much, much better than recorded music. No doubt about that. To be enjoyed as often as feasible! 

Unfortunately, I don't have an orchestra at my beck and call, and while I have a relatively large living room by Korean standards, the nearest really good venue is at least half an hour away, or more with traffic. So I have to settle for CDs...


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

Sid James said:


> ... the stereotypical traits of the hard core record collector... - amassing vast amounts of recordings, forgetting what I own, having multiple recordings of the same piece - its the last thing I want to be.


I'd be ok with that, if I could afford it.

My wife used to buy lottery tickets, and I always told her that the first thing I'm doing if we hit a number is spending $50k on CDs....


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## MatthewWeflen (Jan 24, 2019)

starthrower said:


> What symphony charges 400 dollars for a ticket?


Who pays ten dollars per disc?

An excellent box set typically runs around two bucks per CD. Halfway decent seats at the Chicago Symphony Orchestra run about seventy bucks apiece after fees.


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

mbhaub said:


> If I lived in a place like Berlin, London, or New York, where world-class concerts are aplenty, maybe I wouldn't have collected so much. But I doubt it for the reason Iarold provides. Orchestras great and small are stuck in a rut; they play the same repertoire over and over with little imagination. You should see how many orchestras world-wide are doing Beethoven, Beethoven, Beethoven next year! It's incredible and irritating. I've heard all of it many, many times. But in the sanctity of my listening room with high-end electronics I can enjoy the works of Raff, Rubinstein, Pfitzner, Korngold, Schmidt and many others that never seem to get played live in concert. I can sit back and listen to recordings from the Golden Age of conducting and hear the thrilling performances of Toscanini, Reiner, Walter, Koussevitsky, Monteux and so many more.
> 
> Then there's the cost factor - for less than $20 I can own a cd. To go to a live concert I have to get dressed decently, drive downtown, pay for parking (often more than the cd costs), buy a ticket - from $30 to $100 or more - put up with noisy audience members and everything else. Or, I could stay home, sit in a comfortable recliner, have a bottle of scotch nearby and have a perfectly good time.
> 
> ...


The great thing about a city like Berlin, London, or New York - as contrasted to, say, Denver, Atlanta, Pittsburgh, or especially places like Spokane or Fargo - is that you have fantastic musicians playing all kinds of music. Even smaller cities do better than naysayers would admit: Fargo-Moorehead Symphony Orchestra, for example, is about to perform the world premiere of clausen's _Before the Whirlwind_, which is no doubt not exactly Sciarrino but still it IS new music created for a local audience. But in the world's alpha cities, you can hear Renaissance music, the 2nd-tier romantics you mentioned, all kinds of jazz or folk music, and brand new art music by elite composers, all in a single weekend. Maybe you could squeeze in an opera as well.


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## MatthewWeflen (Jan 24, 2019)

I stipulate to the notion that live performance offers things recordings can't.

But beyond price, another thing that makes recordings indispensable is time. The amount of time it takes to listen to one or two symphonies live is many multiples of what it takes to listen to the same as recordings. Travel, ovations, intermissions, etc., and that with having to remain at the mercy of the orchestra's programmers. What if I want to hear Beethoven, Strauss, and Schoenberg all in one session? I might wait an infinite amount of time for that evening to present itself live.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

science said:


> ...or especially places like Spokane or Fargo...


Not just tough for the concert-going public. Others may have it far worse. Some time back I looked at pay at the Spokane Symphony. At that time, it appeared that a musician who was married with two children and paid the base wage, if the sole provider, would qualify for food stamps.


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## NLAdriaan (Feb 6, 2019)

KenOC said:


> Not just tough for the concert-going public. Others may have it far worse. Some time back I looked at pay at the Spokane Symphony. At that time, it appeared that a musician who was married with two children and paid the base wage, if the sole provider, would qualify for food stamps.


I agree that musicians in orchestras are generally underpaid. However, being an orchestra musician in fact is a part-time job. So, in most cases these musicians will have gigs, give lessons, play in chamber music ensembles and so on. So, food stamps will likely not be necessary.


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## haydnguy (Oct 13, 2008)

Boychev said:


> They're never going to do the music justice, even if it's a masterful interpretation by the world's greatest on an expensive hi-fi system. In the end you're sitting alone at home listening to a box. The obvious advantages of a recording are that 1) you can listen to whatever you want at any time anywhere, 2) you can listen to it repeatedly. But you don't need to have music blasting 24/7, nor do you need all that choice - in the end, music is music, and there is something great about limiting yourself to what is available rather than constantly being on the search for the next thing, and there is something special about the performance being boxed in a room and constrained to a specific period of time, after which it's gone forever. Maybe it should be your priority to know what composers your local musical culture deems important and thus plays more often, rather than the ones nobody around seems to care about - after all, discovery and novelty for their own sakes have no value, what has value is interacting with real people and immersing oneself in one's culture. And you don't need all that repetition too, allowing the music to soak in in the back of your head until the next time you hear it months or years after is better than obsessing about it and listening on repeat.
> 
> Music has turned into some sort of a nervous tic, for me at least. Maybe CDs and streaming and portable audio and obsessive listmaking and all that ruin music. Tickets are cheap (for classical anyway) and no non-musician really needs to sit down and listen to more than 4-5 hours of music per week anyway - there are after all so many other things to do, galleries to visit, books to read, conversations to be had, etc. Hell, maybe you could spend the extra time you'll get with an instrument and learn to play pieces on your own. Even if you never reach virtuoso status, surely that would be way more fulfilling than sitting in the armchair and listening to vibrating wooden boxes.
> 
> I'm kind of disillusioned with how listening culture works nowadays. It seems like the listening turns into a secondary activity to the collecting of music (be it in a physical format or as albums in your "collection" on Spotify), like we are all some kind of hoarders, obsessed with owning rather than experiencing. Or it turns into some sort of competition for who knows or "owns" the most music. Maybe it's time to cut down on recordings and make the effort to only listen to music in a live setting. Seems like a better way to go about it.


You can't go see live performances without driving a long way in some places.


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## Boychev (Jul 21, 2014)

DavidA said:


> 'Tickets are cheap'????
> 
> What part of the world do you live in. One concert we went to last year cost me £60 for a pair of tickets and that is in the north of England not London. I accept there is nothing like a live concert but frankly the cost can be pretty prohibitive. Thankfully today we can enjoy hearing masterpieces very easily and I won't deprive myself of the privilege. Half a loaf is better than none


6-15 euro, depending on the seating. The more expensive concerts around here go for around 15-30 euro, depending on the performer and seating, but those are very few and I don't care about big names. Went to a chamber performance of the Istanbul Flute Ensemble last week, the ticket was 5 euro. If I stop drinking and smoking, I could probably go a good 3 times per week or so. Don't care about opera, only instrumental music, so I don't know how much tickets cost there.


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## Larkenfield (Jun 5, 2017)

The price of tickets depends upon where you live. Some cities value the arts more than others and keep their ticket prices affordable. Lucky are those who live in such an area.


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## Marinera (May 13, 2016)

I'll probably the only one here who listens to music while at work, while driving, at home with friends and alone. I wouldn't want to have an orchestra underfoot while I'm doing a house cleaning.


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

Marinera said:


> I'll probably the only one here who listens to music while at work, while driving, at home with friends and alone. I wouldn't want to have an orchestra underfoot while I'm doing a house cleaning.


No, I do most of those, too. I actually find I concentrate on music best when I am driving (although road noise can spoil some choices) and music helps me concentrate on work.


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## Flutter (Mar 26, 2019)

Over the past year or two I've gone down the lazy end I'm afraid, sadly I used to be a CD and vinyl fanatic (spent thousands over the years) but now look at me downloading mp3s :lol:


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

Boychev said:


> 6-15 euro, depending on the seating. The more expensive concerts around here go for around 15-30 euro, depending on the performer and seating, but those are very few and I don't care about big names. Went to a chamber performance of the Istanbul Flute Ensemble last week, the ticket was 5 euro. If I stop drinking and smoking, I could probably go a good 3 times per week or so. Don't care about opera, only instrumental music, so I don't know how much tickets cost there.


Last time I went to see Bach WTC played by an international soloist (Angela Hewitt) I think we paid £20 a ticket which meant the outing cost £40 for us both. Yes we can get into see a chamber concert played by students at far less cost but the question is do we want to hear it. You won't get a concert much under £10 here and that is locally.


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## Boychev (Jul 21, 2014)

Marinera said:


> I'll probably the only one here who listens to music while at work, while driving, at home with friends and alone. I wouldn't want to have an orchestra underfoot while I'm doing a house cleaning.


No, I do that too, I wear headphones something like at least 5-6 hours per day on workdays, probably more on most days, and probably all day on weekends except when going out with friends. But what that results in is: 1) all music blends together into an indistinct nothing; 2) somewhere after the 3rd album for the day I get nothing positive from it and simply keep listening out of habit; 3) I get spoiled for choice, don't know what I have to listen to, what albums to prioritize over others, skip some, and try more and more new things just for the sake of it. It's like that with books and films too, having every film a mouse-click away, or carrying a book everywhere or having a thousand books on my Kindle doesn't make me more well-versed in those artforms, it just makes me more distracted and shallow. All of that turns out to be a waste of resources in the end.


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## Guest (Mar 26, 2019)

I spend all my money on live performances and booze (that is, after I’ve paid my bills). Would rather support living talent than purchase a download or CD of dead talent who have had more than enough support already. The downloads or CDs or LPs I do purchase almost exclusively revolve around my Boulez obsession (happy birthday Boulez) where I must have immediate access to a copy of everything he has said, written, composed or recorded. I’m getting there, slowly but surely.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

If there were no recording (like if it was outlawed), then real musicians playing real music would become EXTREMELY valuable!


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## Manxfeeder (Oct 19, 2010)

I don't know what's wrong with me, but I don't get as much from live performances as I do from recorded ones. When I go to concerts, I remember snippets, like Joshua Bell's knowing look before a cadenza or the stunning soprano shuffling her feet before launching into her solo in Brahms' Requiem, but most of the actual performance is quickly forgotten. 

I get a lot more out of sitting in a room listening to a recording, ideally with a marked-up score, pausing it when my attention is wandering or when I'm craving peanuts. 

I admire hard-core concert goers, because they're obviously getting something out of the experience that I'm not.


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

Manxfeeder said:


> [Post deleted. I read it over, and it didn't contribute anything that wasn't already said.]


Oh! I just missed it! I was interested in your post and particularly "the loneliness of the long distance classical music fan" paragraph. I hope you don't mind my referring to it and responding a bit? I'll delete my post if you do.

There are so few of us classical fans and I guess I also don't know anyone who shares my tastes. It has been this way for all of my 65 years of life. There have been a few classical fan colleagues over the years and we have shared discs and had the odd chat but for all our shared love of music they were not the colleagues I got close to. Indeed some stood for things at work that I deplored! I don't think I know anyone who I am close to and also share a music love with except my wife who is enthusiastic about quite a lot of the music I have introduced her to.

I also have been inspired to listen to some rock music by friends and have enjoyed much that they led me to. But it would never work the other way around.

I suppose that is part of the attraction of a forum like this. We can exchange experiences, views and ideas about music without needing to be friends in the real world! There are a good few members here who I would find it interesting to meet, though.

Edit - I also liked your very different final iteration of your post! I can relate to the feeling that a live performance is somehow less real and memorable than an experience with a recording.


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## Manxfeeder (Oct 19, 2010)

Enthusiast said:


> Oh! I just missed it! I was interested in your post and particularly "the loneliness of the long distance classical music fan" paragraph. I hope you don't mind my referring to it and responding a bit? I'll delete my post if you do.


Thanks. I was afraid that I was coming across as whining, so that's the reason I deleted it.

But I do appreciate this forum. I get something deeper and more fulfilling from classical music than other forms of music, and it is affirming to see that I'm not the only one.


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## starthrower (Dec 11, 2010)

MatthewWeflen said:


> Who pays ten dollars per disc?
> 
> An excellent box set typically runs around two bucks per CD. Halfway decent seats at the Chicago Symphony Orchestra run about seventy bucks apiece after fees.


Most people pay more unless you buy everything at library sales, or nothing but box sets. And of course these cheapo box sets are a fairly new development since streaming killed the physical media market. And they do nothing to support artists, only the big conglomerates. I suspect most people have nothing against recordings, but they can never take the place of a live musical experience.

But asking why bother is a silly question. It's a big business, and people are conditioned to enjoy music with the flick of a switch. The question was more relevant a hundred years ago when the technology was primitive.


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## MatthewWeflen (Jan 24, 2019)

starthrower said:


> Most people pay more unless you buy everything at library sales, or nothing but box sets. And of course these cheapo box sets are a fairly new development since streaming killed the physical media market. And they do nothing to support artists, only the big conglomerates. I suspect most people have nothing against recordings, but they can never take the place of a live musical experience.
> 
> But asking why bother is a silly question. It's a big business, and people are conditioned to enjoy music with the flick of a switch. The question was more relevant a hundred years ago when the technology was primitive.


I bought a box set as a foundation, and then have picked up smaller sets (usually a particular composer's complete symphonies sets, occasionally single discs) to round out the repertoire. But even there, the used market will still usually yield 4 dollars per disc on all but very rare items.

Supporting musicians is of course a difficult issue. Presumably the large orchestra houses (like my local Chicago Symphony Orchestra) have set prices based on what they think is the equilibrium level in the region (between attendance and return). But all told, this means I can only do 4 or 5 concerts per season. And I don't want to restrict my classical listening to only those occasions, and so recordings comprise 95% or more of my listening. If indeed streaming has hollowed out the cost structure of the whole market, it remains to be seen whether this exerts downward pressure on live concert prices as it seems to have on disc prices.

As a consumer, I can only respond to the market as it is, not as I think it should be. So if a box set by a world class orchestra/conductor presents itself to me at $2 per disc, I'm not going to feel bad about snapping it up.


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## starthrower (Dec 11, 2010)

MatthewWeflen said:


> As a consumer, I can only respond to the market as it is, not as I think it should be. So if a box set by a world class orchestra/conductor presents itself to me at $2 per disc, I'm not going to feel bad about snapping it up.


Any sensible shopper will do the same. If I was wealthy I'd attend all the symphony concerts in town with my wife. But I can't afford it. Especially since I enjoy attending jazz, folk, and other live performances. If given the choice, I'm going to choose the unique performer or band over the orchestra because it may be my only opportunity. The orchestra is always going to be relatively the same with a revolving repertoire.


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## Simon Moon (Oct 10, 2013)

First off, I go to live concerts as often as I am able.

The problem with your proposal is multifold:

1. I can not afford to go to concerts anywhere near as often as I would like.
2. The activity of living life (family, friends, work, other enjoyable activities, etc) infringe on some of the time I would use for going to concerts.
3. I listen to a lot of contemporary classical music, much of it is never performed. If I didn't own recordings, I would never get to hear Elliott Carter, Joseph Schwantner, Luciano Berio, Thea Musgrave, Jennifer Higdon, Penderecki, etc, etc, etc... 
4. Bands that I am a fan of, are pretty obscure, come from different countries, and do not tour the US very often, or at all.
5. Many bands I am a fan of, are no longer together, so the only way to hear them is on recording. I can't go back in time to see Mahavishnu Orchestra, Weather Report, Henry Cow, National Health, etc.

Your idea of not listening to recordings would have me listening to music at a very small fraction of how often I wan to listen. A nonstarter for sure.



> in the end, music is music, and there is something great about limiting yourself to what is available rather than constantly being on the search for the next thing, and there is something special about the performance being boxed in a room and constrained to a specific period of time, after which it's gone forever.


Nothing great at all about limiting myself to what is available locally to me. There is so much incredible music I would not be able to listen to. Why, WHY, would I want to miss out? Limit myself because of an accident of my current geography? What a silly concept.

Yes, there is something special about the live music experience. That's why I go to concerts as often as I am able. Lucky for me, my audio system at home is of appreciable quality to able to reproduce a large chunk of ambience and soundstage of the venue the music was recorded in, so I can still get a feeling of that live performance.



> ...no non-musician really needs to sit down and listen to more than 4-5 hours of music per week anyway - there are after all so many other things to do, galleries to visit, books to read, conversations to be had, etc.


Who are you to say how often I should be listening to music per week?

My listening to recordings at home very rarely cut into my time for any of those other activities. I usually listen for a couple of hours when I get home from work. After that I read, maybe some television. On weekends, my girlfriend and I often go to museums and galleries. I have friends I see often and we always have great conversations.



> It seems like the listening turns into a secondary activity to the collecting of music (be it in a physical format or as albums in your "collection" on Spotify), like we are all some kind of hoarders, obsessed with owning rather than experiencing.


I agree with this.

The only reason I 'collect' music is to listen to it.


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## MarkW (Feb 16, 2015)

To each his or her own.


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## mbhaub (Dec 2, 2016)

In reading the interesting comments on this thread one thing really stands out: this discussion wouldn't happen on a board dedicated to pop/rock/country. Those genre's exist only because of recording technology. Yes, groups do tours, but it's not like any fan is going to hear "their" group monthly and have a different concert. Only in the classical arena would a discussion like this be taking place. Society has become so used to recorded/amplified music that there are people who actually enjoy concerts at the Hollywood Bowl, Tanglewood, Grant Park, the Waldbuhne (Berlin) where you don't hear the real orchestra - just an amplified version of it.


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## rice (Mar 23, 2017)

I can only say, without recordings I'd have never got in touch with classical music. No one I know would have led me into this world. 
And I was not born with a natural urge to attend a concert.
Now I own many CDs (believe it or not, the artists actually receive some money when those are sold and therefore supported), I go to concert once every few months and I play an instrument. 
Without recordings these would have never happened. 
If people like me (i.e. beginners) stop appearing, how would this genre of music live on?


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## Dimace (Oct 19, 2018)

The BP and three of the most distinguished Operas of Europe are two cigarettes drive from my home (OK, make them three, when the roads are full with crazy Berliner drivers) Not to mention smaller concert halls, theaters, etc. which very often have quality artists and other performers (dance, Ballett etc...) Despite these I can not live without my recordings. They are my friends and companions and nothing compare to them. So, I feel, that live and records is good to walk together the path of music. 

What I like, but nowadays is difficult, is to attend live abroad. (UK, Sweden or Warsaw) My budget, the last years, is a maximum of 1000 to 1200 USD for music (monthly) and with such amount if I go for a WE in London, I can almost buy nothing of music for the rest of the month. So I remain local (or in German soil) and I can also have my precious monthly record buys.


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## Manxfeeder (Oct 19, 2010)

Dimace said:


> What I like, but nowadays is difficult, is to attend live abroad. (UK, Sweden or Warsaw) My budget, the last years, is a maximum of 1000 to 1200 USD for music (monthly) .


Oh, wow. I'd love to have that kind of a budget for music. You're very fortunate.


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## Manxfeeder (Oct 19, 2010)

mbhaub said:


> . . . where you don't hear the real orchestra - just an amplified version of it.


The Nashville Symphony used to perform in a hall too large for itself, so it was heavily amplified, and I started feeling like you do; I wasn't hearing them, just what some sound guy fiddling with dials thought I should be hearing. Our conductor was fortunate enough to get wealthy patrons to build a symphony hall which is acoustically perfect, so now you're actually hearing the orchestra itself. There's something to be said for natural overtone sounds over those which are manually processed.


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## Dimace (Oct 19, 2018)

Manxfeeder said:


> Oh, wow. I'd love to have that kind of a budget for music. You're very fortunate.


Don't forget that I systematically collect CDs, SACDs, LPs (this could be very expensive) etc. Without this mania would be easier to enjoy more of the music.


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## steph01 (Dec 21, 2016)

Should probably chuck my TV and stick to attending my local theatre of an evening.
While I am at it I could bin all my books and wait for the local bard to drop by and recount me tale or two.
As for this place, hopefully I can find a classical music discussion group at a nearby community centre that meet regularly, and then perhaps I'll encourage them not to bother with instruments and just listen to unaccompanied choral music.


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## Phil loves classical (Feb 8, 2017)

steph01 said:


> Should probably chuck my TV and stick to attending my local theatre of an evening.
> While I am at it I could bin all my books and wait for the local bard to drop by and recount me tale or two.
> As for this place, hopefully I can find a classical music discussion group at a nearby community centre that meet regularly, and then perhaps I'll encourage them not to bother with instruments and just listen to unaccompanied choral music.


Agree. I only felt the last part with the instruments a little bit uncalled for.


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## DaveM (Jun 29, 2015)

I don’t understand the ‘either or’ premise of the OP and some posts here. Let’s face it: live performances are nice, but you can’t really get to know a work from live performances. The live performance may be your introduction to a work or a nice experience after getting to know the work, but it won’t replace being able to hear the work several times a day, day after day.


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## mbhaub (Dec 2, 2016)

"In 1964 at age 32, Glenn Gould stuns the world by walking away from the stage, declaring "the concert is dead." Gould makes no secret of his disdain for giving public performances but it is a move unheard of at the time. Gould says live concerts make him feel demeaned, like a vaudevillian. "I detest audiences," he explains in this 1966 clip from CBC Television, "Not in their individual components but en masse... I think they are a force of evil." Gould quitting the stage may be a result of several factors. He develops a fanatical fear of flying and an injury to his left shoulder continues to plague him. *The future, Gould declares, is in the recording studio.*"


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

mbhaub said:


> "In 1964 at age 32, Glenn Gould stuns the world by walking away from the stage, declaring "the concert is dead." Gould makes no secret of his disdain for giving public performances but it is a move unheard of at the time. Gould says live concerts make him feel demeaned, like a vaudevillian. "I detest audiences," he explains in this 1966 clip from CBC Television, "Not in their individual components but en masse... I think they are a force of evil." Gould quitting the stage may be a result of several factors. He develops a fanatical fear of flying and an injury to his left shoulder continues to plague him. *The future, Gould declares, is in the recording studio.*"


Yes but Gould was an eccentric and his adversity to appearing on stage had more to do with his mentality than logical reasoning. Recording meant he was a vaudevillian at one remove.


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## KRoad (Jun 1, 2012)

Dimace said:


> The BP and three of the most distinguished Operas of Europe are two cigarettes drive from my home (OK, make them three, when the roads are full with crazy Berliner drivers) .


Dear Dimace,

You really should move to Dahlem - so much easier venue access and better for your lungs, too.


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

Sid James said:


> ... the stereotypical traits of the hard core record collector... - amassing vast amounts of recordings, forgetting what I own, having multiple recordings of the same piece - its the last thing I want to be.





science said:


> I'd be ok with that, if I could afford it.
> 
> My wife used to buy lottery tickets, and I always told her that the first thing I'm doing if we hit a number is spending $50k on CDs....


Hard core collectors have continuously supported the classical music industry in a big way. If it was up to collectors like me, less money would be going into the industry. It needs all the money it can get. I'm certainly not criticizing them but merely making the observation that I don't want to be like them. It takes all sorts.


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

^^^ Fo me it was like storing food for the winter. I was much better off tend years ago and bought a lot of CDs. Many I only listened to once. Some I listened to once every year or two. Many were challenging for me and my sampling of them led to me suddenly "knowing" years later that I was ready to give them serious attention. Now I am not so rich I am gaining untold pleasure from delving into my gathered stock.


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

That’s a good analogy and it sounds like you are enjoying rediscovering your collection.


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

^^^ And in many cases discovering - in many cases there was no previous discovery, just an earlier introduction (so I "knew" what was there) and then storage for the coming Winter.


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## TwoFlutesOneTrumpet (Aug 31, 2011)

Last night at the concert I observed(reminded myself of) the following:

1. The sound is absolutely better than anything I have heard through my system or any other HI-FI systems.
2. I love seeing the musicians perform.
3. I wonder why so many members of the audience cannot control the urge the cough between movements and even during movements. There is a probably a psychological aspect to it and maybe one day, if I'm curious enough, I'll research it. A minor annoyance.
4. There was a guy behind me who kept fidgeting and making these annoying rustling sounds as he held onto the program booklet throughout the performance.
5. The conductor decided to not repeat the exposition in Schubert's unfinished, which disappointed. At home, if I'm listening to a recording that lacks the exposition repeat there is an easy solution - I just restart the movement from the beginning.
6. Bruckner's 9th was a decent performance but I found several sections where the best recordings - Guilini's for example - are so thrilling to be just OK. The coda at the end of the 1st movement was a prime example of that.

All in all, if I had a choice of live music or recorded music only (and thankfully I can have both), it is recorded music for me, hands down. I can choose to play whatever whenever, replaying my favorite performances, in the comfort of my house, not bothered by inconsiderate members of the audience.


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## rice (Mar 23, 2017)

TwoFlutesOneTrumpet said:


> Last night at the concert I observed(reminded myself of) the following:
> 3. I wonder why so many members of the audience cannot control the urge the cough between movements and even during movements. There is a probably a psychological aspect to it and maybe one day, if I'm curious enough, I'll research it.


I think people just usually cough but normally you don't notice unless you're in a quiet, echoing concert hall.
Last concert I attended, I coughed for the first time ever because the air was really dry.
My throat was itchy like hell but luckily it was a suite being played so I held up until the short piece finished.
It's very hard to control cough, I almost had tears in my eyes enduring those few minutes. Sometimes they are not being inconsiderate they just cannot help it.


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## elgar's ghost (Aug 8, 2010)

I would find repeated coughs annoying but at least in this day and age they aren't likely to be tubercular-derived.


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## Judas Priest Fan (Apr 27, 2018)

At my first classical concert, I choked on my own spit; I think most of you know what I mean. The urge to cough is unbearable.

I started to get in a bad mood because of it. I was telling myself, at a Metal show I could PUKE on the floor where I stand and no one would even notice! I did really enjoy the concert, though.


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## NLAdriaan (Feb 6, 2019)

It always remains strange that in between parts, a cough storm comes up, as if the audience is tuning its throats. 

In soft and sensitive parts, there are almost always huge coughs out of nowhere, as if the tension becomes too much.

I also know how terrible it is if you have to suppress a cough, until tears are coming out of your eyes. Problem is if you start coughing, it only becomes worse. 

With the ageing audience you also have these whistling hearing aids sometimes. It must also be horrible for the bearer.

But anyhow, despite this all, if everything comes together, a live concert can be a transcendental experience, more than a recording will ever give you.


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## Larkenfield (Jun 5, 2017)

Recordings of anything aside, think of all the landfills when CDs are no longer necessary because of CD-quality streaming and they're dumped wholesale. It'll take a thousand years for that awful plastic to decompose and they'll probably end up in the ocean killing sea turtles and octopodes. Not to be an alarmist, but their reproduction should be immediately banned to save the environment and encourage live performances. Think of all the orchestras and string quartets that would have to be funded despite wars and famines.


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

^^^ They make good bird scarers for gardens and fields.


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## Manxfeeder (Oct 19, 2010)

Larkenfield said:


> Recordings of anything aside, think of all the landfills when CDs are no longer necessary because of CD-quality streaming and they're dumped wholesale. It'll take them a thousand years to decompose and they'll probably end up in the ocean killing sea turtles and octopodes. Not to be an alarmist, but their reproduction should be immediately banned and confiscated from every household to save the environment and encourage live performances Think of all the orchestras and string quartets that will have to be funded despite wars and famines.


When you put it that way, that huge CD stack in my office isn't an eyesore; I'm just saving the planet.


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## Manxfeeder (Oct 19, 2010)

TwoFlutesOneTrumpet said:


> 2. I love seeing the musicians perform.
> 
> 4. There was a guy behind me who kept fidgeting and making these annoying rustling sounds as he held onto the program booklet throughout the performance.
> 5. The conductor decided to not repeat the exposition in Schubert's unfinished, which disappointed. At home, if I'm listening to a recording that lacks the exposition repeat there is an easy solution - I just restart the movement from the beginning.
> 6. Bruckner's 9th was a decent performance but I found several sections where the best recordings - Guilini's for example - are so thrilling to be just OK. The coda at the end of the 1st movement was a prime example of that.


Point 2: What disappoints me about watching a symphony is, the conductor's back is to me, and the orchestra is either staring at the music when playing or staring blankly when not playing. They don't do a lot to engage or even acknowledge the audience. What are you seeing that I'm missing?

Point 4: The paper shuffler: That drives me nuts. Who is the guy they hire to shuffle programs? Because he's always there.

Point 6: A performance that should be thrilling but is just OK: That's the problem with live performances; you don't know what you're going to get. Our symphony is very good, but they don't take a lot of chances, so if I'm there, I know I'll be hearing something pretty much the way I expect it to sound. I think that's because they don't want to ruffle the feathers of the average concertgoer. But considering the expense of a concert, do I want to make that outlay just to hear what I already have heard? What will get me out of my seat and into the hall is the anticipation that something is going to happen that I won't hear anywhere else. (Joshua Bell and the Academy was worth hearing because of their hairtrigger ensemble playing and orchestral balance. I'd hop into an Uber to hear them again.)


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## arpeggio (Oct 4, 2012)

*Coughing*

You think it is embarrassing coughing in the audience?

As a wind player it can be disconcerting when you have to cough while you are playing because when you take a deep breath something went in wrong.

When I was with the 75th Army Band we were playing an outdoor concert in Richmond, Virginia. When I took a deep breath I suck in and swallowed a moth 

P.S. One of the more interesting forums in quite awhile.


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## Dimace (Oct 19, 2018)

Does someone prefer the recordings, because in a live concert, normally speaking, he can not smoke? :lol: 


*Both ways are EXCELLENT. Kristian, for example, is God on the stage and in my HIFI. The same Maria. But, she is not any more among us... Do you understand my point?


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## NLAdriaan (Feb 6, 2019)

millionrainbows said:


> If there were no recording (like if it was outlawed), then real musicians playing real music would become EXTREMELY valuable!


...and we couldn't judge concerts by the millimeter

...and how about radio broadcast?


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## Varick (Apr 30, 2014)

_They're never going to do the music justice, even if it's a masterful interpretation by the world's greatest on an expensive hi-fi system. How can a masterful interpretation, recorded expertly and played back on a hi-end stereo system not do the music justice? What would? In the end you're sitting alone at home listening to a box. No, I disagree. Today in the car I was listening to one of the greatest baritones of all time who passed away just under 2 years ago. The fact that I have the recording is probably the greatest legacy I could ask for.The obvious advantages of a recording are that 1) you can listen to whatever you want at any time anywhere, 2) you can listen to it repeatedly. But you don't need to have music blasting 24/7 I don't. It sounds like you're very disappointed with your own habits and have the need to transfer these shortcomings to other people, nor do you need all that choiceSpeak for yourself! I want to have choice. - in the end, music is music, and there is something great about limiting yourself to what is available rather than constantly being on the search for the next thingwhat's GREAT about limiting yourself to what is available? And I am constantly on the search for the next piece of music that makes me thank God for my hearing, and there is something special about the performance being boxed in a room and constrained to a specific period of time, after which it's gone forever.And if you weren't there to hear it? What good is that? Maybe it should be your priority to know what composers your local musical culture deems important and thus plays more often, rather than the ones nobody around seems to care about Speak for yourself! Who determines the ones nobody cares about....YOU? - after all, discovery and novelty for their own sakes have no value BS, what has value is interacting with real people and immersing oneself in one's culture Sorry, I don't do social media!. And you don't need all that repetition too, allowing the music to soak in in the back of your head until the next time you hear it months or years after is better than obsessing about it and listening on repeat.Sounds like you're withdrawing from some pretty bad habits. 
And perhaps you should speak about this in the first person rather than trying to shift it to the reader.

Music has turned into some sort of a nervous tic, for me at least.There you go....the first thing you've said that you're owning. Maybe CDs and streaming and portable audio and obsessive listmaking and all that ruin music.Obviously it has for you. Tickets are cheap (for classical anyway) and no non-musician really needs to sit down and listen to more than 4-5 hours of music per week anyway Again, speak for yourself. - there are after all so many other things to do, galleries to visit, books to read, conversations to be had, etc. Hell, maybe you could spendHell, maybe you could heed your own advice and stop preaching. Sounds like a lot of sour grape depression to me. the extra time you'll get with an instrument and learn to play pieces on your own. Even if you never reach virtuoso status, surely that would be way more fulfilling than sitting in the armchair and listening to vibrating wooden boxes.Feeling a little remorse are we?

I'm kind of disillusioned with how listening culture works nowadays.Don't sell yourself short. I believe your delusion goes far beyond listening culture. It seems like the listening turns into a secondary activity to the collecting of music (be it in a physical format or as albums in your "collection" on Spotify), like we are all some kind of hoarders, obsessed with owning rather than experiencing.My collection only has value for me because I listen to it. Just having the CD's in a rack does nothing for me. Or it turns into some sort of competition for who knows or "owns" the most music. Maybe it's time to cut down on recordings and make the effort to only listen to music in a live setting. Seems like a better way to go about it.Have at it!_

*This may be one of the greatest and funniest responses I've seen to an OP. Well Done! I'm shocked I'm the only one who "liked" this post. This is gold people!!!!*

V


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## Marinera (May 13, 2016)

Larkenfield said:


> Recordings of anything aside, think of all the landfills when CDs are no longer necessary because of CD-quality streaming and they're dumped wholesale. It'll take a thousand years for that awful plastic to decompose and they'll probably end up in the ocean killing sea turtles and octopodes. Not to be an alarmist, but their reproduction should be immediately banned to save the environment and encourage live performances. Think of all the orchestras and string quartets that would have to be funded despite wars and famines.


it is possible to make physical cds from other materials if music industry were willing to produce them. Initial cd prototypes were from glass, I think. I read this here on tc, and technology moved on since then. https://www.theverge.com/2016/2/16/11018018/5d-data-storage-glass

A very high quality and indestructible media would get in the way of profits of course.


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