Klarinet Archive - Posting 001157.txt from 2003/06

From: ormondtoby@-----.net (Ormondtoby Montoya)
Subj: RE: [kl] Electronic Acoustical Performance
Date: Mon, 30 Jun 2003 00:21:03 -0400

Karl=A0Krelove wrote:

If the group is acoustically unbalanced, whose responsibility is it and
shouldn't there be a way to correct the problem acoustically?

You have raised the same issue for live performances that I described as
"honesty" in my previous question about recordings. Where should the
line be drawn?

Recently I attended a live performance of the Los Angeles Guitar Quartet
in a small 100-person room. This example won't mean much if you aren't
familiar with their music, but I would describe them as the best of
their genre, near-virtuosos if not virtuosos. Despite the fact that
they played indoors in a small room with substantial reverberation, they
mic'd each of the four guitars/lutes and amplified all of them somewhat.
The total sound truly filled the room, but it was not loud enough to
cause distortion or 80-decibel ear-splitting sounds that blanketed each
other. I thought that the finished product was more pleasing than if
there had been no amplification --- which is to say, if the LAGQ had
offered to perform either with or without the amplification, I would
have chosen the amplified performance.

Does this make me less sophisticated, less musically sensitive, less
<whatever> than I should be? The same question in reverse: was LAGQ
abusing the music simply because their performance was not 100%
acoustic?

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