Klarinet Archive - Posting 000085.txt from 2007/03

From: Tim Roberts <timr@-----.com>
Subj: Re: [kl] Hearing is believing, or is it?
Date: Tue, 06 Mar 2007 13:59:46 -0500

On Tue, 6 Mar 2007 01:41:11 -0500 (EST), kurtheisig@-----.net wrote:
> We've had a couple of trumpet students that grew up in the stores and were =
> later clerks for us, they would amaze us by naming all of the players in th=
> e trumpet sections on different cuts. Memory? Hearing?

And those last two words embody the difficulty involved in drawing
conclusions. If they just happened to have an incredible memory for
recorded tracks, that is NOT the same thing as having an "identifiable
sound." For example, I believe I could identify Tony Pay's playing in
the Mozart concerto from his recording with the Academy of Ancient
Music, but that's because I've listened to it so much. If you played me
an arbitrary track by Tony, I doubt that I could identify it.

I saw a television report years ago about a fellow who could identify
classical recordings with startling accuracy just by looking at the
grooves on the LPs with the labels covered. Did he actually look for
the loud and soft sections (which you can certainly see in an LP) and
deduce the piece? Or did he just have a photographic memory?

--
Tim Roberts, timr@-----.com
Providenza & Boekelheide, Inc.

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