 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: kdk
Date: 2015-12-01 07:45
Sometimes I am surprised at how much I take certain things for granted. I have many times written here how important it is to hear live playing because recordings just don't do the real thing justice. And I fully believe it, but I'm so used to hearing live orchestral and other "classical" music that I forget what it must be like not to hear the real thing.
The difference was brought home to me tonight when my wife and I went to hear, not a symphony orchestra, but the Glenn Miller Orchestra in a live concert at a local school. I've heard very little big band music live and all of it local, usually school groups. I've heard lots of recordings of the great bands of the '30s and '40s, including the original Miller band, and I love listening to them. But I was amazed how this band sounded tonight even in a school auditorium with poor acoustics. I have honestly never heard a sax section with so much control and ability to produce dynamic contrast. From the quietest subtone to a full-bodied fortissimo, they were perfectly in tune and together, seemingly effortlessly and with a sheen on the sound that just doesn't come through in a recording. The brass sections were equally as polished and controlled, but because I can experience the sax playing more viscerally from my own playing experience, it meant a great deal to me. I don't want to gush, and I know it's a great band, but the difference between what we heard tonight and what I hear on countless records in my collection was incredible.
I hear the same difference in "classical" music between live and recorded, but I tend to take that difference as a given because I've been exposed to it so consistently over the decades. Tonight made the realization so much fresher and more intense.
I just needed to say that.
Karl
Post Edited (2015-12-01 10:36)
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Author: maxopf
Date: 2015-12-01 08:08
I've heard some professional clarinetists live — The members of the SD Symphony including my teacher; Charles Neidich; Anthony McGill on multiple occasions; and even got to play alongside Boris Allakhverdyan in a side-by-side concert. There really is a world of difference between a recording and a live performance. Of course they sound great in recordings but it's way different (way better) in person.
Post Edited (2015-12-01 08:10)
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Author: MichaelW
Date: 2015-12-01 22:29
I feel a recorded performance is always sort of an "abstract", even with more modern recording techniques than from the 30s or 40s, and top hifi playback equipment, optimal listening room or good earphones. "High end" freaks probably would disagree, but I fear most of them aren't interested so much in that sort of reality test. Would be interesting to compare your experience with a record from the modern "Glenn Miller Orchestra". What's missing at least would be the live atmosphere.
Post Edited (2015-12-01 22:30)
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Author: fuzzystradjazz
Date: 2015-12-02 04:06
Sadly, I passed up a chance to hear Glenn Miller's band last year.
However, the single biggest impact of "Live vs recorded" for me, occurred on December 10th, 2002. Like most clarinet "kids", I had always liked listening to Benny Goodman and Artie Shaw. A friend invited me to NYC for the first time in 2002, and we were able to attend a "Tribute to the King" pre-event discussion which included Bob Wilbur as the primary guest speaker.
Even though the event was a "discussion" - it ended with Mr. Wilbur picking up his clarinet and playing some examples. He did so from about three feet away from me, and I was simply dumbstruck that a clarinet could make such a pure, full, sound.
It was that very moment in which I decided to pursue jazz on the clarinet. Without hearing it live - it would not have impacted me the way it did.
Live music has had special value to me from that point on, and we've traveled tens of thousands of miles in pursuit of it. (Though I still collect as many CDs/LPs as I can too!)
Cheers!
Fuzzy
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