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A week ago I went to see a chamber music performance. It occurred to me that the last time I attended similar event was three years ago. I didn’t jump up and down three years ago and I didn’t either last week. But a friend wanted me there, so there I went.
Doy[1] once wrote a paper about how we experience music from live performance richer than recording ones. I think one of the reason is that recording microphones —the mechanic ears— are nowhere as good as our human ears. That explains why Leg, who’s always dying to see live shows of his idols, always played his CD player up to a volume level we fear. Even so Leg still complains that that doesn’t even come close to the real thing —a notion Doy always agreed with.
Generally, I would have agreed with Doy and Leg, but it’s a different case with classic. Most of the time, I would have been much happier listening to the recording versions. Maybe it’s because though they are labeled recording versions, they are recorded live. As looks can be deceiving, a stage full of performers always tricked my head thinking all the sounds came from the front, not surround as the they really did. To counter-trick it, I usually close my eyes. But that kind of kill the whole idea of going to a live show, doesn’t it?
On this occasion, I tried something different. I kept my eyes open and straight upfront. As I did so, I couldn’t help seeing the stage only partially. Always only at one person at a time and at one instrument at a time. A funny thing happened. As my attention is fixated on one particular visual object, it was as if the sound that object created got significantly louder than the others. It became the figure, and the rest are background. As I kept shifting my visual focus, the auditory focus changed, too. Then I tip-toe from one object to the next and got myself a very playful volume-game. I laughed carefully making sure no one around me saw me. People may think I was lost my sense of reality.
Maybe it’s because practise makes perfect, I began to able to see more than one player at a time. After several minutes I was able to focus on the whole stage. When I did, something amazing happened (by amazing, I think I meant for me only). The body movements of the conductor and the sound all the players produced are somehow familiar to me. I knew I’ve seen it before many times, but I couldn’t tell where-when. About two minutes I think I looked at them hard trying to dig into my memory bank. Not long later, the search was over. I found what I was looking for.
Since I don’t know when I always question why conductors don’t make hand gestures that completely correspond to the sound of the music. It struck me hard that that was the same question bugging me when I watched Fantasia 2000[2]. In Beethoven’s Symphony No. 5, I always found one object moving without obeying one particular sound (or instrument). It kept jumping from one instrument to another. Being sensitive to visual stimuli, that deviant object is disturbing me crazy. It was an itch you can no way scratch. It was harassing my intelligence. That was when I realized that the bug was the conductor. It moved exactly the way a conductor would! The rest of the pictures (the rest of the water, the rest of the clouds, the rest of the paper butterflies, etc) move accordingly to precisely one sound. As a whole, Fantasia (both Fantasia and Fantasia 2000) did speak sounds in visual language. This time my little laughter was no longer little. I think I made enough sound for people to notice me. The dim light of the room saved social dignity.
In Fantasia, each segment (one segment = one composition) has stories. Now that (!) is what I missed listening to orchestrated music. That means another adventure awaits.
[1] I wrote enough about my friend Doy that I think I needn’t inserted any introduction in this letter.
[2] Fantasia 2000 is a Disney’s feature presentation of visual interpretation of several repertoire of classical musical, among them are Beethoven and Respighi.
Doy[1] once wrote a paper about how we experience music from live performance richer than recording ones. I think one of the reason is that recording microphones —the mechanic ears— are nowhere as good as our human ears. That explains why Leg, who’s always dying to see live shows of his idols, always played his CD player up to a volume level we fear. Even so Leg still complains that that doesn’t even come close to the real thing —a notion Doy always agreed with.
Generally, I would have agreed with Doy and Leg, but it’s a different case with classic. Most of the time, I would have been much happier listening to the recording versions. Maybe it’s because though they are labeled recording versions, they are recorded live. As looks can be deceiving, a stage full of performers always tricked my head thinking all the sounds came from the front, not surround as the they really did. To counter-trick it, I usually close my eyes. But that kind of kill the whole idea of going to a live show, doesn’t it?
On this occasion, I tried something different. I kept my eyes open and straight upfront. As I did so, I couldn’t help seeing the stage only partially. Always only at one person at a time and at one instrument at a time. A funny thing happened. As my attention is fixated on one particular visual object, it was as if the sound that object created got significantly louder than the others. It became the figure, and the rest are background. As I kept shifting my visual focus, the auditory focus changed, too. Then I tip-toe from one object to the next and got myself a very playful volume-game. I laughed carefully making sure no one around me saw me. People may think I was lost my sense of reality.
Maybe it’s because practise makes perfect, I began to able to see more than one player at a time. After several minutes I was able to focus on the whole stage. When I did, something amazing happened (by amazing, I think I meant for me only). The body movements of the conductor and the sound all the players produced are somehow familiar to me. I knew I’ve seen it before many times, but I couldn’t tell where-when. About two minutes I think I looked at them hard trying to dig into my memory bank. Not long later, the search was over. I found what I was looking for.
Since I don’t know when I always question why conductors don’t make hand gestures that completely correspond to the sound of the music. It struck me hard that that was the same question bugging me when I watched Fantasia 2000[2]. In Beethoven’s Symphony No. 5, I always found one object moving without obeying one particular sound (or instrument). It kept jumping from one instrument to another. Being sensitive to visual stimuli, that deviant object is disturbing me crazy. It was an itch you can no way scratch. It was harassing my intelligence. That was when I realized that the bug was the conductor. It moved exactly the way a conductor would! The rest of the pictures (the rest of the water, the rest of the clouds, the rest of the paper butterflies, etc) move accordingly to precisely one sound. As a whole, Fantasia (both Fantasia and Fantasia 2000) did speak sounds in visual language. This time my little laughter was no longer little. I think I made enough sound for people to notice me. The dim light of the room saved social dignity.
In Fantasia, each segment (one segment = one composition) has stories. Now that (!) is what I missed listening to orchestrated music. That means another adventure awaits.
[1] I wrote enough about my friend Doy that I think I needn’t inserted any introduction in this letter.
[2] Fantasia 2000 is a Disney’s feature presentation of visual interpretation of several repertoire of classical musical, among them are Beethoven and Respighi.
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