Could the Imperfection of Live Music Make it Sound Better?

 The third in a series

At PAN we’re continuing our exploration of live classical music and the human ear. There are both artistic and scientific implications when it comes to trying to explain why live music can sound so much better, and richer, than “perfectly” recorded music.

We recently posed this question to PAN.

Q: Tell us about your earliest experiences with “live music” and why it was so magical.

A: Well, it all goes back to those lovely Corycian Nymphs and the Muses I used to run fast and loose with. I spent a fair amount of time in the Corycian cave on the slopes of Mt. Parnassus in Greece, where they lived. Just visiting, of course.

Q: We understand that you played quite a bit music there, and that the cave is still considered sacred by your admirers.

A: That’s correct, although I don’t know why. Despite my outstanding work on the panpipes – named after me don’t ya know – the cave was not, sadly, the scene of any great conquests.

Oh, about your question… the acoustics of that cave are amazing. A discovery I made when I played the pipes to sooth my broken heart. I get that same sense when I hear live classical music in great concert halls today. 
 

BACK TO THE MUSIC
 

The only way to reliably and faithfully reproduce the effects of live performance is to mimic the location and spatial separation of the ears, both in recording and in listening. 

Thus the best way to duplicate the live experience in recording is to place two microphones some distance from the source separated by the distance between the ears. By placing a mannequin head between the microphones - to reproduce the distortion of the sound created by the head - then listening to the two tracks through headphones, the live musical experience is best captured. 

But if recorded music is played through loud speakers, the "live effect" is lost. Note that this recording technique will produce quite different results for performances in an empty room, with its high echo effect, compared to a room filled with people, where their bodies absorb much of the sound.

Any music producer knows the horror of thinking the sound is great when hearing it in an empty auditorium and then finding it flat or worse after the audience arrives for the concert.

Because the question of fidelity to the original is so important in classical music, reverb and surround sound are seldom added to the original.  Hence the same music from the same ensemble, which may feel so vibrant and thrilling in a small concert hall, may sound flat and uninteresting on a recording. 

There are other differences that can cause classical music aficionados to prefer live recordings versus studio recordings, but they usually arise from the banality of perfection. 

Live performances often have a kind of nervousness about them, leading to minor miscues, erratic tempi, and unrehearsed dynamics - which, like echoes, create distortions, which ironically enliven the music. 

Improvements in the acoustics produced at the Walt Disney Concert Hall have caused musicians in the LA Phil to change their approach to performing. As the LA Times reported back in 2003 “The bassoonist Michele Grego noted that she must be especially careful in preparing her reeds. They must be perfect, since any reed noise will stand out, so well does her deep, mellow instrument, often buried in the Chandler (former home of the LA Phil), now project.”

One might even argue that the mind prefers the sense of freedom that such distortions and performance variations can create, and that perfection is abnormal and perhaps to be frowned upon. Better the rabble outside than the order within, as some have said of democracy and algebra texts.

Given this condition, there may be an aesthetic and market opportunity to create recordings which enable reproduction of live music using the technique suggested above: Two microphones separated by a head within a live concert hall, and reproduced through headphones.

The music could not be edited much, but then why should it be?

PAN might just agree - as while playing his panpipes in the Corycian Cave on Mount Parnassus in central Greece – his pursuit of passion might have led him to miss a note or two.

In our next post we’ll look at advances in recording techniques that attempt to recreate the live classical music experience.

 

Pan’s Contemptuous Legacy and Acoustic Perfection in Los Angeles.

The second in a series

At PAN we're continuing our exploration of live classical music and the human ear. We checked back in with PAN recently to continue our discussion of classical music.  

Q: So, what else should we know about you?

A: Well, among many other things, I am the god of the wild and hunting, and my favorite pastime is "hunting" nymphs.  

Music came along as a stress-reducing pastime, to help me deal with my anxiety and frustration from, well...not always succeeding in my efforts with the little darlings. The problem with the nymphs may have been due to my unique kind of handsome.  

Q: Sorry to hear that. How exactly did this frustration manifest itself?

A: In the old days, I tried to work off my angst wandering peacefully through the woodlands in my role as god of the shepherds, playing my pipes and chilling out. Took my usual noontime snooze but was suddenly awakened by a loud noise in the bushes. 

Boy, did I shout at that bush – scared the nearby flocks of sheep into a stampede. The Greeks made a big deal of it, called it "panikos" which became the word “panic” when English came along. Supposed I scared off the nymphs too.

Q: About those pipes, they seem to have started a revolution in musical instruments.

A: I am amazed at the range of wind instruments available today in symphony orchestras. Of course the woodwinds are my favorites. You can’t beat those old Benny Goodman records. Well, actually…

I must say classical music is still best heard live. Even with your modern “digital recordings” the music comes out flat. Maybe it’s the trouble I have getting my Bose headphones around my horns…

THE BEST MODERN DAY CONCERT HALLS IN AMERICA.

A study in contrast to Symphony Hall in Boston (See our first blog post) is the Walt Disney Concert Hall in downtown Los Angeles. This modern-day marvel of acoustical engineering is the home of the LA Phil (Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra) which performs “the best in classical, contemporary, world music and jazz” according to its website.

The structure was designed by Frank Gehry, and the acoustics designed by Yasuhisa Toyota. It opened on October 24, 2003 and seats 2,265 people.

The Los Angeles Times reported the opening of the Disney Hall back in 2003 as “sculpting the sound.” As the Times noted the building underwent a “tuning process” or period of adjustment.

An acoustician will typically allow for the last-minute addition of dampening material if the hall proves too bright or of reflecting surfaces if there are dead spots.” 

That is exactly what Toyota was reported to have done, with “sonic dimension” being added via walls and ceiling finished with Douglas fir and the floor made of oak.  

The hall's reverberation time is approximately 2.2 seconds unoccupied and 2.0 seconds occupied. 

The LA Philharmonic actually needed to adjust its playing style from the way it performed in its old home, the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion. The LA Times went on to observe “In the Chandler, many orchestra members needed to push unnaturally to be heard; in Disney, they can relax.”

WHY RECORDED "LIVE" CLASSICAL MUSIC COMES UP FLAT.

For various reasons, music recorded in a concert hall or a studio may use multiple microphones, but the microphone placement cannot reproduce the live-effect of hearing music through your ears and then processed by your brain.   

Sound engineers like the multiple microphone arrangement because they can manipulate, or mix, the sound—both in amplitude and frequency—as well as recompile the music or build a composite from more than one recording to create a more “perfect” rendition. 

Because the sense of echo creates audio vitality (see our last blog post for details) many modern recordings of popular music use a technique called “reverb” or “reverberation” wherein the pure original music is delayed, attenuated, and then added back into the sound track. 

However, this cannot reproduce the audio experience enjoyed inside a live concert hall. 

If the track with reverb is reproduced through loud speakers, the sense of space created by the sound is focused on the speakers; the ear and brain combination cannot sense an enclosure or a room, but rather experiences the music as an external object.

It may be possible to recreate the sense of a room using digital reverb and headphones, but as far as we know music producers do not do this. The reverb is identical in each ear, or is associated with stereophonic separation, itself a distortion, which cannot duplicate the live experience of sound coming from one place, and then as echoes from various points in a concert hall. 

Another effort used by some recordings or video tracks is “surround sound,” where speakers are placed in all four corners of a room (the woofer is usually in one place as low frequency sounds are not directional). This does create a sense of space, but it also creates a sense of a separate source for the sounds.

We’re sure that all this talk about the science of acoustics and recording technology would baffle PAN, but we’re sure he’d enjoy just about any seat in either Symphony Hall in Boston or the Walt Disney Concert Hall in LA.

Especially when the woodwinds play.

In our next post we’ll look at advances in recording techniques that attempt to recreate the live classical music experience.