During the course of the last few years I’m developing a distaste to play music for my visitors.

I remember in past it was, if not fascinating, but I would say intriguing to have a person over and to spend a few hours to play music for him or very rarely for her (actually “her” happened only twice). It was in a way fascinating to see how deferent people react to different music or how difference audio minded people react to the different results of sound reproduction. I used sometime my playback as an experimental playground to try some different things on my visitors and it was fun, well, soft of fun… (One of the mast remarkable episodes was when I played an LP to some like of Audiogon hoodlum and he did not get after listening the entire cut my TT played 45RPM instead of 33RPM, hey - what do you know – the guy loved the sound!!!)

Then I begin to develop a sense of incredible boredom when I played my hi-fi for my visitors. The visitors never brought any music with them that I would consider worth to listen and even if they did then the visitors very fast refused to listen their material and asked me for my music. So, I played mine. However, “my music”, in context of audio visitors, always has a strange dual meaning.

There is “my music” that I might play for the people who visit me.  It is not necessarily the hi-hi-affective music (well, yes it is in a way) but good music that, because of the multiple composite reasons, should be liked by the people, including the satisfying their audio objectives. Still, I never listen those recording when I am do my own private listening. Then, there is the real “my music”, or the music that I pull out of my shelf for myself when I am home alone. It hard to explain what kind music it is. It is nothing spacial but it is something the interests me.

He is the catch: it is practically imposable to play this “private music” for my visitors. It is not that they do not like it but even if they do like it, then they do it because of the different reasons. I tried again and again to inject into the sequence of the typical “demo” music that I play for my visitors, one or two selections from my “private music stock”. The visitors bypass it or they “like it” but always the very different reasons then I do.

Defiantly we all different and we all appreciate the different things in musicality. However, it is my home, my playback and my spent time…. Still, I do not mind to play mystic to the people who visit me but while I do it I feel very-very bored. Furthermore, I know that there are some methods and some techniques that make my playback to have some “reproductive bias” towards “my music” and turn it’s back to “not my music”.  So, for a while I keep tailoring my system to what I need and what would benefit “my music” instead of what make my playback “generally better”….

The biggest satisfaction and the biggest gratification I ever experienced from my playback (in context of my visitors) were those very seldom moments what visitors were people with great audio intelligence and with great music understanding. It was literally few times ever but it was phenomenal! You have a person which whom you could discuss some abstract deep moments of AUDIO INTERPRETATION OF MUSICAL INTENTIONS and juts for sake of illustration you pull a record from your shelf. Suddenly you recognize the person’s complied understanding (without explanations) of WHAT you are demonstrating by playing this given performance. Furthermore, the person, embracing the demonstrated conception, begin to develop the concept further on, basing his thoughts upon the musical fragments that will be yet playing in a few minutes within this performance. With those types of visitors it is possible do not even listen music but to name the specific aspects of playback and the specific performance…. Still, listening with them, is like a reading each other novels, where the affords of the playbacks and the forces of the interpretations open the doors for mutual and self exploration of who we are…

Unfortunately, the intelligent visitors are extremely infrequent and whoever I accustom to have along are just  the “sound catchers”… I appreciate my audio only when I am alone and I do not think that serious audio might be a social involvement. The serious high-end is really a mater of a private relationship between a person and his perception via the opportunities music offers for us. Could the “intruders” share it?

The more I think about reproduced sound the more disassociated I find myself with the mainstream audio people. Really, I do not share may of their objective and what in mass audio hysteria is considered essential and prominent does not impress me, furthermore it is very frequency creates a reaction of revolution.

After writing the article above I was thinking if any explanations exist why the high quietly recordings do not impress me. Partially I expressed it in the end of the article about the Bruckner Ninth:

http://www.goodsoundclub.com/TreeItem.aspx?postID=2290

but there is more to it.

I know and own everything that the audio people consider impressive and very-very well recorded. However even if it is very well performed, superbly recorded and pressed then I still find if boring. I feel music should not be well ILLUSTRATED but rather Music should be IMPLIED. That is why I do not appreciate when sound acts as a very high resolution painting with superb details, painted by a microscopic brash by a very skilled painter. I would rather prefer a painter have a lot of attitude and paint his INTENTIONS with a very large brash, setting his/her references to own objectives. As soon this “large brash painter” begins to enter the world of sonic micro management then I loose my own reference to the “super task “ (courtesy to Stanislavsky) and my awareness begin instead of the "active listening" to participate in the “artificially entertained boredom”

So, what would manifest “my ridicules sound” and witch sound I consider an absolute reference in trims of quality sound reproduction? To surprise many people I would state that the absolute best sound in high-end I consider a Sound in a car coming form a very primitive stock playback system, playing recordings from 1940s.

The second part of 1940s is my absolutely the best recording time and the Sound that was available at that time from my point of view is so much superior then all of the Reference Recordings, Mercurys,  Special RCAs or Unicorns that it is self-explainable why I find many high-end recordings superbly boring.

What I play in my listening room  when I have no “gests”, when  I would like to hear the Real Sound and when I would like to starch the capacity of high-end sound redaction?. I play Boston Symphony recordings from 1945 to 1949. Could anything remotely top that “Iceland of Dead” from 10 April 1945? I play Falstaff Symphonic Study by Elgar and London Symphony from 1931.  I do not try to strike the readers with some kind of “strangeness” but I do find THAT sound really more meaningful, richer and more musical then many so-called high-resolution recording of the latest orchestra.

I'm very much NOT the person who believes in devolution of performing art. I'm familiar and own hundreds or perhaps  thousands  of phenomenal performances of the fairly contemporary artists. All I am taking about Sound Reproductions and I do feel that with all contemporary gismos and contemporary evolved options we did lost something in high-end audio Sound…..

Rgs,
Romy the caT

Romy wrote :

"...I feel music should not be well ILLUSTRATED but rather Music should be IMPLIED..."

"...That is why I do not appreciate when sound acts as a very high resolution painting with superb details, painted by a microscopic brush by a very skilled painter. I would rather prefer a painter have a lot of attitude and paint his INTENTIONS with a very large brush, setting his/her references to own objectives..."

Marc Chagall (aka : מאַרק שאַגאַל , Марк Захаравiч Шагал)
(A 20th century Jewish/Belarus-born painter, who moved to Paris) wrote :
"...One cannot be precise, and still be true..."

John Updike wrote :
"...Truth should not be forced, it should simply manifest itself..."

Emily Dickenson wrote :
"...The truth must dazzle gradually/Or every man be blind..."

And, with regard to the concept of "Abstract Audio"...

Vincent Van Gogh wrote :
"...My great longing is to make those very incorrectnesses, those deviations, remodellings, changes in reality, so that they may become, yes, lies if you like - but lies more true than the literal truth..."

Pablo Picasso later appropriated the above concept for himself (what a surprise!), reducing it to the following comparatively crude jingle :
"...Art is a lie that tells the truth..."

jessie.dazzle wrote:

Marc Chagall (aka : מאַרק שאַגאַל , Марк Захаравiч Шагал) (A 20th century Jewish/Belarus-born painter, who moved to Paris) wrote : "...One cannot be precise, and still be true..." John Updike wrote : "...Truth should not be forced, it should simply manifest itself..." Emily Dickenson wrote : "...The truth must dazzle gradually/Or every man be blind..." And, with regard to the concept of "Abstract Audio"... Vincent Van Gogh wrote : "...My great longing is to make those very incorrectnesses, those deviations, remodellings, changes in reality, so that they may become, yes, lies if you like - but lies more true than the literal truth..." Pablo Picasso later appropriated the above concept for himself (what a surprise!), reducing it to the following comparatively crude jingle : "...Art is a lie that tells the truth..."

The Truth or False categories exist only in world of well defined coordinate systems and certainty of evolutions. In music the rules are different.  Glenn Gould considered composers, musicians and listeners as one homogeneous melt of consciousness that deal with musicality (it is not HOW he said it but it is the way how I interpret it as I agree with him). If so, then “expressed” in audio/music is not something that is precisely named or identified but rather something that might be EMBRACED by the rest fraction of the “homogeneous melt of consciousness”. The question might be: what is “embraceable”? This is VERY interesting question. Since we talk about audio then we most likely talk about listeners and the “embraceable” for listeners is not something that is Truth or Lies.  The “embraceable” is like feeding a Cat. She eats whatever she want but what she wants is defined but the naturally of her experiences. She does not understand rational but she knows how to correlate chewing with pressure. The very same is with music. Musically is in away an abstract decoding of expressed sensations about world.

Would it be different if the sensations were expressed by more common communication protocol – language for instance, in dry prose? Sure it will be more “true” but it gives a very little room for listener to exercise the “freedom of embracing” and “succession”. One of my ideas of “audio listening techniques” implies a familiarity with the price up to the point of re-composition of the program. How much Truth or Lies in the “re-composable listening”? How much “expressed precision” in artistic expressivity where you have a sense of ownership?  Sure, it is all implied but for a person who talks the expressed implications ARE the passed ideas. All the rest is juts rendering of the implications into a social framework of understanding or appreciation – the framework that has more to do with the ego of speaker then with the value of the ideas itself…

Romy wrote (in blue) :

"...The Truth or False categories exist only in world of well defined coordinate systems and certainty of evolutions. In music the rules are different..."

In the visual arts the rules are also "different".

Taking first the quote from Marc Chagall :
"...One cannot be precise, and still be true..."

For the purposes of this discussion, I make no distinction between music and the visual arts, in that both (and indeed all art) depict life. It seems you would agree :

"...Musically is in a way an abstract decoding of expressed sensations about world..."

Fidelity in the expression of something so enigmatic as life, (the world, life or something that is living, all of which are in evolution, not stable, not fixed), can only be achieved via imprecise terms - those which allow for interpretation. To faithfully depict life, the depiction itself must live.

And if this is not the case...

"...Would it be different if the sensations were expressed by more common communication protocol – language for instance, in dry prose? Sure it will be more “true” but it gives a very little room for listener to exercise the “freedom of embracing” and “succession”..."

Here we have what is know as an illustration. Illustration is well suited to the brain-dead world of "communications", where, in the interest of passing a precise message, all interpretation is done in advance; the message is pre-chewed and spoon-fed. (The single most devastating insult one might level against an artist is to label him/her an "illustrator").

"...All the rest is juts rendering of the implications into a social framework of understanding or appreciation – the framework that has more to do with the ego of speaker then with the value of the ideas itself…"

This (above) is the sonic equivalent to an illustration.

Take now the Van Gogh quote :
"...My great longing is to make those very incorrectnesses, those deviations, remodellings, changes in reality, so that they may become, yes, lies if you like - but lies more true than the literal truth..."

These "incorrectnesses", "devaitions", "remodellings" and "changes in reality" are forms of imprecission, called upon to serve a fidelity of expression (The Picasso version of this concept is suitable for the wall of the toilette at the Leo Bernette headquarters building!).

"...Glenn Gould considered composers, musicians and listeners as one homogeneous melt of consciousness that deal with musicality (it is not HOW he said it but it is the way how I interpret it as I agree with him). If so, then “expressed” in audio/music is not something that is precisely named or identified but rather something that might be EMBRACED by the rest fraction of the “homogeneous melt of consciousness...”

Yes, embraced on all levels, including the subconscious.

"...The “embraceable” is like feeding a Cat. She eats whatever she want but what she wants is defined but the naturally of her experiences. She does not understand rational but she knows how to correlate chewing with pressure. The very same is with music..."

When things are good (mind clear, etc), actively listening to music, giving my attention to music and nothing else, will result in a mental voyage through space and time that is every bit as engaging as the best film. These voyages are entirely improvised, no thinking involved, just reactions to my interpretation of the music. I'm curious, does this happen to others?

"...One of my ideas of “audio listening techniques” implies a familiarity with the price up to the point of re-composition of the program..."

Ever wake from sleep completely convinced that you've composed the beginning of a great piece of music? Capturing it later on the keyboard will in my case usually reveal its origin.

jd*

jessie.dazzle wrote:

When things are good (mind clear, etc), actively listening to music, giving my attention to music and nothing else, will result in a mental voyage through space and time that is every bit as engaging as the best film….

jessie.dazzle wrote:

I am certain that the depth of such an experience .. is very dependant on the system+room; whether something in the system can bring about a more crystalline state of mind… I will be very curious to see how this 7th channel manifests itself…

tuga wrote:

Romy, Now I'm very curious. Could a mechanical prop be added to Macondo in order to stimulate a particular state of mind, like a certain spice would increase salivation? Could this be a universal spice or would it only work with a given individual or a group with well defined characteristics? I must confess that I am craving for the further developments on your "Neuroscience" project...