[mike1127]

Quote:

It seems to escape you that many, many long time listeners of music know exactly what you are talking about.

 
 
Your statement that people could tell apart two jazz greats if poorly recorded is evidence you don't understand what I'm talking about. The quickest way to get on the same page is for you to paraphrase what I said and then I could clarify it. Some people here seem to understand what I'm talking about. I'm only responding to the evidence in front of me-- do they distort my words? misinterpret my meaning? respond with irrelevancies? Some are, some aren't. Earlier, you understood some of what I said, but with regard to rhythmic quality, it doesn't appear to be the case. It appears to me that we could work it out, but I have found from experience that there are so many variations in how these words are interpreted that it works much better for you to paraphrase what you think I'm saying and go from there.

 

[bigshot]

"Performance of the musician" is not part of the system we are evaluating. It's the input to the system. We need to get this clear. You need to distinguish between the system and the input.

May I quote you on that?

 

[ktm]

Good performances properly recorded and mastered are important to gear testing.
To much music in the last decade is so compressed it's hardly listenable.
Picking a few choice test tracks creates a baseline to compare gear.
A bad track can really throw a red herring into the process.
 

 

[JadeEast]

Can someone summarize what the issue or propositions that are being discussed in this thread are? I've been trying to follow but seem a bit unclear on the central issue.

 

[bigshot]

I don't think you're the only one.

 

[Tilpo]

I don't think you're the only one.

I concur to this statement. I lost track of the purpose of this discussion about 70 pages back.

 

[knucklehead]

To mike1127 - I'm just wondering if you have ever heard an example of this system you are talking about that is capable of reproducing the "emotion" of the music ... Or is it something you feel hasn't been achieved yet?

 

[ktm]

Quote:

To mike1127 - I'm just wondering if you have ever heard an example of this system you are talking about that is capable of reproducing the "emotion" of the music ... Or is it something you feel hasn't been achieved yet?

Wow. Member since 2004 and that's your 1st post?
I guess this thread has reached it's end!

 

[OJNeg]

Quote:

Wow. Member since 2004 and that's your 1st post?
I guess this thread has reached it's end!

 
8 years of lurking? Wow...

 

[jnjn]

Quote:

Wow. Member since 2004 and that's your 1st post?
 

Perhaps he had nothing to say?
 
jnjn

 

[bigshot]

That is an admirable trait, and should stand as a shining example to a couple of people in this thread.

 

[BlindInOneEar]

Quote:

 
 
The quickest way to get on the same page is for you to paraphrase what I said and then I could clarify it.

No, the quickest way to get on the same page would be for you to state your case in a way that is intelligible to the reader. 

 

[germanium]

Quote:

Good performances properly recorded and mastered are important to gear testing.
To much music in the last decade is so compressed it's hardly listenable.
Picking a few choice test tracks creates a baseline to compare gear.
A bad track can really throw a red herring into the process.
 

This I can totally agree with. It also helps(or I should say nessessary) if you know how the instrument itself sounds in the studio without all the electronics involved in recording. You can not evaluate a recording nor the reproduction of it with at least some first hand knowledge of how the instrument actually sounded in the recording environment. I fortunately have some though admittedly light exposure to such but it was enough to get a good impression in my mind as to how it sounded in his environment &  having heard recordings of that instrument in that environment & reproduced on my home system was as close a match as I have ever heard.

 

[Clarkmc2]

Quote:

 
 
Your statement that people could tell apart two jazz greats if poorly recorded is evidence you don't understand what I'm talking about.

No Mike, who it was, not which it was. A prerequisite to understanding a post is to read it carefully. That would be who out of all the musicians one might have ever heard on that instrument.* This is not an unusual or golden eared ability. You seem to have little faith in popular music fans' ability to understand your insights into listening. Well, almost any Rock fan can instantly tell David Gilmour's playing. Or Carlos Santana's. Or Robert Johnson's. Or Spider Geraldo's. Or just about anyone's. Very distinctive, even on a cheap radio.
 
You may need to step out of the limited perspective of the European tradition with which you keep defining your understanding. It seems to be limiting you more than it seems to be educating you. I am conversant in more than one genre of music on that level, and so are many here. My favorite Twentieth Century American composer was Milton Babbitt. My favorite contralto was Kathleen Ferrier. My favorite baritone was Lawrence Tibbett. My favorite current singer is Maria Pia De Vito, the best voice I ever heard from a popular music singer was Laura Branigan. My two most outstanding live musical experiences in all my years have been, so far, a concert seated five feet from the Chicago Symphony String Quartet in an acoustically perfect tiny theater in the round, and a second row seat to the Brad Mehldau/Joshua Redman duo (that would be improvisational Jazz). They would be the most outstanding because of the level the musicians were operating on, not because of my seating. I added that to indicate I got a very good listen. The Jazz was the greater of the two because improvisation is more powerful a musical tool than interpretation. By the way, the European "Classical" world has been thus hobbled since even cadenzas have been written out, which occurred in the nineteenth century.
 
*Coltrane played tenor and soprano saxophones and Bill Evans played the piano. If you had known anything, anything at all about music and the musicians outside of one tradition, you would have known at least that about them. Bill Evans and Glenn Gould mutually admired each others work and artistry, greatly, so they were certainly not working in isolation from other musical forms and genres. Neither should you.

 

[mike1127]

Quote:

No Mike, who it was, not which it was. A prerequisite to understanding a post is to read it carefully. That would be who out of all the musicians one might have ever heard on that instrument.* This is not an unusual or golden eared ability. You seem to have little faith in popular music fans' ability to understand your insights into listening. Well, almost any Rock fan can instantly tell David Gilmour's playing. Or Carlos Santana's. Or Robert Johnson's. Or Spider Geraldo's. Or just about anyone's. Very distinctive, even on a cheap radio.
 
You may need to step out of the limited perspective of the European tradition with which you keep defining your understanding. It seems to be limiting you more than it seems to be educating you. I am conversant in more than one genre of music on that level, and so are many here. My favorite Twentieth Century American composer was Milton Babbitt. My two most outstanding live musical experiences in all my years have been, so far, a concert seated five feet from the Chicago Symphony String Quartet in an acoustically perfect tiny theater in the round, and a second row seat to the Brad Mehldau/Joshua Redman duo (that would be improvisational Jazz). They would be the most outstanding because of the level the musicians were operating on, not because of my seating. I added that to indicate I got a very good listen. The Jazz was the greater of the two because improvisation is more powerful a musical tool than interpretation. By the way, the European "Classical" world has been thus hobbled since even cadenzas have been written out, which occurred in the nineteenth century.
 
*Coltrane played tenor and soprano saxophones and Bill Evans played the piano. If you had known anything, anything at all about music and the musicians outside of one tradition, you would have known at least that about them. Bill Evans and Glenn Gould mutually admired each others work and artistry, greatly, so they were certainly not working in isolation from other musical forms and genres. Neither should you.

 
Actually I'm glad to try to discuss this because you seem interested, and as you may know, some people on the Sound Science forum are only here to mock. Let's give each other the benefit of the doubt as far as interpretation, okay? "who" or "what" was not critical to my point. Either one, my point is the same.
 
It's not a question of who has bigger/broader/badder experience, but can we agree that different folks have different experience and therefore listen for different patterns? For me, it's not classical that primarily influences so much as it is making music and studying it academically.
 
In talking about quality of rhythm, I emphasize small changes along with large ones. A jazz great or any other master has put together a technique that has large differentiations from others, so that's fine.
In my music-making experience, big changes come about by navigating small changes. Big changes come from hearing and evaluating a series of small changes. That is why small changes are important. Even the most mind-blowing artist has put together their transcendent technique from long hours of practicing with sensitivity to small changes.
 
But a large change is the difference between hearing an acoustic ensemble live at close range and hearing a mediocre recording of it. This can be heard as obfuscation if not an outright change in quality of rhythm, but an "orthogonal dimension" to what you are talking about. You can still recognize Bill Evans but he isn't as fun to listen to.
 
Mike