This is such a GREAT book on the history of captured/created sound and the differences
in approaches over the past 150+ years or so. It is freaking brilliant, and has totally
shaped the way I see recorded music. The recorded music that is no such an abstraction
that it has come to infect, infiltrate, and inspire what happens with actual live music.
The synopsis is that early recorded music fooled listeners into thinking
it was being performed live. There are tales of tricking entire audiences
that were in utter disbelief. Of course, we listen now and we think an
early etched recording on a Grammaphone is trash.
Later, recording music became more of a laboratory experiment to see
what new sounds could be created that did not exist in the natural world.
We are VERY much still neck deep in that phase. For good, and for ill.
For instance, much of the low-end and subharmonic bass we hear plastered
all over recorded music (and which is nigh unto impossible to recreate live
without some serious wattage and massive arrays!) maybe only exists naturally
in thunderstorms, nuclear explosions, and volcanic eruptions.
Another funny insights are all these interstellar reverbs with infinite decay being
deemed synonymous with space and stars and supernovae. Yet, an astrophysicist
will tell you space is more like a vacuum and the deadest room at the Inn you
could ever not hear in your life.
Shoutout to
@State of Epicicity for suggesting that book to me a few years ago.
