By David Amos
SAN DIEGO — During one of my recording sessions at the CBS Studios in London in the 1990’s, the recording engineer warned me and the musicians of the Philharmonia Orchestra to be sure to “not make any extraneous noises.” We were recording Alan Hovhaness’ The Shepherd of Israel, with San Diego’s own Cantor Sheldon Merel.
Granted, this is good advice that should be followed; you always strive for the cleanest possible sound. But, it opens a series of interesting questions.
For starters, upon hearing this request from the engineer, the orchestra’s concertmaster (or leader, as they call them in the U.K.) the veteran and legendary violinist, the late Hugh Bean, commented to me, “How do these engineers expect us to be so absolutely quiet? The production of music requires a certain amount of noise; we are people, not machines!”
The concept of nearly perfect digital recordings is both good and bad news. The advantages are obvious: The sound quality is so pure and clean, that it is a pleasure to hear a well recorded compact disc, totally free of noise and no audible distortion. The softs are clear and pure, and the louds are thundering and exciting.
But, there is a down side to this. During the recording process every little sound, intended or not, is picked up by the microphones, recorded and reproduced. Every breath, click of an instrument’s key or valve, the fingers sliding across the string or fingerboard, or even a page turn is faithfully reproduced. The accidental tapping of a music stand by a violinist’s bow translates to the sound of a gunshot in the engineer’s control booth. They become touchy about these matters. I have been frequently requested to empty my pockets of any coins or keys, because their jiggling sounds could end up on the finished product.
Musicians involved in recordings have innumerable stories of the pain and anguish experienced during sessions in the efforts to avoid unwanted sounds.
Two incidents come to mind: I was told the silly but true story that at the start of a recording session of a London orchestra at an acoustically wonderful church, it was virtually impossible to have absolute silence during the hushed beginning of the Bruch Violin Concerto in G Minor. The solo violinist is someone you would readily recognize. This famous and beloved concerto starts with a solemn murmur of a timpani roll on a low G. Soft passages in the music are obviously perfect victims to outside noises, and on this particular day, the London subway system was on a fast track, and every time the conductor started the concerto, the “tube” underneath the church began to rumble and growl uncontrollably. After a lost half hour of miscues and false starts, the recording crew, producer, conductor and soloist decided to salvage the situation. The least harmful option was to proceed with the recording, regardless of the annoying rumble. They started, and to no one’s surprise, another subway rolled under them, but this one emitted a perfectly pitched low G! The final result is that the subway became part of recorded history, and if you did not know the “inside story”, you would only comment on how deep and rich was the sound of the timpani.
The other story happened to me. I was conducting a recording at St. Barnabas Church, in Mitcham, Surrey, just outside London. We were playing an especially delicate passage for the strings. Outside the church, one truck after another kept sabotaging our work. We were running out of recording time, and no matter how many times we repeated those particular measures, putting our souls to playing them musically well, a delivery truck or bus wanted to be part of the show. It was a most desperate and helpless feeling. What finally happened is that the heavenly sounds of the strings ended up augmented for four seconds with the sound of a six cylinder hot rod, without a muffler. Where in the recording will we find this? When you see me in person, ask me.
Some unwanted sounds can be eliminated in the editing process, but some can not. To digitally edit out the tap of a cellist’s bow could be possible to do, but it may require a whole hour of work after the recording sessions are finished, and this may translate into hundreds of additional dollars per transgression. Sometimes, the debate as to what to do may become a real puzzle: Do you choose a “take” that is musically just right, with all the artistic elements where they should be, but containing a bad sound which could not be edited out, or instead, you choose a take of lesser artistic value that is sonically perfect? The decisions are not as direct and simple as you may first imagine, especially if you consider the input of all parties involved, in particular the soloist, who may be totally focused on his or her performance, at the sacrifice of other factors.
The conclusion of this brief dissertation is that we have grown accustomed to expect our recordings to be absolutely perfect, sonically, musically, and technically. This frequently robs the recording process of certain spontaneity and excitement, because the editing choices invariably lean toward “the safe options”. The final products are sonically clear, but result in so many pedestrian recorded performances. Critics can name you hundreds of commercial recordings by world class artists that are lackluster and downright dull.
And this is another reason why live music, with all distractions and uncorrected human flaws, is still the best way to listen to music.
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Amos is conductor of the Tifereth Israel Community Orchestra and guest conductor of professional orchestras around the globe