Re: technology and the average listener

[Bradley P Lehman <bpl@umich.edu>]

Last year I met someone who for his own amusement makes amateur binaural
recordings (dummy head direct to DAT) of all the concerts in his church's
concert series.  A friend and I were playing a concert there, and later
that night we got to hear ourselves in binaural: quite realistic.  We also
got to hear a binaural recording of some pretty decent multi-accordion
ensemble that had played there earlier. 

Our concert must have been unintentionally amusing for our audience, too: 
it was a trumpet and organ program, so we played from the back
balcony...while the audience had nothing to look at up front during the
music except this expressionless dummy head elevated on a pole and staring
unseeing back at us.  It was a bit unsettling for us, looking at that
thing periodically and thinking of its clinical detachment.  One would
think that the companies who manufacture these apollonian disembodied
heads could at least give them a facial expression of active interest in
the music, or maybe an expression of listening intently with eyes closed
in quiet ecstatic contemplation, enjoying all those moments of repose. 


Ooo, ooo, a riddle worthy of GG's sense of humor!  
Q: What would be the most appropriate opera to record "live" in binaural?



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A: "Salome" 

Bradley Lehman ~ Harrisonburg VA, USA ~ 38.45716N+78.94565W
bpl@umich.edu ~ http://www-personal.umich.edu/~bpl/