Re: GG: Humming

[Mike Flemmer <mikejf@freewwweb.com>]

Someone wrote:>Deleting this intentional part of his work after his death
strikes me
>as a ghoulish posthumous betrayal of a lifelong respect and
understanding>between artist and label.Seems to me that intentionally deleting
GG's humming using modern
technolgy is just the kind of thing GG would have loved.  I like the
humming, but there will ALWAYS be people who don't.  Why not
let them enjoy just the piano?  After all- the piano playing alone IS
incredible.  People who just don't 'get' the humming aspect about
GG would then enjoy the music on their terms (no humming, as they
see fit).

Because wasn't it GG himself who rushed towards new recording
technology with a vengence?  GG even wanted you-the-listener to
have total control over your stereo and control every aspect of
your listening experience.  He would have loved todays computer
technology that let's you do fancy things like:
- speed up a recording while maintaining the pitch,
- skip a track by setting a control (we can do that now with CD players)
- digitially record it and cut/paste/splice it to our hearts content
- add artificial stereo to mono at the push of a button
- etc, etc...

GG would love all these things.  Or how about this- imagine a
stereo of the future- where you control the orchestra as they
play!  You push buttons, turn knobs, and you control the balance
of the instruments, the tempo, the dynamics, the phrasing, the
dynamics, the key, everything!  Now, would that be fun or what?
In essence, you 'be' the conductor.  This is exactly what GG wanted
you to be able to do one day.   Actually we can- but only in PC's,
using MIDI.  There are already expensive programs that approach
this type of real-time control over the music.

And if anyone loved recording the human voice and splicing it
up, rearranging it, playing it backwards, etc.. it was GG!
Heck, he even owned his own professional tape machines.
The guy loved his tape recorder.  All of his studio recordings
have been cut/spliced/rearranged to produce the final product.
When the big debate about splicing a studio recording was
a big issue back in the early days- GG did not hesitate to use
splicing.  For all we know, GG may have added humming AFTER
a recording where he thought it might need it!  This is certainly
possible.  This could have happened when maybe he had a
sore throat and couldn't utter a sound, yet recorded piano and
then later added humming to make sure it got his 'trademark'.
This could have happened because GG hated to repeat a
performance once he was happy with it.

So, as much as I am a humming supporter, and want to have the
fullest GG experience possible, I refuse to join one side of the
hummers/non-hummers camp.  I would certainly listen to GG
recordings with the humming removed just to see what they
sound like and I would be very aware of what was missing.

I very much doubt that Sony would release a non humming version.
This seems HIGHLY unlikely.  Even if non humming bootlegs appear
from some independant source, they will certainly not appear on the
shelf at music stores or show up in cyber CD stores.  I do not foresee
a mad buying rush where everyone who owns a GG recording would
run out and replace it with a non-humming version. That kind of market
does not exisit. But I do conceed there is a market for those who do
not buy GG because of the humming. This is probably what Sony is
reconsidering.  The market for people who want to buy GG, but don't,
could be quite large. And with the crazy things recording companies
do these days, it could happen.

So maybe we need to shift our viewpoint a bit and offer new GG fans
a choice.  Otherwise, they might pass up on GG alltogether.  I know
that's a hard pill to swallow for the hardcore GG devotee, but as we all
know, the future is always changing, and if you look at he amazing changes
in the past 100 years (which gave ups the technology to hear GG in
the first place), the next 100 years is going to be as they say " you
haven't seen nothing yet!"

Mike