Some Notes on Energy Transfer and the Ineliminable Grain or Timbre of Recording.
In Recording: 1) decisions are made regarding microphone choice, combination and placement, and in this alone there is considerable authorship. The sound in the room (or any natural or acoustic sound) is unattainable. Even where it is desirable, ‘the presumed truth of the voice… cannot be thought of as immutable’ (Penman, 2002: 27). In making our records, these choices are considered in relation to the compositional space of the recorded artifact. The sound in live performance occurs once, in a spatiotemporal context, where many factors, especially the visual, influence how we hear. To some degree there is the effect of Synchresis (Chion) since a) there may not necessarily be a visual correlation between the operation of an instrument and the sound it produces b) speaker placement of a PA disperses sound in the room from  multiple sources. We may see a drumkit being played centre stage, but we hear little if anything of the directional sound emitting from the instrument. Rather, this is processed and translated into an abstracted sound only possible through amplification and played out through the loudspeaker system. In this instance perhaps more so that in a recording studio any allusions to amplifying an acoustic reality are impossible. The PA here is fully a musical instrument operated by the sound engineer who often makes sonic decisions without the input of the musicians. This is one of the things I addressed with Thread Pulls in the Joinery stagings.

In playing for a recording I am: 1) trying to sound each instrument consistently to obtain the best signal coming through the microphones 2) projecting an holistic energy, an envelope of energy that spans the duration of each track 3) isolated from several of the other instruments, so in playing I must imagine the space these instruments will occupy, in terms of sonic characteristics and energy.