Here’s the whole quote – Yawn. People have been doing this for decades and decades. It’s quite common, and there is nothing shameful about it. Nobody even cared before Milli Vanilli rolled around. Now, everyone seems to be confused on the topic.
Riddle me this. Nobody cared about *what *until Milli Vanilli came around? If they weren’t doing the same thing, what the fuck did they have to do with it? Why mention them at all?
You said it in post 38. Was someone else at the keyboard when this was written?
The vast majority of those who have watched any music outdoors or on television, in an event that isn’t designed specifically to be a paid concert of that performer’s music, know that dubbed music is a very real possibility.
Lipsynching. Milli Vanilli got hammered because they didn’t use their own work. However, because they got hammered, there’s now this stigma around lipsynching period, even when using one’s own work. That’s what I interpret Labrador Deceiver’s post as saying. Hence his comment about people getting confused on the matter.
Because they were caught lip syncing to music that other people recorded. Not them. In a few people’s minds, they confused “lip syncing to one’s own music” with “lip syncing to someone else’s music”.
Where in post 38 did I say the vast majority of people don’t know that lip synced music is a real possibility on television? That is what you claimed in post 78, and that is why I have no idea what you mean.
Post 38 says exactly the opposite of what you claimed I said.
You do listen to recordings. So suppose, as you’re listening to a recording and enjoying it, the artists appeared and showed you what they were doing while they were being recorded . . . while you’re still enjoying the recording. To me, that would be a “plus,” not a “minus.” The fact that you thought you were actually hearing them live, is immaterial. The important thing is the music. They weren’t taking anything away from the music, they were adding to it.
Plus the fact that you actually got to see them participating in this event. We didn’t have to sit there just listening to their music, we actually got to see these musicians who don’t get seen very often.
I play clarinet and I knew that had to be pre-recorded. Mine is a plastic POS, but any clarinet in the cold is going to sound like absolute shit. Un-tune-able, squeaking and squawking, the whole shebang. I know that guy was a professional, but the playability instrument is easily limited by cold weather.
That said, it was still a fantastic and impressive performance. It was still them playing and if it had been sub-par just so it could be live I would have been embarrassed for everyone involved.
No, the ridiculous part is the one where you cast this as an ethical issue. You heard a live recording of the music. You watched the performers play live music. It just so happened that the music you heard was not generated at the same time as the performance you watched. So what? How does that make the music any less entertaining, or the priviledge of watching the artists perform less special?
It is a pleasure to listen to live music and watch it being produced.
Both these statements are true. But note that they cannot simultaneously exist. Either you are enjoying live music or you are enjoying recorded music. A listener has the right to know which is which, and a performer should have the integrity not to engage in a deception regarding which is being presented.
An integral and assumed component of enjoying live music is that the sound you’re hearing is the sound that’s actually being produced by the actual human activity you see in front of you.
Would you see any entertainment value in viewing a concert that you could perceive only with your eyes and no other senses? That is the value you get from watching a performer mime to a recording.
If there is no intent to deceive, then there would be a disclaimer like the one I described. Contrapuntal described such a disclaimer as being harmful to the “suspension of disbelief.” Well, there you have it. Watching a live musical performance is not about suspension of disbelief. It’s about seeing something that is actually being done by human hands and voices right in front of you.
The very fact that “suspension of disbelief” can be brought up means that there is a deception involved. When you’re watching a movie, the audience is privy to this deception and enters voluntarily into it.
Labrador Deceiver labels my demand for a disclaimer as “ridiculous.” The only reason why it might be ridiculous is that it would make a performer look foolish, because once the audience knows that you are doing nothing but miming, well, then, there’s no reason for anyone to watch you doing it and there’s no reason for you to sit there and do it. That itself amounts to an admission of an intent to deceive: Well, if I tell the truth up front, then nobody would want to sit through it.
I’m putting in a vote for acsenray’s opinion. I am certainly aware that some forms of entertainment are deceptive and inauthentic. Professional wrestling, for example. (This is one reason I would consider a professional wrestling match to be inappropriate at in inaugural celebration, while an exhibition of Olympic-style Greco-roman wrestling would merely be unusual and idiosyncratic.)
I generally dislike such forms of entertainment. I have no interest in seeing a magician on tv who uses camera tricks to achieve his illusions. I also dislike “psychics” who claim to perform genuine paranormal feats, even though I enjoy the same acts performed by mentalists who claim only to be skilled at creating the appearance of psychic powers.
Labrador Deceiver is claiming an unusually specific cultural norm that involves greater knowledge of performance practices than I possess. I’m not even sure anymore that the people who watch pro wrestling all know that it’s faked, and that’s about as close to pure performance art as you can get without crediting a choreographer. I certainly don’t think everyone knows exactly which types of public music performances are likely to be mimed and which aren’t. (It’s expected on Soul Train but not SNL? Is this really common knowledge or are Soul Train viewers [if any] just less discriminating?) Sure, Macy’s parades and shows like American Bandstand and Top of the Pops are pretty blatant about it, but even those have become less popular or moved towards live performances as audiences became more sophisticated and performers less willing to deceive the audience. I don’t think Milli Vanilli confused people about what kinds of lip-synching are acceptable, I think it brought the whole issue to most people’s attention. In any event, classical music is an entirely different kind of entertainment that places a high value on virtuosity and authenticity, and I would argue that it has its own norms that don’t include miming.
But finally, if you really don’t care, as hobscrk777 claims, then why are you bothering to post to this thread at all? In a case where the authenticity of the performance is uncertain or in doubt, what is the harm in providing the information? At least some people (and I would suspect the vast majority with any preference on the matter) would have preferred to have been told at the time that the performance was not live. What’s it to you if we make that preference known? Do you strongly desire that the media NOT inform us? Why?
When I was younger I though music was so complex that only studio work was worth listening to. After spending the last 30 years listening to live bands I understand that not only is it possible but preferable. So I fall into the category of those who feel cheated if someone mimes a performance. I’d rather hear Aretha make a couple of mistakes than see a lip-synced performance.
I’m not buying the Yo Yo perfection line. He plays live all the time and unless they outlawed space heaters and tarps there was nothing stopping his performance. He didn’t want to log the time necessary to play the song right. It’s as simple as that.
Just to re-iterate, the performers were not miming. They were playing precisely the piece of music that was being broadcast. Neither were they being deceptive, unless someone can show where they claimed the performance would be live. No, they didn’t expressly say that they would be playing pre-recorded music, but the practice is common enough that there’s a reasonable expectation that they’d do this, particularly given the venue.
If it’s not amplified and played to the audience then it’s mimed.
They could just as easily have played a video of it if they weren’t up to a public appearance. God knows there were enough video’s played during the event. It was nice of them to donate their time and effort but it was lessened by display.
No it isn’t. Space heaters and tarps would not have created an even temperature in the area. The musical quality still would have suffered. Whether those musicians are perfectionists or not, I doubt that they would want everyone to think they sucked and ruined a special occasion because it was unbelievably cold.
Which is it, a few people, or everyone, as you said before?
I quoted you as saying that the vast majority of people know that certain types of performances have a very real possibility of being mimed. I then asked why such an event on SNL caused an uproar. You responded with what to me seemed incoherent gibberish, including a strawman (claiming to have been required to list every exception, and several non sequitors (Movies? Videos?) but nothing that directly answered my question. I was left to decide for myself what was the meaning of your answer. I went with what to me was the obvious fact, that in fact you had misspoken when you made that claim about the vast majority, etc, etc, etc. Sort of like when you misspoke about the entire population of a country knowing about this sort of stuff. You know?
I would be obliged if you would show me where I said that.
