might infer that all sorts of media, not just recordings, shape how we see and hear the real world; there is little doubt
that our brains can and often do narrow the scope of what we perceive to the extent that things that happen right before our eyes sometimes don’t register. In a famous experiment conducted by Christopher Chabris and Daniel
Simons, participants were asked to count the number of passes made by a
group of basketball players in a film. Halfway through the film, a guy in a
full gorilla suit runs through the middle of the action, thumping his chest.
When asked afterward if they saw or heard anything unusual, more than half
didn’t see the gorilla.
The gorilla deniers weren’t lying; the gorilla simply never appeared to
them. Things might impinge on our senses but still fail to register in the
brain. Our internal filters are far more powerful than we might like to think.
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was convinced that what are to us obviously faked
photos of fairies were in fact real fairies captured on film. He believed that the photo shown below was real until the end of his life.B
So the mind’s eye (and ear) is a truly variable thing. What one person hears and sees is not necessarily what another perceives. Our own sensory organs,
and thus even our interpretation of data and our reading of measurements on
instruments, are wildly subjective.
Edison was convinced that his devices made what he referred to as “re-
creations” of the actual performances, not mere recordings of them. Is there a difference? Edison thought there was. He felt that the mechanical nature of the recordings—sorry, re-creations— was truer in some sense than the Victor versions that used microphones
and amplification, which he claimed
B
inevitably “colored” the sound. Edi-
son insisted that his recordings, in
which the sound did not go through
wires, were uncolored, and there-
fore truer. I’d offer that they’re both
correct; both technologies color the
sound, but in different ways. “Neu-
tral” technology does not exist.
DAV I D BY R N E | 79
The trickery involved in the Tone Test performances was, it seems to
me, an early example of the soon-to-be-common phenomenon of live music
trying to imitate the sound of recordings. A sort of extension of Bennett’s
recording-consciousness idea mentioned above. As a creative process it
seems somewhat backward and counterproductive, especially with the Edison
version in which the pinched singing was encouraged, but we’ve now grown
so accustomed to the sound of recordings that we do in fact expect a live
show to sound pretty much like a record—whether it be an orchestra or a pop
band—and that expectation makes no more sense now than it did then. It’s
not just that we expect to hear the same singer and arrangements that exist
on our records, we expect everything to go through the same technological
sonic filters—the pinched vocals of the Edison machines, the massive sub-
bass of hip-hop recordings, or the perfect pitch of singers whose voices were corrected electronically in the recording process.
Here, then, is the philosophical parting of the ways in a nutshell. Should
a recording endeavor to render reality as faithfully as possible, with no addi-tions, coloration, or interference? Or are the inherent sonic biases and innate qualities of recording an art unto itself? Of course I don’t believe the Edison discs would fool anyone today, but the differing aspirations and ideals
regarding recording still hold. This debate has not confined itself to sound recording. Film and other media are sometimes discussed with regard to their
“accuracy,” their ability to capture and reproduce what is true. The idea that somewhere out there exists one absolute truth implies a suspension of belief, which is an ideal for some, while for others admitting artificiality is more honest. Flashing back to the previous chapter, this reminds me of the
that our brains can and often do narrow the scope of what we perceive to the extent that things that happen right before our eyes sometimes don’t register. In a famous experiment conducted by Christopher Chabris and Daniel
Simons, participants were asked to count the number of passes made by a
group of basketball players in a film. Halfway through the film, a guy in a
full gorilla suit runs through the middle of the action, thumping his chest.
When asked afterward if they saw or heard anything unusual, more than half
didn’t see the gorilla.
The gorilla deniers weren’t lying; the gorilla simply never appeared to
them. Things might impinge on our senses but still fail to register in the
brain. Our internal filters are far more powerful than we might like to think.
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was convinced that what are to us obviously faked
photos of fairies were in fact real fairies captured on film. He believed that the photo shown below was real until the end of his life.B
So the mind’s eye (and ear) is a truly variable thing. What one person hears and sees is not necessarily what another perceives. Our own sensory organs,
and thus even our interpretation of data and our reading of measurements on
instruments, are wildly subjective.
Edison was convinced that his devices made what he referred to as “re-
creations” of the actual performances, not mere recordings of them. Is there a difference? Edison thought there was. He felt that the mechanical nature of the recordings—sorry, re-creations— was truer in some sense than the Victor versions that used microphones
and amplification, which he claimed
B
inevitably “colored” the sound. Edi-
son insisted that his recordings, in
which the sound did not go through
wires, were uncolored, and there-
fore truer. I’d offer that they’re both
correct; both technologies color the
sound, but in different ways. “Neu-
tral” technology does not exist.
DAV I D BY R N E | 79
The trickery involved in the Tone Test performances was, it seems to
me, an early example of the soon-to-be-common phenomenon of live music
trying to imitate the sound of recordings. A sort of extension of Bennett’s
recording-consciousness idea mentioned above. As a creative process it
seems somewhat backward and counterproductive, especially with the Edison
version in which the pinched singing was encouraged, but we’ve now grown
so accustomed to the sound of recordings that we do in fact expect a live
show to sound pretty much like a record—whether it be an orchestra or a pop
band—and that expectation makes no more sense now than it did then. It’s
not just that we expect to hear the same singer and arrangements that exist
on our records, we expect everything to go through the same technological
sonic filters—the pinched vocals of the Edison machines, the massive sub-
bass of hip-hop recordings, or the perfect pitch of singers whose voices were corrected electronically in the recording process.
Here, then, is the philosophical parting of the ways in a nutshell. Should
a recording endeavor to render reality as faithfully as possible, with no addi-tions, coloration, or interference? Or are the inherent sonic biases and innate qualities of recording an art unto itself? Of course I don’t believe the Edison discs would fool anyone today, but the differing aspirations and ideals
regarding recording still hold. This debate has not confined itself to sound recording. Film and other media are sometimes discussed with regard to their
“accuracy,” their ability to capture and reproduce what is true. The idea that somewhere out there exists one absolute truth implies a suspension of belief, which is an ideal for some, while for others admitting artificiality is more honest. Flashing back to the previous chapter, this reminds me of the
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