Ot- the value of art, of signed copies, appliance in music, piracy

[nikolas]

Hello! Get ready for a really weird thread! Ok?

I'm not really fammiliar with a lot of art (painting I mean), and I don't consider myself knowledgable to that area. Still over the past few months I happened to run across a few art galleries in the uk! Some amazing stuff, most of them somewhat cheap (around £500 let's say), and a few which were around £12,000 (double the prices to get $!)

Now, the main difference between the two was that the cheap ones were signed copies (of... 200, or 100, or even 20), while the expensive ones were... originals. I found that rather interesting and... a bit of cheating really.

For me art, by default, has the uniquenes embedded on it. Even if you photograph a painting, the art remains with the painting and not the photograph. If you get the artist to create a number of copies are you not bypassing this very idea?

I imagine that this is done for commercial reasons, purely. A painting worth £10,000 is difficult to get sold, but 20 paintings worth £500 seem quite easier. At least in a utopian world who cares about art, but let's not get into that.

Several of these signed copies, had the same (or very simmilar technique): They got printed on a canvas (inject? Something else? There are printers who do that and I know people who have such printers) and then they added the signature. So... big deal! :p Some of them, went a more hybrid way and painted on top of the printed canvas to, still, create a unique copy, even if very simmilar to the other... 99 (for example). In the past this has also been done (Dali for example), by various methods, which also defined the technique however and once the prototype was destroyed there would be no more copies...

All the above seem to be borrowing 'values' from music I find. A painting by default holds its value exactly because it remains in a building/house/museum and only those people are able to taste the full glory. On the opposite music is being expressed as much as possible and vinyl/tapes/CDs/DVDs are making it possible for everyone to get the absolutely same feeling (to an extend, ok...). Even scores are almost freely distributed (if you bypass the bastards publishers...) and you can redo the art (music piece) yourself.

So, time for questions...

1. How do you feel with the idea of signed copies?

2. If art is borrowing ideas from music, why not have music get ideas from art then?

My replies:

1. I find that it is a bit cheating, a bit back stabbing the essense of art, although I see the point in this!

2. I think that this is been done before: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Music_for_Supermarkets . Jean Michel Jarre created this record to play on a gallery, created a single copy, destroyed the prototypes and sold the one copy (vinyl at that time).

What is most interesting is that JMJ himself, right after selling the album, he went on an AM radio station and played the whole record, starting with the words "pirate me". Now this is quite a unique way of things, since AM stations have awful quality and the copies from that radio station do exist! On torrents! For free! With JMJ blessing! But quality remains awful (I have the album).

My other idea is that music has, by definition, the very same function as art: Concerts!

When you go to a concert you're effectively experiencing something unique! Something that only the people attending the concert will experience. And this experience, no matter the technology cannot be captured. Even a DVD of that concert is nothing compaired to the real thing. So this, by default is providing the uniqueness in music.
But how would one go about creating digital (or analogue) copies which use that uniqueness? Thus giving a different (higher) value to a single piece of music? Bypassing publishers, sponsors, etc, directly to the audience?
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Thank you for reading this long thread, I hope it made a bit of sense, and hope this will be a fruitful discussion! :)

Nikolas

[SeanHannifin]

There's a scene in Philip K. Dick's novel The Man in the High Castle in which a man shows a woman two cigarette lighters (actually, I can't remember the specifics of the scene, but I think it was lighters). One lighter was quite old and had belonged to some famous guy, another lighter was simply a well-made fake. The woman could not tell the difference between the two. So, was there a difference? Is the difference worth anything if it cannot be seen?

(The further question really is: is the difference created simply by perception when we really have know way of knowing an object's true origins? Philip K. Dick loved to question the nature of reality, but that probably gets too philosophical for the purposes of this thread. :D )

I think we humans have a way of projecting an "aura" on things. A book that once belonged to Einstein sitting behind glass in a museum... we sense an aura around it because Einstein was so famous, we feel a link, when the book itself may be nothing special. Same with celebrities... people flock to see the Pope, he has an aura of specialness around him... people surround celebrities trying to get their autograph or a picture...

But it all comes down to human psychology really, the aura is not something tangible, it's something we create for ourselves.

I think these auras of specialness definitely apply to art as well, especially to paintings and sculptures which are so physical and tangible. So, on the one hand, I can see how it seems like "cheating" for an "original" to cost so much more, but on the other hand, I can understand people's desires for things to have auras that help decide their worth. For better or for worse, it's part of human psychology.

For music, I think it's much much harder for the work we do to hold such an aura because, as you said, it's not tangible and is copied many times. However, I think the composer, like the artist, then becomes the holder of the aura. People will buy a CD not just for the music (which they may never have heard before) but for the name of the artist on the label. People will go to a concert to see that person live, not just to hear the music. And, of course, composer autographs can hold such auras.

For composers who are not yet famous, and do not yet have an aura, will not get it just from their music, so they may seek pirating (although if you want people to pirate your music, than I wouldn't say it's really "pirating" :D ). As familiarity with their name grows, so will their aura and potential to make money giving a concert or something.

Interesting topic; hopefully I somewhat understood what you were saying... I may have just really confused myself by responding... :D

For paintings and sculptures, we can give the "originals" auras, but for music the only tangible thing we could give auras to I suppose would be the original musical manuscripts, but those don't really exist as they once did... every other sort of aura would be having to do with the artist I think.

[buckshead]

The value and worth of art of any kind is exactly what you put on it and what you will happily pay for it, no more no less.

If its worth £10 000 to you to have the original, if its not then thats it, buy the print. Some art is only intended to be a single copy, like a painting whilst others are prints and made and sold as such, they are cheaper because they're prints and they are copies.

Do you want something, what would you pay if you could afford it, thats what its worth. Would you pay £40,000,000 for a Monet or £4 for a half decent print of the same ? if you paid the higher figure but nobody else would its worth it to you but you wont get your money back.

I want better music making equipment, but a Steinway at £65000 is out of my price range (this week anywayhttp://northernsounds.com/forum/images/icons/icon7.gif) and considering how badly I play definitely not worth the money to me. My piano cost £1000 thirty years ago that WAS worth the money.

Beware of thinking the next bit of equipment or software will improve what you do, in my experience it won't, but theres always hope.

[qccowboy]

Niko, I think what you were seeing as "signed copies" were in actuality lithographs.

This is a process whereby the artist creates a master template, from which he prints a limited number of "prints". In many cases, the material used to create this template is one that only can survive a limited number of pressings. Which is why you see the numbering in them as "***/3000" meaning it's the *** printing out of a pressing of 3000.

A friend was lucky enough to find a Chagal at a garage sale... it was a "test" print of a limited pressing. it had no number on it, which lowered its value.

Don't think of them as "photocopies"... they are not THAT sort of "copy". These are actually inked, pressed, and printed BY the artist.

As for the artwork you are seeing with the considerably larger price tags, those are possibly water colours (if they seem to look like the same medium as the lithos). They are in fact unique, one-of-a-kind pieces. Which is why their value is higher.

[nikolas]

Michel,

I was missing that word "lithographies", but no, it wasn't what I saw. What I saw, was the 'next step'. Printing in canvas, with pro printers and then signing the copy, or maybe adding a few strokes here and there! :)

I can't reply in depth but thank you for replying all, and I'll come back later on with further thoughts... :)

[klassical]

Multiple copies of artworks has been going on forever. Wood blocks, etchings, lithography, silkscreening, etc.

When I was younger I would often think it was unfair that a modern artist could paint a picture in a few hours (if that) and receive thousands of dollars, whereas a classical composer might spend many months composing a piece and be lucky to break even after the performance. Now I realize that, as far as injustices in the world go, this is a pretty trivial one.

Nikolas - Are you thinking of purchasing some of these 'printed on canvas' paintings? If so, I would urge you to do some serious internet research before parting with your money.

[nikolas]

klassikal: No, not at all!

At the moment, I'm moving (literally at the moment) to Greece to a new life, a new house, a new everything. Pics to follow on a new thread when the time comes! ;) So huge expenses to come, as well as the uncertainty of going to a new place (even if it's your homeland), with various issues (some of you may remember the PhD issue).

So: No money!

________________

I think that Sean, got exactly what I was going for! Not that anything is out of topic in this bizzare, by definition topic, and it's hard to explain... :-/

I do think (without being sure) that copying (signed copies), must be a 19th-20th century thing (or at least started). I doubt classical, or even impressionists artist had the ideas of signed copies. Not sure though, so feel free to correct me.

What is, vastly interesting to me, is to carry that idea/value to music, which by default works in a completely different way!

Klassikal, a comission for a full orchestra, may very well cost $60,000 (in the uk), and along with royalties, maybe a CD, sales, etc, the prices goes up and forever. I imagine that all artists might be hugely pissed at us composers to be getting royalties every year! :D hahaha!

So, music and art work completely different! But JMJ (to begin with and I'm sure others), did borrow the idea of the unique copy (in fact Musique pour supermarche was done for a gallery, if I know correctly).

Knowing that copies are worth less than the original, it's something to consider about music, no? A concert is worth tons more, by default almost (and pricing), than a simple CD, or DVD. What if someone was able to create, or embedde, the uniqueness of the concert, or the idea of the single copy in a music piece (recording)? While still keeping intact the primary function of music, to be heard?

Imagine, with some technological way, or any other way, a piece of music which bellongs to a single person. The person who's bought it. And anything else (pirated copies, maybe? ;)) is worth less.

Taking out the marketing bit (I'm not JMJ to sell a single record for 13,000 euros or whatever the price was), would that be possible from a philosophical point of view? Would that be unfair or cheating?

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Sean:

You are right, the aura is hugely important in such parts! This is probably why autographs are also worth a lot (Last week I was asked for the very first time in my life an autograph! I was thrilled! ME??!?!?! A composer!?!??!)

And composers do get their own 'trinkets' with their aura on: manuscripts (I know a person who is collecting such things), the original copy of a recording (the masters), etc.

But the above preclude the possibility of sharing the music to others! Exactly because the value of music has been declined to the value of a CD, or DVD, or the score!

Not sure where I'm heading anymore, but I find it very interesting on a personal level! :) Thank you for participating!

[SeanHannifin]

Knowing that copies are worth less than the original, it's something to consider about music, no? A concert is worth tons more, by default almost (and pricing), than a simple CD, or DVD. What if someone was able to create, or embedde, the uniqueness of the concert, or the idea of the single copy in a music piece (recording)? While still keeping intact the primary function of music, to be heard?

The thing is... music is a temporal art, experienced through an interval of time, unlike almost any other art (the only other temporal art I can think of at the moment is a play). So any recording of it is automatically a "copy" ... because a music concert or a play is temporal, the "original" can only exist once and then it is gone forever, whereas Mona Lisa's canvas is a physical thing.

(In one sense a movie is also a temporal art, but there is no "original" for a movie.)

So the "original" concert or play performance may have an aura around it prior to performance, it disappears forever afterwards.

In a sense, I think you could also say an historic event is also temporal and can also have an aura, like the signing of the Declaration of Independence, or something, and, like an original concert, once the original is done, it's gone.

At first it seemed to me that the only real way to get the "original" to exist outside of time like a painting would be to invent time travel. :D But I suppose if one could create a system of recording and playback that is so realistic that it is indistinguishable from actually being there, then it's like the difference between an original painting and a fake when you can't tell the difference... you can't sense the aura of the real original, so it is the same...

Hmmmm... this subject makes it easy to confuse myself... :D

[DarwinKopp]

Hi Nikolas,

Correct me if I'm wrong, but you seem to be asking what the "hanging art equivalent" of music would be in monetary terms. More specifically, if one could convert the highly-valued, real-time output of, say, mature Picasso into music, what would that conversion amount to.

I've thought about this subject as well. Though music and painting are both "arts", they appear to have radically different dollar values on the "after market". :) Why is this?

Well, obviously, paintings are tangible. Whether a single master or a limited number of pressings exist, depending on the medium, the picture has value to art collectors, based almost entirely on the artist's skill and reputation. And in times past, simply viewing a painting meant visiting a museum or being on good terms with a wealthy collector.

Music is almost intangible, excepting recordings and scores. And for most of history, it was solely a "recreative" art form, meaning that no definitive version of a given work existed (unlike a painting) and had to be re-created every time a person or group wished to "enjoy" a given piece of music. Of course, recording has changed all this, bringing all musics to a much wider audience.

The propagation of the visual arts, film, tv, video, and now the word wide web is slowly narrowing the accessibility differences between painting and music, eventually to the point where many of the world's greatest art works will someday be available in high-resolution, full-sized graphic files, for either viewing or printing out. So in this regard, both media are reaching much wider audiences than ever imagined by the artists in either medium.

Yet, the question persists. Why is an original Picasso worth a fortune but any given recording of Beethoven's 5th (which in my mind is every bit as worthy, perhaps more so) is practically valueless in dollars? Doesn't seem fair, does it?

Well, that's the fallacy in seeing things solely in terms of currency instead of actual human worth. A tangible painting is valued highly simply because it can be, whereas ephemeral musical performance essentially cannot.

The closest music seems to come to art in value are old autographed scores of master composers like Bach, Beethoven, Mozart, etc., most of which were long ago were sent off to museums. These manuscripts are highly prized to a point, much like many very old writings or even first edition book printings, but not anywhere near the level of the most famous paintings.

So the question is: how does one generate "painter's money" as a composer? Well, even most painters have had a very hard time of it, van Gogh being a useful example. He died penniless, yet today his paintings capture astronomical prices. So one must be careful of what's called "selection bias", i.e., picking out the most obvious successes as the basis of comparison without consideration of particular circumstances and all the while conveniently ignoring the outright failures.

The contemporary, financially successful painter seems about as prevalent as the contemporary, financially successful composer. Each has to find his way in the time and place he lives, plus having a bit of good fortune along the way is always helpful. :)

None of us are ever likely to see our computer-printed manuscripts become extraordinarily valuable in our lifetimes, but as touched on above, developing a career and some judicious self-promotion can go a long way to better paying opportunities, a la commissions and other appointments.

In this regard, all artists are at best always struggling for the next commission, regardless of the medium. Painters however, can develop a strong after market for their works, should they live so long, while composers analogously may potentially enjoy continuing though modest royalty revenue from publications and recordings. Their worlds in the here-and-now, financially speaking, are really not all that different.

It's when looking back over the last several hundred (thousand?) years that the treatment of painters' and composers' respective works seems so out of whack, but again, really only in terms of money. All of humanity has been enriched by past artists' endeavors, regardless of the value that certain collectors are now willing to place on certain tangibles.

[nikolas]

I think I'll also go mad with this thread little by little. Only to try and quote will resolve in some kind of confusion I'm sure... So much to say... :-/



The thing is... music is a temporal art, experienced through an interval of time, unlike almost any other art (the only other temporal art I can think of at the moment is a play). So any recording of it is automatically a "copy" ... because a music concert or a play is temporal, the "original" can only exist once and then it is gone forever, whereas Mona Lisa's canvas is a physical thing.

(In one sense a movie is also a temporal art, but there is no "original" for a movie.)
Actually, I'd say that only visual art (painting, sculpture) is non time related. Theater, cinema, ballet, poetry (which was intended to be read out loud and not in books, simmilarly to the connection that scores have with music performance), and music all are time related and connected. Photography (Which I do, personally consider an art) is not time related, although the new technologies have made it possible to capture... a few hours of the same object, etc... Same with comics (which I also conisder art, the 9th art (!)), are related to time, roughly, only because of the kinematography which is used to provide the time relation in each strip... (see? so easy to get confused... brrr).

The above are not facts, not by a million, and it's my personal take, just to seperate visual art from the rest...


So the "original" concert or play performance may have an aura around it prior to performance, it disappears forever afterwards.

In a sense, I think you could also say an historic event is also temporal and can also have an aura, like the signing of the Declaration of Independence, or something, and, like an original concert, once the original is done, it's gone.Agreed! So, by default, as I said in my first post, music and the concert hall idiom, are providing the uniqueness that a single painting does! DVDs are extremely poor copies...


At first it seemed to me that the only real way to get the "original" to exist outside of time like a painting would be to invent time travel. :D But I suppose if one could create a system of recording and playback that is so realistic that it is indistinguishable from actually being there, then it's like the difference between an original painting and a fake when you can't tell the difference... you can't sense the aura of the real original, so it is the same...
Heh...

Believe me, I'm working on it!

This thread is not about this, but I might as well share it. I'm working on composing, rendering (samples), and coding (software) a project which will do exactly that: Each time you click play you get a different performance (out of trillions at least... actually 43^12 at least possible performances), in a different concert hall.

Problem is that the concert is a social event, which cannot be done with your computer, alone, or your CD player. So this is loosing out. Same difference of going to the movies or getting a DVD home.


Hmmmm... this subject makes it easy to confuse myself... :D
Me too! :( And imagine I came up with this idea!

[nikolas]

Darwinkopp: Thanks for the very interesting post! :)

(and everyone else of course)

Now, a few thoughts before I go to bed after a veeeeeeeeeery long day today...

As you said, recording has changed that. I agree completely, but have a few things to add:

1. Recording of classical music is an abomination on what is supposed to be performed live! I have 'serious' problems with classical music recordings! Plus it provides performers the ever lasting fear of NOT sounding like a CD on a live concert! The terror is immense (I've lived it, when trying to match Marth Argericth on her playing of Ravels' concerto in G!!!!)
2. Pop music, however, is utilising the CD as the primary medium! The 'original' track is that found on the single, on the CD, on the DVD, on the vinyl.

The problem with music, as opposed to art, is that one can copy with absolutely no musical knowlegde that medium: You get an mp3, copy it, and you're done! Loss of kbits a lot, loss of audible change: none almost.

The ability of music to be recreated each time, to be spread out as much as possible, has taken away the idea of unique copy, of the master.

THANK YOU! Very interesting thought and very nicely put in your post! :)

[SeanHannifin]

Actually, I'd say that only visual art (painting, sculpture) is non time related. Theater, cinema, ballet, poetry (which was intended to be read out loud and not in books, simmilarly to the connection that scores have with music performance), and music all are time related and connected. Photography (Which I do, personally consider an art) is not time related, although the new technologies have made it possible to capture... a few hours of the same object, etc... Same with comics (which I also conisder art, the 9th art (!)), are related to time, roughly, only because of the kinematography which is used to provide the time relation in each strip... (see? so easy to get confused... brrr).

Aha, very good point!! :o Literature seems like a weird case, though, doesn't it? It's not really a visual art, but it's not really an auditory art either, it's like a "word-meaning" art. (Although in that sense, I guess music isn't just an auditory art either, it's an "emotion-evoking" art, the weirdest and most abstract of the arts. :D )

So perhaps what you were saying about music could apply to things like poetry reading as well... you could still sell the poet's original manuscripts for lots of money because of its specialness, but any other form of the poem will just be a copy; any reading of the poem will by it's nature be a copy with really no "original" ... if that makes any sense. :confused:


Agreed! So, by default, as I said in my first post, music and the concert hall idiom, are providing the uniqueness that a single painting does! DVDs are extremely poor copies...

Hmmmm... sort of, but I'm not sure a concert hall performance has quite the same sort of uniqueness as an original painting because there can be so many performances of a piece, where as with a painting there can only be one and that's all. Each performance might be different and special, but because there are so many other performances that are also different and special, none of them are quite so special... unless something else makes them extra-special, like it being a premiere or a final performance, or someone famous being in the audience.


This thread is not about this, but I might as well share it. I'm working on composing, rendering (samples), and coding (software) a project which will do exactly that: Each time you click play you get a different performance (out of trillions at least... actually 43^12 at least possible performances), in a different concert hall.

Ooh, that sounds like it would be awesome! :D


Problem is that the concert is a social event, which cannot be done with your computer, alone, or your CD player. So this is loosing out. Same difference of going to the movies or getting a DVD home.

Very very true. In fact I recently went to a Lord of the Rings concert where an orchestra played the film music while the movie was playing. Hearing other people laugh and cheer at the right moments really added to the experience. The psychology of us humans is weird. :D (Though of course if they cheered to much or at the wrong moments, it can be annoying.)

And actually I believe that's why they add laugh tracks to sitcoms. Even though we know we're not actually surrounded by an audience, hearing other people laugh or clap can play into our psychology. Though of course it doesn't always work, and can be just plain annoying sometimes. :D

[SeanHannifin]

The problem with music, as opposed to art, is that one can copy with absolutely no musical knowlegde that medium: You get an mp3, copy it, and you're done! Loss of kbits a lot, loss of audible change: none almost.

Actually I think that's a problem with art as well, just perhaps to a less degree... throughout the history of art there have always been debates about fakes and phonies, questions about whether or not a piece of art is "original". Some artists were great at copying, but who knows there names today? (And how many things that we might deem "masterpieces" today did not survive? I believe, while we might like to think we know "good art" when we see it, or "good music" when we hear it, we are definitely influenced socially by our teachers, our peers, and history in general. We project our sense of value upon things with incredible bias. And even if we realize it, we can't stop doing it, it's ingrained in the way we think and see the world.)

I think it's strange because it's all purely psychological, it's all humans projecting an aura of specialness around something; "value" is a subjective abstract concept in our heads. (And it makes everything confusing. :D ) Why does it matter whether or not a piece of art is actually by some famous painter or not? Why does it matter whether it's the original or not? It is what it is, it doesn't change with what we think we know of it. It matters because we want it matter, because psychologically we want to place that value on it.

Why do we want to place values on things? I'm not quite sure... Why make a lock of Mozart's hair more special than mine? I have no idea. :D I guess it might help us survive in the world somehow, but it sure creates a lot of confusion and anguish as well. :D (Though even I admittedly can't imagine thinking without it!)

Okay, maybe I went way off topic... :D It seems a strange and fun thing to think about though.

[nikolas]

Small note:

I only have 7 minutes. I'm in an Internet cafe and don't have phoneline anymore at home, since I'm moving back to Greece. I may not reply for a few days, but I will be back (Arnold voice...)

Sean, thanks for all your thoughts, I'll honour them when I get a few free minutes and a solid Internet connection! :)

[nikolas]

I'm in Greece! YAY! :D

so back to my lovely 'little' (with big posts) thread! :D

Sean: Woah! some very intersting thoughts here, none off topic whatsoever and I'll do my best to take part! :)


Aha, very good point!! :o Literature seems like a weird case, though, doesn't it? It's not really a visual art, but it's not really an auditory art either, it's like a "word-meaning" art. (Although in that sense, I guess music isn't just an auditory art either, it's an "emotion-evoking" art, the weirdest and most abstract of the arts. :D )

So perhaps what you were saying about music could apply to things like poetry reading as well... you could still sell the poet's original manuscripts for lots of money because of its specialness, but any other form of the poem will just be a copy; any reading of the poem will by it's nature be a copy with really no "original" ... if that makes any sense. :confused:
Indeed... Poetry and literature is... a bit in between. Still... if you can believe it or not, I know people (my uncle for example), who know Homers Iliad and Oddysey (Illyses... or however it's called in English. Sorry about this), by heart in ancient Greek! Now, somebody being able to tell the whole... 100 pages, or however much it is, story of troy in a dead language, seems stunning to me! (as much as somewhat trivial I'm afraid).

This is why I mentioned that poetry should be... read aloud rather than alone.

But, of course manuscripts also are worth much much more in every case. Even drafts from artists (Da Vinci, Picasso) are worth more...


Hmmmm... sort of, but I'm not sure a concert hall performance has quite the same sort of uniqueness as an original painting because there can be so many performances of a piece, where as with a painting there can only be one and that's all. Each performance might be different and special, but because there are so many other performances that are also different and special, none of them are quite so special... unless something else makes them extra-special, like it being a premiere or a final performance, or someone famous being in the audience.
You are right, I agree I overstretched it a bit to suite my needs. At least, music has something which by default is unique, but not the only possible way. As for having a special concert, I guess famous conductors, orchestras, performers also put a play into this. I do know that I stood in line for 3 hours to get tickets to see Rostropovich a few years (ok, 10 years) back in Greece. I've no idea if it was SO MUCH worth it, for the price of the ticket and the trouble I went through standing in line, but for some reason he IS well known, while the rest aren't. Maybe there is a reason for that.

(side tracking further)

I have a big big passion in forms in music. Almost all the works I make (the non commercial ones, not the computer games ones), have some 'hugely' ellaborate plan behind them, a grand idea, some great mathematical plan. I won't go in detail here, no reason, but I do have the belief that this plans behind, which are always done while pre-composing, as a sort of system, do change the way my music sounds, or works. Of course, it's difficult to prove that if I had used a different ratio than the (famous) 8/13 the piece would be different, in a worst kind of way. In fact it's impossible, but still it's what drives part of my music.

simmilar I would argue that the performer playing your music plays a huge part into that. Maybe this is why we still get new performers playing Beethoven, and Bach, and Ligeti, and every composer alive or dead! Glen Gould did argue (against the recordings, and that idea) that after you've done the 'perfect' recording, which could be aided by technical means, there's no reason for more. When Gould, Kempf, Richter and Argericht, have set foot in this earth and played the same piece, there's absolutely no reason for me to try the SAME Beethoven Sonata. Or maybe there is a reason after all?

In the end, the repetition of a concert hall, is 'killing' the uniqueness, exactly because we are humans and our phychology dictates that a lost opportunity is wort much more than a repeated one. You get 1 chance to play a crappy game in a fair, then the game will go to waste. Or you get zillions of chances to play the best game in the fair, objectively (!!!!). My pick would probably be the 1 chance of the crappy game... :( I'd be proud to take the opportunity, even if it's worth nothing. I can always return to the good one afterwards. Lost time? Lost money? Who cares... ?


Very very true. In fact I recently went to a Lord of the Rings concert where an orchestra played the film music while the movie was playing. Hearing other people laugh and cheer at the right moments really added to the experience. The psychology of us humans is weird. :D (Though of course if they cheered to much or at the wrong moments, it can be annoying.)

And actually I believe that's why they add laugh tracks to sitcoms. Even though we know we're not actually surrounded by an audience, hearing other people laugh or clap can play into our psychology. Though of course it doesn't always work, and can be just plain annoying sometimes. :D
I LOVE THESE FORUMS! I love this idea, Sean, which I hadn't thought... And I'd also be annoyed to be getting boos in a LOTR with live orchestra... Even worst I remember getting cheers for Tom Cruise in "Coctail", in his every appearance from young girls... God that WAS SO annoying! :D


Actually I think that's a problem with art as well, just perhaps to a less degree... throughout the history of art there have always been debates about fakes and phonies, questions about whether or not a piece of art is "original". Some artists were great at copying, but who knows there names today? (And how many things that we might deem "masterpieces" today did not survive? I believe, while we might like to think we know "good art" when we see it, or "good music" when we hear it, we are definitely influenced socially by our teachers, our peers, and history in general. We project our sense of value upon things with incredible bias. And even if we realize it, we can't stop doing it, it's ingrained in the way we think and see the world.)

I think it's strange because it's all purely psychological, it's all humans projecting an aura of specialness around something; "value" is a subjective abstract concept in our heads. (And it makes everything confusing. :D ) Why does it matter whether or not a piece of art is actually by some famous painter or not? Why does it matter whether it's the original or not? It is what it is, it doesn't change with what we think we know of it. It matters because we want it matter, because psychologically we want to place that value on it.

Why do we want to place values on things? I'm not quite sure... Why make a lock of Mozart's hair more special than mine? I have no idea. :D I guess it might help us survive in the world somehow, but it sure creates a lot of confusion and anguish as well. :D (Though even I admittedly can't imagine thinking without it!)

Okay, maybe I went way off topic... :D It seems a strange and fun thing to think about though.
Off topic? Not at all my dear mod! ;)

Art can also be copied and it is a huge problem, even with a fration of a fraction of a fra... (you get it) of the proportions that piracy is in music. 2 copies of the same art work create huge problems! Millions (literally) copies of the same youtube clip are called advertisement: Girlfriend by Avril Lavigne has currently 90,319,586 views! 90 million! Can you believe that!?!?!?!? And all that for free! Literally! Because the... 'tax payer' is paying for that ultimately! Not in the sense of taxes, of course, but all of use viewing youtube, are what makes youtube such a brilliant advertising device, thus... Who are the customers in this case? Youtube? You tube is free! The audience? Us? Free again! The customers? The companies advertising there? Nope! They do pay, but without that, youtube still exists fine! Without the audience it doesn't exist... Weird stuff the age we're living in...

*ahem*... sorry... back on topic.

It is phychological, no doubt for me. Maybe the need to be different kicks in! As teenagers we may need to be the same, but also be able to get attention (thus different). Growing up seperates us from that reality, to a more 'mature' one. Maybe this need still resides... I know that I'm pretty immature many times... Antagonising everyone, feeling ready to explode... And wanting that last grasp of Mozart's hair... Imagine how proud you would feel! To have a wig with Mozarts' hair on! :D:D:D

I do think that it helps as survive in the world. I agree, that is.