Performance Recordivity: Studio Music In A Live Context

Abstract

The paper seeks to examine the relationships between the gestural, performative and technological practices of the recording studio and emerging performance practices in the 21st century and propose an initial taxonomy of the major developments in the last 20-30 years. In terms of scope, our focus is on music performance models outside the 'playback media' (e.g. DJ) traditions where full mixes are played back and manipulated, rather our concern is 'instrumental style' performance. This may, however, include samplers and electronics in performance. We argue that recording and performance practices are trending towards each other and that this is being propelled by a combination of technological shifts, a broad change in the level of production literacy of musicians, and an increasing shift towards more technologically intensive performance, either on stage (in terms of the musician's own performance tools) or off stage (in terms of the increasing sophistication of live sound production technologies). Most importantly this paper argues that a significant flux now exists between the two spheres of musical activity out of which significant new practices are emerging. Our aim is to provide a preliminary taxonomy of the dominant trends to establish a serviceable conceptual framework to facilitate closer study of the various emerging practices. Whilst the trends are readily observable on an anecdotal level, there has been no academic literature to date that has mapped these trends in any systematic way. There is a body of literature around 'live-ness' (Auslander, 1998; Croft, 2007; Emmerson, 1994; Grossberg, 1993; Sanden, 2009) however its focus is primarily on issues concerning the translation of studio performances to the stage, or on issues of retaining a sense of the live in an increasingly 'mediatised' environment. It does not address the adaption and assimilation of studio practices into the live performance practices of an increasing number of musicians as an act of innovation, nor does it address the complex and rapidly evolving set of relationships between studio and live performance practices that have become increasingly evident in the music of the last decade. Our primary aim therefore is to do the necessary foundational work to address this major gap and establish a conceptual overview of these emerging trends in the adoption of recording studio practices into live popular music performance. The term 'performativity' has come into wide use in the literature concerning performance. Whilst its usages and meanings are many and varied (Shechner, 2002) in its simplest form it is used to indicate that which takes on the quality of performance. No such equivalent term exists in respect of recording, so we have coined the term 'recordivity' as an efficient way of defining and subsequently examining the range of qualities associated with recording practices. 'Recordivity' is that which takes on the quality of recording.