[Dixielandjazz] cut & splice Grandma

[PJ Ladd]

<I've only worked on restoration of tapes of my Grandmother telling how she
escaped the Turkish massacres in an Armenian neighbourhood, finally ending
up in the U.S. where she
married my Grandfather (a family arranged marriage) when she was 15.>

Hi Jim, now that would be a recording I would like to hear.

What an interesting thread this has turned out to be. I liked the analogy of
running a spellchecker and re writing a written piece.
I am not entirely convinced that this is strictly comparable. The main
difference, I think, is that writing is supposed to be permanent from its
inception while music is entirely ephemeral and the fact that it has
subsequently become technically possible to preserve it is beside the point.
The recording is supposed to be a record of NOW, the instant the music is
played, not the NOW which the musician (or the recording engineer) decides
would sound better. Suppose the musician ( or the sound engineer) decides
that the `Flight of the Bumblebee` a trumpet player has recorded would be
`more exciting` played a bit faster, or a lot faster, and nudges the speed
on the recording up a bit. No problem now that the key doesn`t alter with
speed. How many would agree that was acceptable? Not many, I would hope.
Who would accept a particularly good jette from Tuesdays performance of
Giselle cut into a video of Thursday nights performance?
The question remains. Should we tamper just because we can?.

Cheers

Pat