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Wasn't there a Farrelly brothers movie that actually had like a band playing throughout the movie?

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What’s makes the recording quality worse? Wouldn’t it be nearly the same?

This is a like a paradox to AI art.

To kind of echo what @tenemu said, making something economically viable (i.e. "pay the rent") is not (necessarily) to "fill their own pockets". Broadway shows are already pretty expensive, and I doubt that most of those that are involved are living in mansions as it is.

That's what I said. We're saying the same thing.

Yeah, it’s funny how synthesizers had a bad rap in the ‘70s.

My dad took me to see a Moog demonstration at a local music store in about ‘78. My dad loved all kinds of gee-whiz futurology stuff. He wasn’t a musician but I was.

The guy from Moog had a whole spiel about how people should keep an open mind because Moogs didn’t have a “sound” and that they could sound like anything: a violin or a flute (then he would demonstrate these sounds). Which is hilarious because Moogs never sold in great numbers because of their accuracy at mimicking other instruments; they’re popular specifically for the Moog sound.

I recall reading a story about very early rhythm machines that were made to accompany live musicians and I think there was talk of placing a tariff on such items with the proceeds going to support union musicians.

Like in every other field technology slowly makes it possible for fewer and fewer people to do more and more. This makes more and more people superfluous. The percentage of the human race that is now truly needed to grow all the food. build everything, maintain everything, and provide all entertainment is actually pretty small. I am only estimating but it's maybe like 1 in 4. The only reason most people work is because our economic model forces a huge amount of needless labour by making everything a competition.

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If you look around your area, there's probably an opportunity!

Especially look for old silent films. I saw Metropolis with a live piano accompaniment, and it really is different in some ineffable way.

Like I'd seen it before and didn't find it all that engaging. But in that show it felt more exciting somehow, and held my attention the entire time.

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Right now isn't the only time people have wanted to cut costs.

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> If the movie heavily relies on rock music, then they can just have a rock band play the live music instead of an orchestra.

Yes, they could do that, but then an orchestra wouldn’t put it on their own concert schedule and it wouldn’t be an orchestra event, which is fine. It would just change the type of event it is.

> Or maybe it could be some members of the orchestra may also be rock players, if both types of music are in the movie.

This is pretty rare in the orchestra world. Most members of professional orchestras have specialized degrees in orchestral performance, and have spent tens of thousands of hours practicing their instrument. The sheer amount of time required mostly precludes people from playing more than one instrument at a professional level (unless they’re very similar, like flute and piccolo, or clarinet and bass clarinet). There may be someone in the orchestra who plays guitar for fun, but the chances of that person actually being good enough at guitar to perform a movie score for paying audience members is vanishingly small. Everyone you see on stage at an orchestra concert has dedicated their life and career to mastering one instrument and learning as much as they possibly can about it.

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Well they were right, it was the Great Depression and due to radio, “talkies,” and other changes in technology a lot of musicians lost their performing jobs.

There was the AFM recording ban in the early 1940s, basically no music was recorded for over a year.

Would have been nice if the article had gone into any detail as to when the AFM threw in the towel…

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My local orchestra did fellowship of the ring last summer and next summer they're doing two towers

Reducing live music on Broadway shows started happening a long time ago, like a decade or more. It's not a recent cost cutting measure.

Edit for clariry: Thought I was pretty clear on this. The cost cutting by reducing live musicians on Broadway, trying to replace them with recorded music has been going on for decades. This is not new. Musicians are always fighting this.