Yeah I saw the NY Phil do Koyaanisqatsi live and it was mind-blowing.

Yep. It used to be that if you wanted to hear live music, you went to listen to local musicians. Perhaps you joined a choir, religious or secular. Maybe you went to see a military band - and that the military got to listen to a lot of music was a big recruiting tool. Maybe you went to local concerts, or you and a bunch of families gathered to watch your children all sing and play instruments. Maybe you went to kitchen parties where someone had a fiddle. And there was certainly no skipping church, with all the wonderful music there! And then came the radio, and we gained the ability to hear music all the time, from professional musicians, and a lot of musical our culture faded away.

But that’s what happens when technology does it’s thing. The printing press put scribes out of work. Paper making technique improvements mostly eliminated the need for vellum. Books aren’t bound by hand anymore. We have much less live theatre due to TV and movies. Local journalism suffers when people can get news from around the world. Computer animation has substantially replaced hand drawn animation.

I’m sure that there are even things we can’t talk about here until the 2040s that are going to impact act and culture.

For better and for worse, innovation kills jobs, and innovation creates new jobs.

The conductor/show presenter does a really good job of educating the audience. Each break between cartoons is a little presentation on some aspect of the history of Warner Bros., the unique instruments they use or some other technical aspect of the show like the click track.

Yeah how's you improv?

nah I still see a couple of them, they are just there to watch the movie but still

You can imagine the dorks of that time "it is only a real experience for me with live music" and "speakers hurt my ears and give me headaches"

I stay and watch the credits for any movie with a great score, even when I’m seeing it at the movie theater. It’s free. Why get up and leave if the music is good??? Glad you enjoyed Empire! That was one of my favorites to play, but also one of the most difficult.

I believe they were saying "sadly, [I'm not] in the US."

Common spoken vernacular doesn't always translate to typed comments, and this is a common example. I've gotten myself in the habit of keeping pronouns in my reddit comments.

I finally got the chance to hear The Empire Strikes Back played live. I was there to watch the orchestra and not the film.

I was the only one applauding at the Battle in the Snow and Asteroid Field and other bits.

What a glorious score.

Unbelievably, near the end, people got up to leave before the end credits began playing.

Now, if only someone does Goldsmith’s Star Trek the Motion Picture.

I'm a musician making a living off of recorded and live music. My limited experience with traditional cultures, and how live music and dance function in their communities, does make me think critically about the side effects of music recording and the commerce of music.

Yes! I’d love to do the Bugs Bunny concerts. Haven’t had the chance yet. But I grew up on those old cartoons and would love to play all that. Glad you were aware what a challenge it was for the orchestra!

> Welcome to live music baby.

Thanks? I’ve been doing this job for more than a decade at this point.

> Most bands play for hours at a time without the accompaniment or sheet music. All in the noggin.

The difference between “most bands” and a professional symphony orchestra is that most bands have a repertoire of a few dozen songs which they memorize and play again and again. It’s easy to memorize things when you play the same few repeatedly.

But professional orchestras learn 1-3 new concerts worth of music every week. If it’s a big masterworks week, we probably only learn one set of music. Like an overture, concerto, and a symphony. But in some weeks we might play a kids show, then a light classics concert, then a pops concert all in the same week.

So a masterworks schedule might look like 5 rehearsals and 3 concerts of all the same music in a week. Then we are done with that music and doing something else the next week.

A busier week might be one rehearsal and one concert of kids show music, then the next day two rehearsals of light classics, then the following day two light classics concerts, then the following day a pops rehearsal and concert, then the last day two more pops concerts. So that’s 3 sets of music we’ve learned all within one week.

So when you have only a few rehearsals to learn something, perform it, then show up next week and learn and perform an entirely new set of music, sheet music becomes really important, and it’s not feasible to memorize something you’re only going to play for one week.

I’m not saying one is better or worse. It’s just different. Musical acts that play the same music repeatedly can memorize it more easily. If you play new music every week, it’s not practical to memorize.

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I've been to Bugs Bunny at the Symphony, the frenetic pacing of Looney Tunes cartoons makes it a level beyond even doing a live movie score. It was absolutely amazing and a big part of that was just knowing it was basically the orchestra version of the decathlon.

Welcome to live music baby. Most bands play for hours at a time without the accompaniment or sheet music. All in the noggin.

People used to sit in train stations all day punching holes in passengers' tickets. There was some conservative fear about these jobs being lost when that task became automated.

They do them at the Meyerson. Seen Jurassic Park, Toy Story and a few others. 10/10.

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Aw man, it's fun as hell. I used to work projection in university and we did special events with old silent movies completely re-scored by local bands. Nosferatu with a psychobilly outfit was the high water mark. Great times.

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Well... they weren't wrong. Since music became easily accessible on recorded formats, live music has fallen a lot in popularity and smaller artists who previously would have had decent lives playing in their home region now are eclipsed by big artists with more talent and money to develop their sound. Not saying it should have been banned, but what they were afraid of did come to pass.

If they aren’t using speakers to amplify the musicians you could probably tell the difference. But in broadway theaters they’re likely doing a lot of amplification which would make live and recorded sound the same.

With all due respect, people who are even hobbyist musicians can definitely tell the difference between live and recorded under those conditions. The general public? You're right, prob not.

On Broadway, the ensemble/pit is mic'd but not necessarily every musician individually. It's usually a combo of electronic amplification and natural sound acoustics. In most theaters, the pit is suituated in front and below the stage as has been the standard in theater design since theaters were all live using no electronic amplification.

I'm no expert on whether theater is obsolete. They seem to do well enough in NYC. Can't speak to the industry though. Doesn't really change the fact that op was literally saying the same thing about theater shows that live musicians were saying about movies without a hint of irony.

I have a neighbor who co-wrote a hit song for one of the biggest boy bands in the 1990’s. After she had proven herself as a songwriter she got a record contract as a performer, and has had pretty good success. She still does the occasional record and tour, and is on TV sometimes.

She told me about it when we heard the boy band song on the radio in my backyard. That song has paid for everything in her life since it became a hit. All of her income from her own records and tours have gone into her retirement fund. The income took a hit when Spotify became a thing, but she still gets enough money to get by from streaming and YouTube. She lives a fairly normal middle class life (except she only works a 2-3 months every few years) based on two days of work she did in the mid 1990’s.

While she is a really nice person, it’s totally bizarre that someone could earn a lifetime of money in two days. I don’t think it’s possible to make that kind of mom today without record sales and 24 hour music TV, but for a few decades, there was serious bank to be made for those who had the skill and luck to get into the business.