david_h wrote:
Terry McGee wrote:
... I trimmed off the two "test notes" at the front...
Some of us think they are part of it. The record of the man, not the tune.
Indeed, david_h. I had second thoughts before deciding to take them off. Made the decision to take off because I felt the scope for confusion into whether it was part of the tune was more important than leaving it there to illustrate that thing we probably all do, play a little run of notes to make sure we are in the right place on the instrument. Either would be a legitimate approach depending on your goal.
The whole topic of sound manipulation is laced with ethical dilemmas. In professional sound preservation organisations, it's usual to end up with a number of copies:
- the original, kept as it is the physical original, and in case future technology can pull off a better quality sound than currently possible,
- a straight "preservation" copy of the original, warts'n'all, on whatever medium you feel has the longest guarantee-able longevity (these days usually digital even though we recognise that it has definable limitations),
- a cleaned-up copy for striking user copies from without having to imperil either of the previous, and
- one or more user copies if currently needed in say the access centre or on-line.
It's a bit like the museums that keep old flutes. It's easily arguable that these old flutes are safer if we don't let makers like me measure them. And we certainly don't let anyone play them, even if they are world-leading researchers. So what's the point of keeping them? Tricky....
And all of it is a reminder of how fragile our intangible cultural history is. Kenny may well have some of the best or only extant recoverable recordings of some tunes played by some of these players. That's sobering. We all need to examine our private recordings and wonder if we have a responsibility to have at least some of them returned to the public domain. Good man, Kenny!