jaw@ames-lm.UUCP (James A. Woods) (05/28/84)
# Behaviorism is the art of pulling habits out of rats. -- O'Neill
Mr. Zappa related the following story at the recent (May 20) event
at the Palace of Fine Arts in San Francisco (see net.music[.classical] for
reportage on this extravaganza):
In order to prepare for a "serious" concert at a prestigious L.A.
forum, Frank rewrote "While You Were Out" (originally for guitar),
for keyboards and percussion ensemble. (This was subsequently retitled
"While You Were Art".) The hired musicians bounced the piece back to
him, claiming that they did not have enough time to rehearse its complexity.
Zappa said OK -- he'd computerize all their parts, and then they'd only
have to simulate their playing, with a digital tape in control.
F.Z. then recorded a digital "F1" VHS tape with Synclavier-voiced
parts, set up wires running to the individual instruments from some
robot-like console (just for effect), and sat back to watch.
Well, at showtime, somebody brought the wrong playback equipment,
not knowing VHS from Beta. So Zappa hastily substituted a practice
Phillips cassette dub, and went on with the show.
It turns out that not only did the music critics assume that the
concert was live (much to the embarrassment of the L.A. Herald next day),
but so did the sound experts (synthesist Morton Subotnik among them.)
The ersatz cassette only added insult to injury.
The (only half intentional) ruse just goes to prove Zappa's point
about the general sophistication of concert goers, who, in F.Z.'s words,
would rather get sloshed on white wine and preen themselves for their
social graces. But then, expectations always do color perception,
as net.audio sophisticates are constantly relearning ...
-- James A. Woods {dual,hplabs,hao,research}!ames-lm!jaw
P.S.
The digital sound at the S.F. lecture/performance was fine.
It was done by John Meyer of Berkeley, whose CD phase filters (J. Audio
Eng. Society, 3/84) got some snickers in net.audio recently.