Ives and Recording Technology

Thoughts on... Ives and Recording Technology.

Since Dr. Kwon's Globalization class frequently discusses the affects of growing musical technologies on composers, listeners, and performers of music, I have decided write my first blog about Ives's distaste for recording technologies. I think it was Feder who wrote that not only was Ives's distaste for musical recordings to strong that he did not listen to musical recordings and supposedly never watched a movie in his lifetime.

My first impression on Ives's opposition to music recordings was one of shock. After all, how would Ives ever grown to be appreciated if it were not for the very technologies he abhorred? It seems that all past composers owe some kind of debt to these recordings, since they have allowed for and often encouraged their immortalization in the Western musical canon.

But then I considered the psychological approach of Feder. Perhaps Ives, who had such a unique musical experience during his childhood, disdained recordings because they distanced listeners from the familiar traditions with which he grew to experience music. To Ives, music was essentially communal-- whether it involved his father's bands, various live performances, his experience as a church organist, Ives was always sharing music with others. Ives romanticized this live, communal production of music, and continued to value the partnership that was required for music making during his childhood. Even if he was listening to a solo performance, there was still some kind of relationship between listener and performer. To someone like Ives, who didn't mind vernacular and sentimental music, and who accepted wrong notes and intonation issues as inevitable, this idealization of music seems inevitable. And recordings took all that romance away.

Yet even though his contemporaries had similar musical experiences to him, it was Ives who asked the question "Are my ears on wrong?" This statement implies that despite these similarities, Ives questioned whether there was something inherently wrong with the way he heard music. With the growth of musical technology and the development of recordings, Ives further lost the opportunity to share his musical experience with others. Even more so than in his own lifetime, it is now extremely improbable that any child would grow up to experience and think about music the same way that Charlie did. So, to Ives, these musical technologies may represent the loss of hope that someone out there could think about music the same way that he did.

I know it's a stretch, but that's all I've got. After all, it's my first blog post :)