2013年5月11日托福阅读真题解析

　　第二篇：live performance，现场演出

　　Part1: 很多艺人喜欢现场演出，因为与观众的互动让双方满足。Part2: 现场演出中与观众互动的具体形式，及live和电影电视等录制节目的比较。第三部分：由于在现场，舞台和演员的状态有不可控因素，所以难免出错，这也正是现场演出有趣、exciting的地方。出错反过来使得艺人改善自己的艺术。第四部分是live给普通人生活的若干启示。

　　解析：两篇媒体文章供参考

　　What's better? Live or recorded music?

　　There are a million ways to experience music, but for the purpose of this blog let's just break it down to two categories: live and recorded.

　　I don't know about you, but if I get to hear live music more than twice a month, that's pretty good. Sure, I can look back and remember some great concerts in my life, like the Rolling Stones at Madison Square Garden in 1969, Miles Davis in a tiny club in Greenwich Village in the early '70s, and Stevie Ray Vaughan in the '80s. The Pixies in the '90s were definitely a high point.

　　I recently attended a concert with the Chelsea Symphony at St. Paul's Church in Manhattan. Sitting in the top balcony, the sound was simply awesome; I've never heard anything close to that sound reproduced by even the very best high-end audio systems. The orchestra certainly didn't need amplification; it was definitely loud enough. Not quite rock concert loud, but the Chelsea Symphony's eight percussionists can make a strong impression.

　　Better yet, the sound never hurt my ears. But the orchestra was far more viscerally dynamic than any rock band, and the sound of strings, woodwinds, brass, and percussion filling the acoustic space of the church was a thrill I won't soon forget. That is, you don't so much hear the sound of each instrument, you hear it filling the church. The sound of the entire orchestra floated, like a cloud, above the pews. The sound was beyond what I've ever experienced from an orchestra in a large concert hall.

　　In those and other experiences, the music connection was stronger than it could ever be from recordings, but for the most part I actually prefer recorded music. First and most obviously because it's a repeatable pleasure I can have any time I want it. Next, recorded music is, after all, perfected and approved by the artist(s)--live music is subject to the vagaries of chance.

　　Recorded music's production can't necessarily be duplicated in concert. Depending on where you sit, and how good or bad the sound system is, live music is a crap shoot. With a decent hi-fi at home, you can get better sound than most live gigs. Oh, and you can play it at exactly the volume you want.

　　"Live" recordings fall between the two extremes, and if the band's up for it, may be the best of live and recorded.

　　There's an intimacy to recorded music, it's just you and the sound. Live is, depending on the venue, far less direct and the goings on around you can be distracting. Then again, when the vibe is just right, the music is that much better because of the atmosphere.

　　I'm not sure why, but when I've recorded live music I've noted that when playing it back the music almost never matches the feel of the live experience. Recordings and live music are two different things.

　　But for day-to-day I love listening to my collection; right now I'm on a major Neil Young kick. I've seen Neil in concert twice and was underwhelmed by both shows.

　　And finally, recorded music allows us to hear music from artists who are no longer with us, but their music lives on.

　　How about you? Live or recorded, which one rocks your world more?

　　Recorded vs. Live Performance

　　Two distinguished thespians opine on the differences between taped and live performances.

　　In a TV interview, the distinguished movie actor, Gene Hackman, stated that when acting in films, he often found himself withdrawing, being more introspective, and minimizing his physical gestures, things he had seen many other stage actors do when making the transition from working in the theatre, where one has to be concerned about "hitting the back wall*," to acting in motion pictures, where many of those same gestures would probably appear unnatural or seriously exaggerated when viewed through the intimacy of a camera’s lens.

　　In a similar statement, the great thespian, Sir Lawrence Olivier, once opined that acting on the stage is about acting, whereas acting in films is simply about "being" (in front of cameras). Others have posited that there are even further adjustments needed when acting for the small screen (TV) as compared with the large screen (theatrical motion pictures) since every sound and gesture appears even more exaggerated. (Theatrical motion pictures are technically adjusted for TV transmissions, according to an industry source, but this writer is clueless as to how this might affect any of these issues.)

　　From the musician’s perspective, with the advent of the Digital Age, we have again reached a point, as in earlier times in our developmental history, where live and recorded performances can often require different technical disciplines to accomplish the same musical results or effects. This is due to the increased sensitivity of today's recording devices, how (technically) the music** is recorded, and the various ways the final recorded product is disseminated. Musical and technical issues like dynamics, musical nuances, and general balances are often approached in a way not dissimilar to the experiences and observations of the two actors mentioned above. For musicians, this is exactly the opposite of the way things were a half-century ago when the rule-of-thumb was to exaggerate/overdo many of those same elements to get the desired recorded effects, for quite different reasons: a lack of sensitivity of recording devices and/or the record fabrication/reproduction process. Consequently, because of these differences, what might work well today in the concert hall may not be as successful on tape, and vice-versa, just as it was a half century ago, but quite obviously for different reasons. This could possibly explain why some performers are, and were, more convincing in one or the other of these venues. It is also one (of many) of the reasons some modern day recording artists prefer to "sync" their performances to their own recordings rather than performing "live.