You should read the whole post. While I wholeheartedly agree with Fripp, I don’t hope or expect to change the view of that member of the audience who chooses not to be present by electing to concentrate on recording the music that is created by the participant/performer and the participant/audience. Everyone has a choice to participate in life or to remain removed and aloof. By choosing to concentrate on recording an event, instead of experiencing the event in the present one prepares for a future experience of that event – but without the sight, touch, smell and communal aspect of that original moment. Instead of contributing ones presence to the performance/event, one is caught up in preparing a private experience of that performance at a later time. Isn’t that somewhat like going on a date and recording the evening rather than interacting with the other person?

June 09, 2006
Essentially, the recording of a live performance may present very good listening, but it is not the event,gucci purses; neither is it the same as being at the event. And (for me there is no doubt that) the act of recording the performance will itself have changed both the performance and the event, in subtle (and unsubtle) ways.
(Via Robert Fripp’s Diary)

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