Music Video Lesson: Is There Editing in Classical Recordings?

Hi, this is Robert Estrin at livingpianos.com, your online piano store, with a great viewer question. Which is, how much editing is there in classical music recordings?

I have vast experience with this, having owned recording studios over the years, and I've done a tremendous amount of albums and demo recording. And yes, there is editing. And you might wonder, well, how does this work? You play a piece, you miss a note, hey, we can put that note in there. Does it work that way?

Well, with modern technology, it almost can. In the olden days, not that long ago in the days of tape, it was possible to razor blade edit, and you would not believe what is possible. But here's the key, to be able to get successful edits in music, you have to have a keen understanding of the work. That's why the producer of a recording, and the engineer, have to really understand music in a deep way.

For example, if you were to try to edit a performance to make a perfect recording by playing until you missed, and then starting there, and going onto the next place you missed, and going through the whole thing. Yeah, you might get all the notes, but you're not going to get much of a musical performance. Because the whole feeling and the continuity has got to be there.

So what is generally done is to play complete works several times, and then choose the best parts of them and put together large sections. You don't just put in missed notes here and there, but you might take the first exposition of a sonata, and maybe a development from a different take, and maybe the recapitulation will come back to the first take.

Now, if there's a particularly thorny section of a piece of music that is really difficult to play accurately, first of all, you cannot edit anything that you can't play. So if you hear a perfect performance and think, "Oh, that was all editing," well you ... They had to play it at some point. So you can't put in something that wasn't played to begin with.

So if there's a particularly difficult section, and it's a chunk of music, they might have the performer play that a whole bunch of times so they know it's covered. So worst case scenario, they could cut in before and after that section. And it's critical to know where you're going to try to cut in later, so that you don't just try to squeeze something in. You might know that if you have a total silence, of course you can cut in there. Or a very strong cord, boom, that punctuates a new section can mask the edit. So there's a great deal of editing in recordings, but not the way you think.

It's not about replacing missed notes, even though with digital technology it's almost to the point where you could do that. But you'll never get a fluid performance on a high level of expression and continuity trying to edit that way. You've got to be able to play the notes. It's just a time saver.

Think how many performances you'd have to do to get a perfect performance of a work that takes 20 or 30 minutes. You might miss one little thing here or there, and it's unfortunate a recording to have it, so editing could be extremely useful for capturing the best a performer has to offer, without completely wearing them out in the process.

I hope this has been enjoyable for you, and keep the questions coming in. Once again, Robert at livingpianos.com, your online piano store.

Find the original source of this video at this link: https://livingpianos.com/music-performance/is-there-editing-in-classical-recordings/

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