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In the Forum: Playback Listening
In the Thread: About the thoughtfulness of large timing offset.
Post Subject: About the thoughtfulness of large timing offset.Posted by Romy the Cat on: 5/12/2020
I have a long listening session yesterday and was thinking a lot about one interesting subject. Different playback systems differently present intentional “inconsistency” or better to say “unexpectancy” of timing. If you listen some truly masters to violate all timing markers and to play truly own individualistic music (Barbirolli, Golovanov, Celibidache, Scherchen come to mind) then with one playback their interpretations make more sense and with other has less sense.   

The minute (sort) offset of timing and an ability of payback to present it is well knows phenomena. Particularly it very auditable with piano, when great pianist could make magical micro-breakage of tempo, playing with “rhythmic holes”. Add to it sometime-constant or non-constant accompaniment that “offset” the rhythm ever further and we have a completely separate drama that not yet has to do anything with composition itself but presents own unique language of musical expression hat might very much work along with the program of the main composition. You need a great playback to handle it properly but generally it is not hard to accomplish by lowering intermodulation and using phase-constant playback. Then truly complex question comes: why and how different playbacks deal with not the minute offset of timing but large offset of timing. The large offset of timing are the conductor’s strategic tempos acceleration or deceleration. Here is where different playbacks present the large offset of timing in one case as a truly ingénues and deeply meaningful intention and in other cases as a stupid contra-orthodox move.  I have no idea what characteristic of playback is responsible for it.

The most interesting aspect to me in this subject is not that fact that different playback do it but that it variant in context of one playback. It feels to me that it changes with a system getting broken in. A fully broken-in playback does fine but if a playback is in the state I would say 80% of to be completely broken in then the ability of the playback to highlight the meaning of large timing offset very much magnifies and presented in a full philosophical glory. The fully broken in playback for sure sounds better but it also reduced some colors in highlighting the mindfulness of the large timing offsets.

Rgs,
Romy the Cat

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