karen,
from the practical standpoint of using music for recordings, i agree
with your points. certainly the pressures of making a permanent record
almost seem to demand the use of a score if one is concerned with eliminating
mistakes from such a process. but, if using a score and singing from memory
really are different in terms of the 'sonic' performance, assuming, for the
sake of argument, that the performance is better when getting away from the
score, using a score is making the choice to limit mistakes over giving the
best performance. if that were true, wouldn't the living room listener be
ultimately disappointed? and, don't we all have 'live' recordings we love,
having forgiven (and learned to ignore) the mistakes?
concerning my original statement, wondering if we could tell by a
recording whether or not someone is using a score, aside from the cases of
people with horrible memories making obvious mistakes or people who are
musically illiterate who really are better off relying on whatever memory
they have, can we really tell the difference just by listening?
i would say, in most cases, unless there is a visual clue or an obvious
deviation from the score, we can't. unless someone completely changes their
mindset, and therefore their intentions, when going from score to off score,
i don't think it is possible to tell just by listening.
mike
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