Frigid Fingers Were Live but the Music Wasn’t (Inauguration music not live)

[kskiska]

Source: NYT

It was not precisely lip-synching, but pretty close.

The somber, elegiac tones before President Obama’s oath of office at the inauguration on Tuesday came from the instruments of Yo-Yo Ma, Itzhak Perlman and two colleagues. But what the millions on the Mall and watching on television heard was in fact a recording, made two days earlier by the quartet and matched tone for tone by the musicians playing along.

The players and the inauguration organizing committee said the arrangement was necessary because of the extreme cold and wind during Tuesday’s ceremony. The conditions raised the possibility of broken piano strings, cracked instruments and wacky intonation minutes before the president’s swearing in (which had problems of its own).

“Truly, weather just made it impossible,” Carole Florman, a spokeswoman for the Joint Congressional Committee on Inaugural Ceremonies, said on Thursday. “No one’s trying to fool anybody. This isn’t a matter of Milli Vanilli,” Ms. Florman added, referring to the pop band that was stripped of a 1989 Grammy because they did not sing on their album and lip-synched in concerts.

Ms. Florman said that the use of a recording was not disclosed beforehand but that the NBC producers handling the television pool were told of its likelihood the day before.

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/23/arts/music/23band.html?hp

[HeresyLives]

1. Pity they didn't do that with Roberts. :)

[SoxFan]

17. !!!

:spray:

[XemaSab]

2. Blame it on the cold, yeah yeah...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rpTClxdBG9c

[BlooInBloo]

3. I'm poutraged.

[Shiver]

27. Clearly Obama has betrayed us.

[JDPriestly]

4. I wondered how they could play in such cold temperatures.

I thought maybe they had heaters around them.

[Tandalayo_Scheisskopf]

5. I have guitar rodied on outdoor shows...

Where the temps were dropping durinng the show, and they played holy hell with the tuning of the stringed instruments and the pianos.

And then there was the time I got fired from a band with the initials "BJ" because the shithead keyboard roadie dropped the harp from the Yamaha electric piano off the back of the truck and cracked the soundboard. As the lights hit the piano and warmed it up, it would go out of tune because it warped. Of course, me, the guitar roadie, got blamed and fired by Johnny, while Richie loudly protested everything was fine. The keyboard roadie wanked and whistled tunelessly.

Tico finally apologized to me on behalf of the band a couple of years later. He's a mensch, that Teek. Johnny couldn't look me in the eye and say hello. He'd just walk by me looking at his feet.

[Maeve]

11. Hubby wondered about the piano in that cold...now we know

I don't care if it was live or Memorex, it was still fantastic music!

[Wizard777]

15. Alway buy the guitar a seat on an airplane. Never put it in with luggage.

It'll come out of the hold with the neck curled like a pigs tail. I had a friend that ruined his 15,000.00 Martin that way. He cried for a week. Now that he can look at it without being reduced to tears. The guitar has become wall art. Everyone asks how he got the neck to curl like that and why he would want the neck curled like that.

[truthisfreedom]

6. Sounds reasonable.

Who here gives a shit? They made it sound fantastic... and it was the real players who recorded what we heard.

[UnrepentantLiberal]

7. Rec this thread

if you're okay with finger syncing on frigid days.

[Are_grits_groceries]

8. I was marching in a band on a day colder than Tuesday

trying to play the clarinet. I got out some notes, but I know they
didn't resemble what I was supposed to play.

[No Elephants]

9. I insist that everyone involved be impeached and/or drummed out

of the music business.

I love how people are trumping up stuff about the Inauguration. Except for arrogant Roberts and poor Kennedy, it was FANtastic. Deal with it.

[Loudmxr]

10. Yeah like anyone with a BG in recording couldn't tell that.

As someone who has done location recording from time to time. Its impossible to get THAT sound with mikes that far off the instruments in that environment. Sure it was pre recorded. So what. It was lovely. :nopity:

Now if they were using Marshalls and Hiwatts it would be different and a lot LOUDER. :yourock:

[LeftHander]

18. those were condensors....

What I was hearing on the HD Air broadcast seemed live to me. I herd finger squeeks and thing you would not hear in a studio recording. In addition to the tone was that of instruments not typically played by Yo-Yo and Perlman...I was watching NBC (not msnbc cable) But the Air HD broadcast from the local station.

Plus they had a acoustical barrier around the back. Stringed instruments like cello and violin and clarinet really project and are easily picked up by a quality condenser mics. Piano could of been electronic....

I don't recall that much reverb in the broadcast....???

maybe they did. I guess they said they did.

Why didn't they keep them inside and pump the performance out to the crowd....????

Dumb...

[Donnachaidh]

12. Considering THEY did the recording a few days earlier in a warm environment

It was STILL their music.

These guys are the tops in their field. And it was what, 23 degrees or around that when they were to play? I'd be more concerned about yo yo ma or any of them getting frostbite.

It was fine. If you have a problem with it, get over it.

[Orrex]

13. Does this mean that he's not really President?

[No Elephants]

14. Give everyone who paid to hear a live concert their money back. Right NOW!!11!!

[paparush]

16. Its heartening to me that they were smart enough to plan ahead for the contingency.

An example of being prepared and good planning.

[Ocracoker16]

19. NYT says this has been done at previous inaugurals

That is interesting. It is understandable since January is very cold. I just don't remember hearing about this in previous inaugurals. However, I didn't pay any attention to the 2 previous Bush ones anyways.

[notadmblnd]

20. String instruments are sensitive to temperatures

My son plays bass and if his instrument is cold it will not sound as good as it does when it's warm. The humidity and the heat also factor into his playing.

[MorningGlow]

21. OMG we need a do-over

:eyes:

I don't know a whole lot about music, but I do know about frigid temps, and I tweaked to the fact that the music was prerecorded within the first few seconds. Frozen fingers don't work that well--not even for world-famous musicians.

[jazzjunkysue]

22. Violinist here: It makes sense, if you want it to sound good. This is legit.

If you want to limit your ceremonies to marching bands, they're prepared to play in snow, rain, hail, but not stringed instruments.

Yo yo probably took out an old cheap cello so his good ones would not be compromised. This is necessary. They're simply not designed for that kind of weather.

They more than made up for it with their enthusiam. I loved it. Aretha made me cry. You try singing in that weather and see what you sound like....

[Karenina]

23. Tell 'em about it, girlfriend.

Oboist here: with the advantages of today's technology I wonder if the "purists" are JOKING! :rofl: Your rosin is frozen, your fingers are frozen, your lips are frozen and the whole fuckin' WOILD be watching. ROLL TAPE!!! Annaone, annatwo... (Did I just give away my age?) :rofl:

[blues90]

32. I thought that cello looked inexpensive

I would not bring my guitar out in that cold and expect it to stay in tune let alone possibly crack. It even looked like the guitar crow played was new and had a scanner sticker on the bottom edge.

[rvablue]

24. I have ZERO issue with this. Who cares? However, it does beg the question:

If the cold affects instruments so much, why did all of those high school bands in the parade sound so damn good hours later when temperatures dropped further after the sun went down?


Let me be clear. I don't care one wit that they used the recording. This question is merely out of intellectual curiousity and also a shout-out to those great bands!

[Karenina]

29. MARCHING BANDS are an entity unto themselves!

We're talking kiwis and pomegranates here.

[JitterbugPerfume]

25. well, that just ruined everything!

:sarcasm:

[Blue_In_AK]

26. It would have been really hard

to keep those instruments in tune and the fingers limber in that kind of cold. I think this is fine and understandable.

[monmouth]

28. Aretha pretty much said the same thing about herself. She wasn't pleased

with her own performance and said the cold just took her breath away. I believe it, but she looked wonderful anyway...

[orleans]

30. it doesn't bother me--i thought the music was gorgeous. i loved that song. n/t

[mainer]

31. Another violinist here -- and I wondered how they stayed in tune.

While watching the performance, I turned to my hubby and said, "How the hell do they keep that violin and cello in tune?" Now we know.

I've played outdoors in 35 degree weather, and couldn't keep my instrument in tune. Any string player would know it's a nightmare to perform under those circumstances. A peg can slip and suddenly you've got two out-of-tune instruments caterwauling. It'd be a disaster.

[backscatter712]

33. Who can blame them?

Multiple musicians have posted on this - the music would have sounded terrible if they actually did play live.