Live or Recorded; A Faustian response

Sorry I don't agree. I've gone to a live musical event once or twice a week for thirty plus years. There are good, bad and great performances. There are many live performances of music that I could go to but don't like the music so I don't go. There are many musicians who are enjoying themselves and having a great time on stage and are not worth listening to. I've been to concerts where the musicians are playing great music on auto pilot -- this just makes me hopping mad so I stay away from these groups and listen to recordings.

These opinions apply to recorded music as well.

The authentic experience happens between the ears in wetware of the perceiver whose perceptual capabilities have been molded by billions of years of evolution. The listener’s actual experience is both culturally and personally determined but so what. It is the height of intellectual arrogance to refer to another person’s life or experience as inauthentic but it doesn’t hurt to point them to great music.

My answer to the purpose of being is for me to have a great time and listen to as much good music as I can. Life is too short to listen to bad music

In Schubertmaniac's and my posts we were referring principally to non-professionals whom we care about performing, or at least that's how I'm looking at it. I agree that I wouldn't want to attend performances by professionals who were merely going through the motions or performances of works I'm not interested in (although I'm always willing to give unknown pieces a listen), but my son's first elementary school concert was a priceless musical moment I'll always treasure.

It's an interesting question, because on the whole I listen to recorded music much more often then I listen to live music. However, there is not listening session that comes close to producing the kind of euphoria that I have felt listening to music being made rather than simply reproduced. Muddy Waters may have been a more competant musician than Claerence Gatemouth Brown is, but I've never heard a Muddy recording that was as much fun as seeing Gatemouth and then talking to him aftrewards about the blues in my hometown... and I can think of dozens of examples like this. Would you rather give up a steady stream of consistant pleasantness or intermitant experiences of rapture? It's like trying to choose friendship or love. I'm just glad that I don't have to make the call.

To Rcprince. I certainly accept that there are personal and in that sense extra-musical reasons for listening to a performance. The reference to Heidegger that Schubertmaniac casually tosses about has very specific ontological, epistemic and metaphysical claims about life and art. I spent the better part of a semester in the dim mists of Herr Heidegger's writings. My response is my considered response to claims which I find specious. I also believe that they are germane to this hobby.

Bringing up Heidegger was calulated; I would not broach
a philosophical point casually. There was a point to be made. You decided it was a little deceptive, your choice. An authentic experience is a philosophical term.I would never demean any of your experiences as authentic or not authentic, only you can decide that, existentially speaking.