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Greg Milner – Perfecting Sound Forever

Faber And Faber Inc.

Available at Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble. 

I like to consider myself a Music Collector, spending an inordinate amount of time reading about, and tracking down, recordings that please some sensibility that I can’t quite pin down specifically.  So, I feel a little strange in saying that I have never heard the phrase, “Perfect Sound Forever,” used in reference to what you get when you listen to a CD.  Not once, and I grew up at a time when the CD had just been introduced.

This is strange because this is part of the central conceit of Greg Milner’s book which derives its very name from the phrase.  It is (supposedly) the claim that CDs can deliver on this promise that seems to motivate Milner’s prose, and while I have never heard the claim myself, he stresses several times in the book that this has happened, and it is this claim that he takes the most issue with.  I do no deny that this claim was made about CDs.  However, for this music fan, if a large portion of this book rests on a claim that was not impressed on me (or the others I’ve discussed this with), then how can the narrative in the book hold true for me, too?

Milner’s book is lauded as being, “An Aural History of Recorded Music,” and beginning with the earliest practitioners (largely Edison himself), Perfecting Sound Forever traces the story of a world that had no understanding that sound could even be recorded at all, to a world that is largely defined by recorded sound in all its various forms.  One thing becomes clear very early on in trying to parse the effects this has had on the world around us: while it is impossible to claim that any medium is ultimately “better” than others, Milner’s own preference – the vinyl record – clouds his narrative the entire way through this text.

In a way, his bias is a good metaphor to use when looking at the way recorded sound developed over the years.  In what proves to be a very technically-driven book, Milner illustrates the various format wars that have developed since Edison, that have informed the way the next generation recorded sound.  Acoustic vs. Electric recording was the first, but soon Cylinder vs. Disc, Disc vs. Tape, Tape vs. CD, and CD vs. .mp3 have divided music consumers over something that cannot be encoded into any medium: the “way” a sound was “meant” to be heard.  Each generation that developed a new technology found it frowned upon by the one previous that was clinging to the old one.  Meanwhile a successive generation grows up with the older format, loves it, and tries to emulate it using even newer technology, and creates yet another new format, to be reviled by the prior generation who still loves the one they came up with.  Ad infinitum.

With each new format war, the goal appears to be the same: to improve on the sound quality of the previous format.  But each successive improvement creates a backward looking vision.  Crystal clear recording in perfect environments always manages to impress recording and engineering nerds because of the wonderful dynamic range, but almost everyone else agrees that you seem to loose something in the improvements.  Electrical recording was looked down up because it seemed to “loose” something that pure acoustics had.  Tape was similarly mocked because of the hiss that accompanied it, which was only a mere “motor whirr” on a turntable before it.  These days, why outright “new” formats aren’t developed nearly as often, the battle seems to be focused on the ability to recreate those old, glitchy artifacts that were present in primitive modes of recording, but in an entirely digital world.  By adjusting the digital sheen, we can ultimately create the “perfect” simulacrum.

What is lost on the public at large – and seems to be what Milner is driving at – is exactly that conundrum: music consumers have been fooled in thinking that ANY recording we hear is “real” at all.  While this may seem obvious – the sounds a record makes could never be really mistaken for sound made by the actual thing in the real world – the implications seem to have played out in the rhetoric surrounding recording media.  Media has always been marketed in a way that illustrates the illusion between real and recorded.  Edison himself would put on “Tone Test” performances, where records were performing for audiences who were “unaware” that it was merely a recording.  (This tradition continues into the modern age, most recently with digital performances during the last decade.)  “Is it Live?  Or is it Memorex?”  Even the slogan admits that, while they themselves don’t really know, they would rather you believe they are both the same.

Another issue that is addressed is the notion of scientifically measured High Fidelity.  Usually, people marketing anything like to have science on their side to make a point, and there is plenty of that in this book.  However, many of the points are lost or immediately discarded to discuss who was right in the next Format War.  After making the point that Digital Recordings have a higher possible dynamic range than any other recording format, and further making the point that recordings made on tape with more than four tracks is already suffering from sonic compression and leakage that make eight track (or more) recordings “weaker” in many respects, Milner insists that science cannot account for the preference he has in the preferred media he’s chosen (vinyl records).  He will buy records, played on his stereo, forever, in spite of the fact that the sound is not so perfect.

This seems to be what Milner has missed (or, at least, failed to fully develop) in his book.  While people love to get passionate over technology, the real truth is that recorded music has allowed us to create an audio world that reflects our sensibilities, in whatever kind of fidelity that interests us the most.  At each step in the narrative, the backward looking inventors, trying to add analog sensibilities into the digitally pristine world of ProTools, are not attempting to “perfect” sound.  They are sculpting it, building it, molding it into sounds that reflect the kinds of things that they want to hear more of in the world.  It is a mish-mash of perfect and dirty, clean and analog, all at once.  The way we consume music is an extension of ourselves, and our quirks as individuals.

Music is the place we turn to when we want the sign and symbol confused.  We want to believe that the song is real, that it wasn’t tracked and recorded over a period of months, but is a spontaneous example of the way we feel at that exact moment.  We want to believe in this Edisonian notion that there is a “perfect” sound, that can be reproduced in all it’s depth, for us to hear later.  But this is not possible.  We know, consciously, that even Edison was bending over reality backwards to get his musicians as far into the recording horn as possible, to forcibly capture things that would have been lost in a live setting.  The way we really achieve the illusion of recorded sound – be it an iPod or a finely build stereo with nice cabinets – has little to do with how perfect the sound is, and is as much a part of who we are as the clothes we wear every day.

Reading Perfecting Sound Forever has reminded me of an experience I had a few years ago.  During one of my many days at the radio station, I decided to multi-task by transferring a few of my records to the station computer, so I could later take the files home and make some .mp3s of them.  I had a number of reasons for doing this, but in the end I spent most of the day listening to records while I was working.  Not a bad way to spend the day.  I transferred the files to my external drive, bussed it home, and set about the task of hunkering down for an evening of editing.

I put on my headphones and started listening to the first file, and to my complete astonishment, I found that I recorded more than I had intended.  As I scrolled through the first few seconds before the opening of, “(We Ain’t Got) Nothin’ Yet”, I noticed that you could actually hear the sounds of me slowly lowering the needle of the record.  They were very faint, but any audio nerd would clearly recognize the sounds for what they were.  This was beyond just the stylus hitting the record.  There was a bit of my voice, the arm moving, me saying, “…okay…,” then click.  A moment later, the song started.

It was something of an epiphany, or, at least, the final piece in a puzzle that has been assembling itself over time.  The only reason that I hadn’t noticed it sooner was that I am so immersed in the ability to edit audio that I hadn’t really seen the ideology that was invisibly at work.  It was almost so clear that I was afraid to say it out loud, and for a while I didn’t.  But it was finally just too obvious to not say it anymore: We do not listen to recorded music.  We listen to recorded ideas & memories.

The moment that I dropped the needle on that Blues Magoos record was, ultimately, nothing to write home about.  I’ve done it hundreds of times before, and will do it again, like millions of other audiophiles across the globe.  But as soon as I captured that moment digitally, there was an idea that could be conveyed in that small recording: an audio re-telling of someone dropping a stylus onto a piece of wax.  The following idea is the song that was contained within that record.  That idea was now forged as a very distinct memory for me, because the idea was re-presented to me, what was a lost moment, an ultimately meaningless moment in the sequences of every day life.  Now, it was more complex than the sounds captured in 1s and 0s.

I snipped off this part of the recording, its implications a little bigger than I had time to wrestle with.  But this book is beginning to stir that pot again, and add a little spice to the broth.

Consider this: while I cannot argue that most music comes in the form of some sort of artifact (CD, vinyl, cassette, etc.), the music therein cannot be pointed to anymore more materially than one can point to the grooves, tape, or aluminum the music is encoded within.  The material that contains a representation of the music constructs, using vibrations, a somewhat realistic sound-image of a musical idea that we then interpret to be the guitars, bass, drums and vocals of The Blues Magoos, in spite of them being no where near where the record is being played.  But the sounds we hear do not “exist” except in the form of created vibrations, that are used to execute the ideas that the artists creating these sounds have.  The results are “music.”  Sound sculptures.  Moments that are, and then pass in a time-based way. They do not “exist” in a tangible sense, any more than the ideas behind words exist in a tangible sense.

However, we confuse the symbol for the sign regularly, because music is encoded in tangible artifacts that we buy and trade in the marketplace.  While the music can never be tangible, the means to communicate it IS, and this cognitive dissonance causes us to refer to music as if it can be possessed.  “I have that,” is a common response when presented with a representation of a song that is also represented in our own material record collections.  While the distinction is nuanced, and seems to play little role in everyday discourse, that does not mean that the implication is any less important.  You may never discuss the meta-realities behind a Brian Eno record at a party, but they are at work at the party – especially at the party – in ways that cause us to want to buy back into this confusion between symbol and reality ever moreso.

I should stress that this isn’t necessarily a bad thing.  We confuse the symbol for reality all the time, and it is a very human way to deal with things.  Movies would be boring if we couldn’t immerse ourselves in the reality they temporarily represent.  (This is easily recognizable as the friend you hate to take to the movies with you, because they spend the entire film complaining about how unrealistic the movie is.)  So do not think the application of this confusion in the world of recorded sound is meant to deter you from continuing to listen to good music.  I just want to make the point that there is something else going on here.

As way of an example: growing up I had a Sir Mix-A-Lot tape that I would listen to often.  I brought it with me when I went to visit my Dad, and was playing it for my brothers on a new cassette player.  This had a Record feature, that used a built-in Mic.  While my Dad was exploring what the machine could do (while my tape was playing), he pressed the record button momentarily.  I quickly said, “Dad, that’s record.”  He replied, “whoops!” & hit the Stop button.  While I listened back to the tape to survey the damage, both my Dad and myself were surprised to find that, not only was the exchange between himself and I captured perfectly on the tape, but it was actually in-time with “Buttermilk Biscuits.”  Often, when I hear that song, I keep expecting to hear us pop into the recording at a precise moment, because I continued to listen to that tape for quite some time afterward.

We’ve all had this experience with Mix Tapes, Mix CDs, move soundtracks, etc.  Formative moments that were, accidentally or not, captured on tape that become part of the way we hear that song.  I can’t even count the number of stories I’ve heard that all start, “Every time I hear that song, I think of [fill-in-the-blank] song, because I used to have a tape where they were back to back.”  I find these moments interesting.  The expectation is not satisfied, and yet telling the story seems to create the same effect.  Those same people seem to smile after they’ve told it, as if they have heard [fill-in-the-blank] song anyway.

At the party, when we’re listening to Brian Eno with our friends, the ideas that are conveyed are so powerful, it can compel us to want to go out and buy the record.  I can’t even count the number of times I’ve done that, or heard a similar story.  What is at work is the Idea & Memory aspect of having heard something.  We hear it, we want to clarify it, to re-experience it, to have the same idea conveyed in a quieter locale.  So we buy the record.  We get to experience music as a side-effect, but what we hear are ideas and memories being formed.

Perhaps this is not big revelation to anyone who is a fan of music.  The media itself is so flimsy, that the impressions of each listening experience is forever etched into the media, preserved for each subsequent time we listen to it again.  Each listening experience accesses a memory – re-written every time it is accessed – with new dimensions that include every time we’ve dropped the needle, every time we accidentally taped over part of something, and every time it was mixed and remixed with something new.

These memories we listen to are what draw me to recorded sound, I think.  Forever nostalgic, but also curious, about the ideas and memories that have been formed before me.  Perhaps I’m really looking to see if Nomeansno is right, and that only so many songs can be sung with two lips, two lungs, and one tongue?  But I think that recorded sound is as limitless as ideas and memories themselves.  It just depends on how much space you want to give to it.