Vinyl***What If***

I have an old San Jose bandmate (Todd Philips, who has worked with David Grisman, Tony Rice, Jerry Douglas, Ricky Skaggs, Stephane Grapelli, Joan Baez, and many others, and also as a member of PsychoGrass and The New South) with whom I jammed again just a few years back (after not seeing him for many years). He plays a 3/4 scale 18th Century German-made upright bass (it's huge; 6' tall, taller than Todd!). Mounted on the bridge (that the strings run across) of the bass is an electronic pickup, for situations requiring amplification; the bass can be played purely acoustically (it sounds incredible!), or a cord can be run from the pickup into an amplifier and speaker. How is Todd playing his bass acoustically "live" music, and playing it amplified not?

The same can be asked about singing. So, a singer with no microphone is making "live" music, but a singer singing into a microphone is not? I don’t think so.

Regardless of genre, if music is being performed by a human standing on a stage (or a floor, or the back of a flatbed truck) the music is "live". If the human is playing an unamplified acoustic guitar, violin, mandolin, piano, or upright bass, and is singing into no microphone, the music is live. If the guitar, violin, mandolin, piano, or upright bass has a microphone on it that is plugged into an amp, and the person is singing into a microphone, the music is still "live". Whether or not the resulting music is created by purely acoustical instruments and voices is immaterial, for gosh sake! Is the term "live" being used pejoratively?

Of course, that is true ONLY if you are at the live appearance. If you hear music only on recordings, there is NO live music, purely acoustic or otherwise!