<p>This is an amusing thread. I think one of the things it highlights is the difference between the way classical and pop/commercial recordings are produced. D3, a classical violinist, did a gig for someone producing a pop album and was shocked that she was expected to record her violin track separately (and then sit around for hours while they layered tracks and then recorded some other violin bits.) She thought she would be playing with the other musicians. D4 is an indie/folk musician who has done some recording in a studio. She does her own vocals and harmonies in separate tracks and records instrumentals on separate instruments in separate tracks. As someone with mostly a classical background, I admit this seems quite bizarre. But i spoke to a pop/rock musician who seemed surprised to learn that a string quartet would record a session all playing at the same time. Different worlds!</p>
<p>Actually, Rockr’s right. And I say if a kid is good enough technically to pull it off, the SOM in question should scoop him or her up anyway, because performers always need a good sound tech around 
There isn’t a day that goes by at my son’s school where his entire department isn’t getting requests to record recitals, mix tracks or otherwise lend their skills to a project.</p>
<p>Pianoman12: I agree that you could record a fugue by recording the voices separately, but I’m not sure how successful the result would be. If your goal is accuracy, then recording separately would be very easy (what pianist that aspires to be a piano major could not sight-read the individual voices of a Bach fugure and play them along with a metronome?). </p>
<p>If your goal, however, is a musically convincing performance (and you do not subscribe to the “sewing machine” version of Bach interpretation), then success is more questionable. A fugue is a conversation amongst competing voices. Recording a single voice would be like a) an actor declaiming only their lines in a diaglogue without hearing or even knowing what the other actors’ say; or b) a sprinter competing in the 100 m with no competitors. </p>
<p>Metronomic Bach playing without any ebb and flow of the phrase is mostly a thing of the distant past. In my early adolescence a few decades ago, some of that sort of playing was tolerated, but the excellent teachers I had in high school quickly banished the metronome from Bach’s vicinity–I think they said things like, “A metronome is a crutch for the crippled that have no internal sense of rhythm. Those who use one, play as if they were crippled or impaired. Bach should be no more mechanistic sounding than Chopin–the difference is that the rubato in Chopin is obvious to even dunderheads, but the subtlety of Bach requires a real musician.” Times have changed–most teachers are so much more diplomatic now.</p>
<p>Glenn Gould was, of course, the consumate Bach interpretter and was also consumed/obsessed with recording technology. Interestingly, I don’t think that in his unbalanced pursuit of perfection in his dozens of Bach recordings that he ever put together a fugue recording by recording the voices separately. He wasn’t a classical purist, but was open to experimentation on many levels.</p>
<p>Glassharmonica: Your observations of the difference between classical and commercial recording are trenchant. My son has also had the experience of doing commercial recording (and he found it very awkward–he felt that it would have been so much easier if he could have been in the same room with at least one other instrument recording at the same time; while laying down the tracks separately makes the mixing so much easier for the recording engineer and gives them the control they want, my son felt it was much more difficult to achieve the musical result that he wanted when he had to play in complete isolation–okay maybe not complete isolation since he had headphones that gave him something.)</p>
<p>violindad: I like your use of the term “sewing machine” when describing a lifeless fugue. However, I feel that someone who really knew their fugue inside and out would be able to perfectly emote the different voices separately of one another, albeit likely with some level of imbalance. Glenn Gould was an interesting character for a number of reasons… The real question is whether anything can really be learned from him. I feel he was so virtuosic that his playing just points out the most technically advanced player ever, something we can all aspire to be but probably never recreate. (<em>Controversial statement alert</em>) I for one am not a big fan of his interpretation skills so I don’t think he left any real mark on classical playing, like Horowitz, for example, who took tone coloration to the next level. Glenn Gould was a talent beyond belief but in my view not much of an artist, although I know not everyone would agree. (For instance, his recording of Brahms Rhapsody Op. 79 No. 2 is well… interesting.) I do think he was probably the most gifted player of all time though, at least in the recording age. Truly an intriguing personality as well</p>
<p>Here’s a link to a story today on NPR - Anne Akiko Meyers playing both violin parts in Bach’s Double Concerto.</p>
<p>[Violinist</a> Anne Akiko Meyers: From Playing In Knee Socks To Owning Two Strads : Deceptive Cadence : NPR](<a href=“Anne Akiko Meyers: From Knee Socks To Strads : Deceptive Cadence : NPR”>Anne Akiko Meyers: From Knee Socks To Strads : Deceptive Cadence : NPR)</p>
<p>The Emerson String Quartet did something similar, they recorded the Mendelsohn Octet that way, via putting together recordings of the individual parts, so it can be done. There is a difference between that and trying to splice together snippets of recordings done let’s say by a solo violinist and making that smooth, though the mixing technique is similar for both efforts, they are very different in scope (and to do the Emerson recording took a lot of time with sequencers and such, I think there are videos on You Tube about how they did it if anyone is curious. I think such an effort would fail for a number of reasons, including it might look ‘too clean’…</p>