On Saturday, December 13, 2014 at 10:50:03 AM UTC-8, Saturday, December 13, 2014 4:14:07 AM UTC-10, William Sommerwerck wrote:
> > I'm fussy about word usage. I'm increasingly annoyed by narrators saying
> > "recorded history".
> >
> > "Recorded history" is a tautology. The word "history" implies something for
> > which there's a written or visual record. * This is why dinosaurs are called
> > pre-historic creatures.
> >
> > "Historically informed" performance practices have to be based on a reliable
> > record of how music was actually performed -- not on what we think or assume
> > performance practices were.
> >
> > I'm curious... Which HIPs have genuinely historical evidence supporting them?
> >
> > * Fossils don't count. We're talking rock carvings, cave paintings, etc.
>
> For those into HIP:
> - History repeats itself, but the special call of an art which has passed away is never reproduced. It is as utterly gone out of the world as the song of a destroyed wild bird.
>
> Joseph Conrad
> -----------------
>
> And as I always say:
>
> - Can a Stradivarius
>
> in the hands of a beginner
>
> Ever sound as good as
>
> A pawn shop fiddle
>
> In the hands of a Paganini?
> You can unearth and have access to all the historical instruments in the world, but once the last performer has died, the playing technique dies with him/her.
>
> As far as I am concerned, it is the folly of follies to believe that we can allow things to die out only because at some point in the future they can be easily revived.

There is no such thing as a music traditions semetary.