karen,
from the practical standpoint of using music for recordings, i agree with your points. certainly the pressures of making a permanent record almost seem to demand the use of a score if one is concerned with eliminating mistakes from such a process. but, if using a score and singing from memory really are different in terms of the 'sonic' performance, assuming, for the sake of argument, that the performance is better when getting away from the score, using a score is making the choice to limit mistakes over giving the best performance. if that were true, wouldn't the living room listener be ultimately disappointed? and, don't we all have 'live' recordings we love, having forgiven (and learned to ignore) the mistakes?
concerning my original statement, wondering if we could tell by a recording whether or not someone is using a score, aside from the cases of people with horrible memories making obvious mistakes or people who are musically illiterate who really are better off relying on whatever memory they have, can we really tell the difference just by listening?
i would say, in most cases, unless there is a visual clue or an obvious deviation from the score, we can't. unless someone completely changes their mindset, and therefore their intentions, when going from score to off score, i don't think it is possible to tell just by listening.
mike
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