Sound Recording

By magic numbers and persuasive sound.

If the listener does eventually come to the point where he makes the ultimate performance by splicing tapes from other musicians' recordings, he [sic] will eventually become just as bored with it as with other recordings, for it will still always be the same. Look, for instance, at electronic music. The boys are already becoming bored with what they do because they put it irrevocably on tape. The best indication of this is that more and more they are mixing the live performance element with their tapes.

Carpenters' and ironworkers' shops are dominated by the heavier sounds of machinery and occasional yells across the floor; in goldsmiths' shops the silences are punctuated by more delicate work noises, but the apprentices' sullen silence and the artisans' grim absorption in the work at hand are, if anything, more oppressive, although there may be a little amiable banter between a master goldsmith and an older apprentice clearly already in possession of advanced technical skills.