I remember that. It happens each time I go to a good classic concert. The coughs. People unwrapping mints slowly so as "not to disturb others". Snores. Wise guys whispering to their companions things like "and this is a particularly complex improvisation written by the composer when he was in Arithrea to treat his Arithrithis" or some such.

And that's classical music, where people behave themselves. I went to a jazz concert a couple of years ago. People smoked (law? what law?). People chatted with each other. The acoustics were terrible. The place used to be a hangar. And of course we sat next to an air-conditioning outlet, so we tried to hear the artist over the noise.

Live performances. Yeah great. Oh, and don't forget rock concerts. Seeing somebody like Peter Gabriel from 200m (and those were the most expensive tickets), accompanied by the screams of 100,000 people (or whatever. I don't know how many were there, it sounded like 100,000). People trying to sing along, missing the tune by a mile. And then there's feedback between the microphones and the speakers.

And then you go home, pull out the CD and listen to exactly the same music. Clear. Clean. No disturbance. Pure harmonies, purry vocals. Mmmm.

Personally, I bet that Bach and all the rest of them would have loved the ability to record, to sample, to dub, to improve and purify and distill.