ABSTRACT
This chapter considers the intertwining of perceptual, social and ideological factors in live and recorded music. Although in it author's principle focuses on Western art music (WAM) tradition. The chapter discusses the American National Anthem, and controversy over Beyoncé's performance of the anthem at President Obama's second inauguration ceremony on 21 January 2013. It considers the broad perception, action consequences, in other words the affordances, of different live and mediatized conditions of musical engagement. If recorded music is interrupted and resumed, can make way for the practical demands of everyday reality, then there is less reason for listeners to commit their undivided and constant attention to it. The rapidly increasing interpenetration of music in various kinds of mediatized conditions with 'live' reality has resulted in an astonishingly increasing familiarity with, and skill in, moving seamlessly between real and virtual spaces. Therefore, the distinction between live and not-live has become increasingly blurred and blended, with fascinating, disturbing and sometimes controversial consequences.
