As I've mentioned before, bicycles and bicycling are my second passion. When I'm not thinking about music, reading about music, or practicing, I'm riding my bike, tuning it up, or reading about cycling. The Tour de France is winding down this week and I've been glued to the television every morning. Versus television network has phenomenal coverage.
So I was devastated to hear yesterday that one of my favorite riders--the man many had pegged to win the Tour this year--tested positive for blood doping.* A blood test performed on Alexandre Vinokourov revealed the presence of another person's blood (!) in his system.** Vinokourov has had quite a Tour. He crashed with a teammate early on and lost time. He started the next day's stage bandaged like a mummy with 60 stitches in his knees. After losing some time, he threw down the gauntlet in stage 13, the individual time trial, putting two minutes into his competitors and bringing him back into contention. On stage 14, he lost about 20 minutes. He came back to win stage 15 by a handy margin. It was on the rest day following stage 15 that the results of the test following stage 13 (stage winners are always tested) were released. Vinokourov and his entire Astana team were politely asked to leave the Tour.
I like to ride my bike. A lot. I don't get paid to do it, and if I'm tired, then I don't ride. I can't claim to sympathize with these riders. I like taking long rides--I'm averaging 50-60 miles a ride with long rides on weekends of 70-100 miles. I can't do rides like this (in Texas) without drinking copious amounts of Gatorade and supplementing my energy with a substance like Gu*** Gu is essentially sugar, electrolytes and vitamins. The goo form speeds its absorption into one's system. Some flavors of Gu also have caffeine. These are performance enhancing substances, but they're legal. Why are these substances permitted and blood transfusions (or steroids or EPO or human growth hormone) illegal?
At this point, you're probably wondering what, if anything, this has to do with music. I'm teaching a class this fall on performance, broadly conceived, and I intend to devote one class period to the topic of performance enhancement. What is interesting to me is how many different topics can be subsumed under the broader heading of performance. Bicycling and music are both varieties of performance, and, arguably, both can be enhanced in a variety of "legal" and "illegal" ways.
I remember being disappointed the first time I heard the Philadelphia Orchestra live. They didn't sound anything like the CDs I have. The CDs were perfectly in tune, all of the instrumental families were perfectly balanced, and they were LOUD (especially when I turned my stereo all the way up). Don't get me wrong--the Philadelphia Orchestra is amazing live. But they're only human, and a sort of humanity comes across in the live performance that is missing from the glossy, digitally cleaned up recordings. One could argue that using electronic tuners, or microphones, or amplifiers--anything that you plug in--is a form of performance enhancement, to say nothing of the devices that will "correct" pitch when you sing or play into them.
I suspect there are people who are fine with opening the floodgates and allowing doping in professional sports because we might as well level the playing field and it's certainly more fun to watch. I personally like my old recordings--I don't mind the occasional wrong note. I'll accept the fact that they have been digitally remastered but that the original performances haven't been substantially altered.
My question then is, what kinds of performance enhancement are acceptable and why? Should we allow any performance enhancements? Why do we feel performance enhancements necessary?
*All of this on the heels of stories of doping in golf, baseball, and who knows what other sports. To say nothing of crooked referees and football players who like to watch dogs kill each other.
**This practice allows a rider to recover more quickly because their depleted blood is replaced with fresh, fully oxygenated blood.
***The official goo of the TTU theory department.
So I was devastated to hear yesterday that one of my favorite riders--the man many had pegged to win the Tour this year--tested positive for blood doping.* A blood test performed on Alexandre Vinokourov revealed the presence of another person's blood (!) in his system.** Vinokourov has had quite a Tour. He crashed with a teammate early on and lost time. He started the next day's stage bandaged like a mummy with 60 stitches in his knees. After losing some time, he threw down the gauntlet in stage 13, the individual time trial, putting two minutes into his competitors and bringing him back into contention. On stage 14, he lost about 20 minutes. He came back to win stage 15 by a handy margin. It was on the rest day following stage 15 that the results of the test following stage 13 (stage winners are always tested) were released. Vinokourov and his entire Astana team were politely asked to leave the Tour.
I like to ride my bike. A lot. I don't get paid to do it, and if I'm tired, then I don't ride. I can't claim to sympathize with these riders. I like taking long rides--I'm averaging 50-60 miles a ride with long rides on weekends of 70-100 miles. I can't do rides like this (in Texas) without drinking copious amounts of Gatorade and supplementing my energy with a substance like Gu*** Gu is essentially sugar, electrolytes and vitamins. The goo form speeds its absorption into one's system. Some flavors of Gu also have caffeine. These are performance enhancing substances, but they're legal. Why are these substances permitted and blood transfusions (or steroids or EPO or human growth hormone) illegal?
At this point, you're probably wondering what, if anything, this has to do with music. I'm teaching a class this fall on performance, broadly conceived, and I intend to devote one class period to the topic of performance enhancement. What is interesting to me is how many different topics can be subsumed under the broader heading of performance. Bicycling and music are both varieties of performance, and, arguably, both can be enhanced in a variety of "legal" and "illegal" ways.
I remember being disappointed the first time I heard the Philadelphia Orchestra live. They didn't sound anything like the CDs I have. The CDs were perfectly in tune, all of the instrumental families were perfectly balanced, and they were LOUD (especially when I turned my stereo all the way up). Don't get me wrong--the Philadelphia Orchestra is amazing live. But they're only human, and a sort of humanity comes across in the live performance that is missing from the glossy, digitally cleaned up recordings. One could argue that using electronic tuners, or microphones, or amplifiers--anything that you plug in--is a form of performance enhancement, to say nothing of the devices that will "correct" pitch when you sing or play into them.
I suspect there are people who are fine with opening the floodgates and allowing doping in professional sports because we might as well level the playing field and it's certainly more fun to watch. I personally like my old recordings--I don't mind the occasional wrong note. I'll accept the fact that they have been digitally remastered but that the original performances haven't been substantially altered.
My question then is, what kinds of performance enhancement are acceptable and why? Should we allow any performance enhancements? Why do we feel performance enhancements necessary?
*All of this on the heels of stories of doping in golf, baseball, and who knows what other sports. To say nothing of crooked referees and football players who like to watch dogs kill each other.
**This practice allows a rider to recover more quickly because their depleted blood is replaced with fresh, fully oxygenated blood.
***The official goo of the TTU theory department.