The word “live” originally meant something simple: a performer, on stage, in front of you, doing something in real time. But this paper complicated that definition in ways I did not expect. Auslander argues that “liveness and mediatization can co-occur” (Section 2), meaning something can be pre-built and still be considered live. That already tells you the word has lost a fixed meaning.

The contrast between Deadmau5 and Derek Bailey did not resolve this for me, it made it harder. Bailey believes music should be composed entirely in the moment with “no stylistic or idiomatic commitment” (Section 4), while Deadmau5 openly admits “we all hit play” (Section 3) and is completely comfortable with that. Personally, I side with Deadmau5.

Growing up in the UAE, the music I know is crafted, refined, and then presented. The artistry lives in the preparation, not in making things up on the spot. Deadmau5 himself said it best: “my skills shine where it needs to shine… in the goddamned studio” (Section 3). Showing your screen during a performance does not automatically make it more “live” than presenting finished work with intention. The paper frames live coding as closer to Bailey’s improvisation, but for me, performing your work in front of an audience is what makes it live, regardless of when the composition happened.