What are the earphones for?

[eva03]

I've just watched Live at the Royal Albert Hall concert and noticed that Vanessa-Mae used earphones in some pieces like Contradanza and Cotton Eye Joe but removed it during Aurora and Caravans. What are the earphones for? So she can follow a pre-recorded track?

[amQhr]

I'm shure that Vanessa don't use a prerecQhrded Track while Life-concerts. I think she uses the EARphone for monitQhring the PA-mixer or Midi-Converter output. So she better can hEAR some other instruments as rythme or special effects of her Midi-Violine. Possibly she's waiting for a inspiring call over her Siemens SL10 if her Taxy-driver or the red cross is arriving to handle the hEARtbreaks of her fans or even the signal of a flQhrope boy bringing flowers?

[changing worlds]

I would guess to help reduce noise, or like amQhr said, to focus on other instruments. With the exception of Toccata & Fugue, the earphones seem to be in during all louder performances. Aurora and Caravans seem to be softer in tone.

[Xanthippe]

I once read that members of symphony orchestras often can't hear menbers of the opposite part during the louder parts when the full orchestra is playing. Of course this all depends largely on the quality of the acoustics of the hall. Naturally, the conductor takes care for keeping everything in synch.

I suppose members of rock bands use earphones for this.

[DavidM]

If you watch a rock band, each member has a speaker on the stage, usually in front of him, pointing AT him. This is called an on-stage monitor, and it is so he can hear the music properly. I once watched a singer doing a sound check before a concert, and there was a problem with the monitors. He complained that he couldn't hear himself sing. The problem wasn't hearing what the rest of the band was doing -- the problem was that the rest of the band was so loud that he couldn't hear himself! The only way he could keep in tune was to to put his fingers his ears, to block the other instruments.

If Vanessa-Mae doesn't use on-stage monitors (and I didn't notice any) then she will use an ear piece that feeds her own sound back to her (it's called inner-ear monitoring, or something). Otherwise she can't tell what she sounds like, because the unamplified violin that she would normally listen to is drowned out by the amplified sound of the other instruments coming from the hall speakers. And that's probably why she doesn't use them in the quiet numbers, because the rest of the orchestra has shut up.

[Xanthippe]

I never noticed any stage monitors either at concerts of Vanessa-Mae.

DavidM is right of course! It is difficult for musicians to hear the other members of the orchestra or band, but certainly also to recognise their own sound.

[Arioch]

Yes the earphones are used to monitor the sound of the violin,
With loud and heavy arrangements, without being able to hear the
instrument the performer will have difficulty knowing how they are
playing, i.e are they in Key and is the instrument still in tune.

[arup75]

Dure the earphones VM can hear her band and the music she plays with her own violin... Then she can hear everything good...