Scores don't vanish the moment they come into existence, but patiently lie on one's desk to be studied again and again. Roughly speaking, composers compose notes and performers create a subtle play with sound, timbre and timing. If one looks into histories of Western music and in musicological curricula, one finds composers and their works, and almost no performers. Performances, that is, sounding compositions or improvisations, are lost. For example, the past sound art of past famous singers is lost for ever, but not the scores of their contemporary composers.
Sound recording changes the status of the musical performance.
When recorded, the musical work of a singer is repeatable, distributable and long-lasting, after the moment of performance and after the death of the singer. It can be listened to and analysed again and again. Through sound recording, the music of the singer can be perceived beyond the reach of the singer herself. With a recording of a performance or an improvisation or with a tape-composition of her vocal sound, a singer becomes a creator of a permanent creative art object. Whether she made it on her own or coproduced it with others, the work of the vocalist is an inextricable and essential part of a musical piece consisting of recorded vocal sounds.