Three hours of lip-synching. Three hours of watching one game amateur after another lipsynch to a recording of a golden oldie.

I sat through a performance of this kind some months ago. The performers had a great time, and quite a bit of work went into it — each number was staged and costumed carefully, right down to moves for “back-up singers.” Some of the performers were pretty darned good … at lip-synching.

I couldn’t help thinking that modern sound technology made this show possible. Before high-fidelity sound, miming to a recording was not as beguiling a stunt, since recordings did not sound as life-like as they do today.

In general, until recorded sound, if you wanted music and/or singing, you either had to do it yourself or have someone else do it. This was why pianos were once staples in living rooms and young women were encouraged to learn to warble in what used to be called a “living room soprano.”

That’s all over now. Our technology gives us music of infinite variety perfectly rendered at the touch of a button. Why should we envy people waiting for some marching band to come through, or shelling out cash to hear or dance to live music for a few hours, or enduring the iffy piano playing of daughter Florence with her “sweaty little hands,” as it was put back in the day?

This means that we moderns tend to have a more distant relationship to the mechanics of music making than our great-grandparents did. Some of us happen to be musicians — but it’s no longer as precious as a skill. In 1900, Flossie’s little hands, sweaty though they were, meant the difference between music in the air and dead silence.

Yes, cash-strapped public schools have tended to cut music classes since the 1970s. But in the old days people learned how to make music as much from private lessons with local teachers as from playing in ensembles in school. The main difference between then and now is that we do not need to learn to sing or play instruments.

I certainly cherish my CD collection and sound system. But last Sunday’s Tony Awards revealed a downside of our distant relationship with the mechanics of making music.

Typically, composers of musicals write just a piano version of the score. The orchestrator then expands that into parts for the orchestra. This is crucial in creating the sound of the show — i.e., why “The King and I” has a different feel from “Miss Saigon.”

The Tony folks gave the orchestration award to the sexy rock show, “Spring Awakening.” But in this, it is clear that the committee, moderns more accustomed to hearing music than rendering it, don’t even know what is orchestration.

The other nominees were Bruce Coughlin for his work on “Grey Gardens” and Jonathan Tunick for “Love-Musik” and “110 in the Shade.” Mr. Coughlin’s orchestration for “Grey Gardens” is ambrosia — I have been addicted to the CD for months. He has the woodwinds, in particular, burbling and blending and commenting on the songs in an intoxicating way — what that man can do with a bassoon alone. He is a Michelangelo of orchestration.

As for Jonathan Tunick, for decades he has fleshed out Stephen Sondheim’s scores into aural Matisse. Okay, for “110 in the Shade” he largely just reinterpreted the 40 year-old show’s original orchestrations for a smaller orchestral pit. But his “LoveMusik” work on Kurt Weill songs is heaven, and is the result of hard work and bracing genius.

The orchestration of the “Spring Awakening” songs is not remotely as deft or special. Never mind whether or not the songs themselves are pleasing. No real musician would even begin to think that the show’s pit band holds a candle to what Messrs. Coughlin or Tunick pulled off for larger and busier ensembles playing for their shows.

Clearly, the Tony evaluators thought “Spring Awakening” merited the orchestration award simply because they liked the songs. Orchestration — oh right, the band. That sounded great. Loud, good beats. Bingo. Best Orchestrations, right?

Wrong. They were unable to comprehend that even if they decided to decree “Spring Awakening” as the Best Musical, and even — albeit for commercial reasons — the Best Score, of the four candidates for Best Orchestrations, the one for “Spring Awakening” easily was least deserving of that particular award.

But how would they know? Few of them have ever had to put together a combo for the school dance or have made their way through commercial orchestrations of popular songs of the day and heard how some were better than others. Few have ever had occasion to observe how a band playing a song sounded richer than just playing it on the piano.

All they have to do is to press a button to hear music. For all the good that comes from the technology that allows this, it’s sad that it means that Bruce Coughlin and Jonathan Tunick’s artistry goes unperceived at Tony time.

Mr. McWhorter is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute.