WHAT DO YOU understand by the term "live"? OK, now what do you understand by the term "live" in a musical context? Perhaps you envisage some ambitious stage set with elaborate lighting and a band of real live musicians giving their all to a frenzied audience. It could be that your idea of real live music is a handful of musicians (any religion - rock, jazz, folk...) with music in mind rather than stardom or riches, playing their souls out to a pub audience. If you're in touch with the way artists are taking hi-tech gear into nightclubs and playing live the sort of music a DJ might otherwise provide, the picture may well be one of a couple of guys sweating over their gear while the clubbers dance the night away. Let's agree that the key element is that of people being directly responsible for the music being made.

"Studio" music, on the other hand, is made - probably pieced together, rather than "performed" - without the interaction of an audience. Inferior music? Different, certainly. More polished, probably. Again, let's agree that both forms have their strengths and weaknesses.

But what happens when "studio" music has to make the transition to "live" performance? There are many examples of this happening, and almost as many different degrees of success, failure, justification and inexcusability. Genesis sell millions of records - refined from endless studio sessions - and then pack out stadium gigs across the world; Stock, Aitken & Waterman manufacture their chart success and then send out their "stars" to perform in front of hysterical fans...

But Britain's television channels - notably the BBC with Top of the Pops - seem to have a unique definition of live music. Only on programs such as this can artists appear "live in the studio", mime badly to their singles and walk away with their integrity apparently intact. Granted, this situation is hardly new, and it's not the first time it's worked against the music being showcased through the medium of television, but it's happening and it's hurting.

Years ago this parade of mime artists was used by a disapproving older generation to discredit the music - "they can't even play" was the cry (and in the case of the Dave Clarke Five they were right). Now, with sampling and sequencing playing a major role in popular music, the mime artists are all the ammunition its critics need. And, in part at least, they're right.

Settle down in front of "Europe's biggest pop programme" on a Thursday evening and watch the parade: the girl fronting Black Box miming to samples she has never sung, the drummer behind Jamtronik miming to the beat of a Roland drum machine, the girl fronting JT and the Big Family miming to snatches of Soul II Soul and the Art of Noise... If it's a sample we're hearing, why pretend some black model is singing it? And if sampling and sequencing are valid musical forms, why should it be necessary to represent the use of a sampler with a singer? To provide a "performance" for the audience to witness? If so, what sort of performance advertises an artist's inability to produce the music they're claiming responsibility for?

If sampling in this form is to be accepted as a legitimate musical technique - and I'd venture it's as legitimate as any other if it's used creatively - then presenting it in such an insincere and unconvincing way is only going to feed its critics and delay its acceptance.

If, on the other hand, sampling is a musical gimmick whose only purpose is to provide the record companies with another means of conning a public they claim to be serving, let the show go on.