Just a quick question. In the sentence, if we considered the “but” to solve the second blank, it refers to the sound and clangorous makes more sense in the context of sound. Greg solved it using the last part of the sentence with the context of energy which also makes sense. So how to choose the right context and why is my though process of using sound wrong. Thanks for the help!
In my opinion, we should focus on the verb instead of the subject. Since the sound is contrasted with the “performance” which was elegant, the sound should be the opposite of that.
But is setting the contrast between performance & sound. Now , we must fill the blank about sound given description of performance and as we know there is contrast between the two we should able to infer that if performance was good then sound will be bad and vice-versa. So, for the blank(ii) as we are given information about the performance ( it was energetic) and we know there is a contrast hence, we put opposite of that (sound was tepid ) for the blank describing the sound.
Ohh I get it now. Thanks for the help, much appreciated!