[CAUT] Grieg Experiment

[Fred Sturm]

	Ah, so a visual image is analyzed and, through some complex  
algorithm, made into a sound file. And somehow the static and popping  
is part of the visual image, I suppose. What would Edison think of  
this translation of his invention<G>?
Regards,
Fred Sturm
University of New Mexico
fssturm at unm.edu



On Apr 24, 2008, at 6:20 PM, Ed Sutton wrote:

> Fred-
>
> Nowadays wax recordings are read by microscope and then digitally  
> converted to sound.
> No needles, trumpets or mikes!
>
> Ed Sutton
>
>
> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Fred Sturm" <fssturm at unm.edu>
> To: "College and University Technicians" <caut at ptg.org>
> Sent: Thursday, April 24, 2008 7:51 PM
> Subject: Re: [CAUT] Grieg Experiment
>
>
>> Hi Ric,
>> Fascinating! Amazing job of matching both style of playing and  
>> timber  of the instrument. It certainly sounds convincingly like a  
>> re-creation  from the past. Do you know to what extent the  
>> digitized version of the  wax cylinder recording was manipulated  
>> electronically, if at all? (I  guess there is bound to be some  
>> manipulation, even if not intentional,  in the mechanical process  
>> of cylinder to needle to "trumpet" and then  placement of mikes and  
>> setting gain and whatnot).
>> Regards,
>> Fred Sturm
>> University of New Mexico
>> fssturm at unm.edu
>>
>>
>>
>> On Apr 23, 2008, at 11:45 AM, Richard Brekne wrote:
>>
>>> Hi Folks
>>>
>>> I recently was privileged to be the technician for a very special  
>>> recording on Edward Griegs own old Steinway B.  To make a long  
>>> story short... old wax roles of Edvard Grieg himself were used to   
>>> reference his playing style so that a present day pianist could   
>>> recreate his exact style on Griegs own instrument. There has been   
>>> some controversy as to how fast to play these old roles.  One  
>>> thing  that came clear was that playing them so as to achieve  
>>> present day  pitch results in the music being very fast and rather  
>>> makes Grieg  the pianist sound a bit comical. The folks behind  
>>> this project were  convinced that Grieg was adamant about using a  
>>> much lower concert  pitch... 434-436 and when playing these roles  
>>> so as to achieve that  pitch the playing becomes much more lyrical  
>>> and beautiful... more  what one might expect from a musical genius  
>>> such as Edvard Grieg.    So we tuned his instrument down from its  
>>> present day usual 442 to  436... which had a dramatic affect on  
>>> the sound of the instrument as  well... virtually eliminating a  
>>> very prevalent killer octave area.
>>> In anycase... the link below is a sample clip which interlaces  
>>> the  new recording with digital copies of the old wax roles of  
>>> Edvard  Grieg himself playing.  I hope you enjoy this little taste  
>>> of the  project. Interesting to be sure.  The segments where the  
>>> wax roles  come in are easily distinquished because of all the  
>>> static that  could not be filtered out. The rest is our recording  
>>> on Griegs  Piano. Hope you like it !
>>>
>>> Pianists Sigurd Slåttebrekk / Edvard Grieg
>>> Producer and Sound Technician Tony Harrison
>>> Pianotechnician Richard Brekne
>>>
>>> http://www.pianostemmer.no/music/Grieg.wav
>>>
>>> Cheers
>>> Richard Brekne
>>>
>>>
>>
>