Wed, 17 Mar 2010
Baobab
So, we recorded the performance. As I mentioned in my previous blog post, the sound for sunday was not recorded properly, so while the image looks far better, having a video with no sound is hardly interesting.
But as a 'sneak preview' for the people involved, I uploaded one fragment of the Saturday recording to youtube:
There's a lot of grain in this image, courtesy of the fact that two of our three cameras just weren't very good. But beyond that, it looks quite good, I'd say...
Mon, 09 Mar 2009
Uitmuntend
Yesterday, the choir of which I've been a member for these past few years went to the provincial tournament—for the first time in its existence. For those of you unaware with what this is: the "provincial tournament" isn't a tournament in the traditional sense (which would have a winner etc); instead, you get to sing in front of an expert jury which will classify you in one of six categories; the category you're in then determines government subsidy your group gets. This is done for all nonprofessional music groups, and makes for a pretty fair way of deciding who gets what, IMO. Apart from that, it's of course also fun.
Anyway, as said this was the first time our choir went to such a "tournament", but of course we weren't alone; apart from us, there were six other choirs, two of which were also part of the Ekerse C-koren: Cantando (the semi-professional choir of our group) and Cantilene (for those between the ages of 18 and 25 (or 16 and 25 for boys).
And we did well. Cantilene (who did very well in the most recent edition of the 'Koor van het Jaar' contest) was categorized in the 'superieure afdeling' ('superior category'), with 75% in that category. Cantando did even better than that; they achieved a score of 93%, also in the superieure afdeling. This is the highest category in the whole system, so it deserves some special praise.
Caljenté, our choir, didn't quite reach that level yet; considering the fact that we've only existed about three years, however, that isn't very surprising. Yet, we did quite well; we were categorized in the 'Uitmuntendheid' category, with a score of 75% in that category. Uitmuntendheid (which would translate to something like 'greatness') is the third possible category, which puts us in the top half of the choirs of the province of Antwerp.
Quite an achievement for what is, after all, a fairly new choir. Of course we're all very happy with that—especially so our conductor, who was rather surprised when she heard the outcome...
For those interested, one of the choir members had a camera with him, and he put the four pieces we sang up on youtube: Credo, Dostoyno Yest, Wals van kwart voor middernacht, and Hodie Christus Natus Est. There're also films of the other choirse, but you'll have to look for those yourself ;-P
Mon, 16 Feb 2009
Heather Dale: Live in Köln
Last june, I went to Cologne to visit a friend
I'd first met Heike at Debconf7 in Edinburg, where we had much fun playing some music together. So the next time we met, which was at FOSDEM '08, she told me that she'd been playing in a band. As in, the kind of people who make music profesionally. Which was really cool. She also told me that this band, which consists mainly of a Canadian couple, would be playing in Cologne in early june, and that perhaps it'd be nice if I could come over to watch.
Considering that'd be a nice excuse for a short holiday, I went, and had a great week in Cologne. Since Heike and the others had to practice, I only saw them in the evening; but Cologne is a great city, with interesting museums and other things, so I would spend the day sightseeing in Cologne (and Bonn on one day), and would be at the particular bar or whatever where the concert would be in the evening. I had a great time. Before going home, I bought one of their CDs, since I really liked the music.
Anyway, at this year's FOSDEM, Heike told me that there was a new CD out (actually MP3 downloads), made from a recording that was done at one of the concerts. So, today, I bought a copy.
Come to think of it, this is the first time I bought an album of a concert that I actually went to, and where I did not perform myself. After all, I don't really go to concerts all that often—unless I'll be on stage.
What's strange is that the music sounds slightly different from how I remember it. The mind can do strange things... or is it the case that a recording is not the real thing?
Probably. In any case, the music is great, so go check it out!
Sun, 23 Nov 2008
Music is Math
Gintautas Miliauskas blogs about a computer program that can generate something which reportedly really sounds like composer-written music; apparently it has passed a 'turing test' where people listened to music generated by this thing, and music written by a human composer.
I'm afraid, however, I'll have to disappoint him a bit, really. If we ignore the effect that music can have on the emotional state of a living being for a moment, then it's a plain and simple fact that music is pure math:
- 'An octave' is the musician's term for 'a doubling in frequency'. As many people know, a center A on a piano is tuned at 440Hz; it follows that an A one octave higher is tuned at 880Hz, and that the one which is one octave lower will be 220Hz.
- 'Chords' are based around that, too. A regular C chord, for example, contains the C, E, and G notes; and usually, a C at one octave above the first C is included, too. The frequency of a G is exactly halfway between the two C notes, and the E is about halfway between those. Most chords are built in such a manner; the sound waves of those notes will build an interference pattern that is perceived as a chord.
- A melody usually starts with the base note of the key in which the piece is written, and almost always (except during a short time in the early baroque) ends with that same base note. Note that the 'base' note is not the same thing as the "bass" note (although the base is often used in the bass).
There are many other things in music that can be expressed as mathematical rules; learning to how to compose music involves learning those rules, which is a long and tedious process.
Now I'm not saying that following those rules will necessarily lead you to an interesting piece of music; the fact that it's possible to create something ugly while still using chords etc. But since so much of it already is math, I can imagine it not being extremely hard to figure out what the other rules are (the ones a composer figures out by imself as opposed to being taught them), transferring them into a computer program, and using that to generate music.
That's not to say that such a thing is easy to do, and I'm sure it's still an impressive feat to create a computer program which can create "nice" sounding music; but I don't think this would qualify as 'artificial intelligence'. At least not any more than Deep Blue
Fri, 17 Aug 2007
'Jam' session
At debconf7, I brought my (brand-new) flute, and urged other people to bring their instruments, too; and on tuesday, we had some fun playing together. As we were playing, people started entering, and suddenly we had an audience. What fun.
Anyway. Dave Noble had the idea of videotaping most of it, and this ended up being uploaded to the meetings archive along with the other videos. As I checked today, the high-quality version has been uploaded as well. Which is way cool.
Thanks, videoteam!
Tue, 17 Jul 2007
Joshua Bell: followup.
I was still getting responses on my Joshua Bell in the subway article today, weeks after I posted that. This was unusual, so I started investigating. Turns out Fark.com links to it, and many people find their way from there. Hi!
Anyway, the latest comment on that item contains this gem:
There is/was a street musician here in Boston who played the most amazing slide guitar I have ever heard. He is also filthy, unkempt, rude, and generally angry at the commuters who he clearly feels owe him more of their attention. It would be wrong to assume that his failure to draw crowds is due solely to the public's inability to appreciate music.
Right on! My point exactly.
Mon, 25 Jun 2007
Joshua Bell in the metro
A few months ago, the Washington Post featured an article about Joshua Bell playing his violin (which happens to be a Stradivarius) in a Washington metro station. Contrary to their expectations, nobody stopped by to listen.
The article tries to find reasons for why this happened, digging into theories by a number of famous philosophers. While those are undoubtedly not far from the truth, let me dig up another theory:
Joshua Bell may be one of the best musicians in the world; that doesn't mean he's one of the best street musicians in the world.
You see, if you play your Stradivarius in a concert hall, you don't have to do much to get people's attention. If your name is Joshua Bell and you play in the New York Opera House, people pay good money to get a seat months in advance, they circle the date on their calendar, and they look forward to it for weeks. When the big day arrives, they dress up, they drive up to the opera house, they queue for the privilege of being allowed to show their tickets and being allowed in, they take their seats, and they wait in excitement and anticipation until the big moment arrives.
If your name is Joshua Bell and you play your Stradivarius in a concert hall, people will clap their hands you before you've even started. You'd better make it be good, or they'll demand their money back.
If, however, you play on the street, then that's a completely different matter.
You don't get to have people circle the date of your street concert months in advance. You have exactly one second to let them know you're playing. You don't get to have an audience that will clap their hands the very moment they see you turn the corner; instead, you'll see an audience that would rather you did not stand in the middle of the way like that, so that they would not have to look out for you. In short, you don't get their attention on a silver platter; instead, you have to earn it.
As someone who's done street music in the past, I can tell you that earning someone's attention isn't something you will do by playing the most difficult music that can be found. You should remember that you've got just a few seconds to catch someone's attention; from the moment they vaguely hear someone's playing, until that time when they're getting annoyed at the volume your, no doubt wonderful, instrument is making. If you want people to stop and listen, you need to do it in that very short timeframe.
A wild and fast virtuoso piece, while sure to get you a great reaction by an audience in an opera house, is only a very noisy thing if you just get a few seconds of it—even if those few seconds are by the best violin player alive.
The best way to get someone's attention is to give them something they recognize.
The article notes the reactions from a few passers-by. It did not surprise me that of the three or four people who actually stopped and listened, one recognized the violinist as Joshua Bell, and the other had been a violinist himself in a previous life.
Both had something they recognized, which made both stop for a few moments to check what they were seeing. That's what gave them more time to appreciate how truly beatifull this music was, and that's why they waited.
The real way to get people to stop, to get a crowd around you, and to have them to listen to you, is not to play what gets you the best results in an Opera House or other concert hall. Instead, you should play something that will catch people's attention. A brilliant piece that is unknown will not do that. A funny variation on "Oh When The Saints" will, because people recognize the music.
That's not to say that street musicians should only play stuff like "Oh When The Saints". Getting money from playing on the street has more to it than just the music you're playing; just as important is the place where you're playing, and the time when you're doing it:
- If you're playing in a busy hallway, then people will just hurry along. Stopping gets them angry other people walking in their back, so that doesn't happen. If, on the other hand, you play on a large market square or some such, then people are much more likely to stand and listen—people walk in all directions there at the same time, so you have to look out anyway.
- If you're playing in a closed metro station, you'd better not use an instrument that's too loud. If you do, that will make people move away from you, rather than towards you, because they'll notice they can not talk on their cell phones or some such. If they have to pass by where you're playing to get to where they're going, they'll increase their speed so that they're faster past you. Both options give you less time to catch their attention.
- If you're playing on a monday morning during rush hour, you're not going to be getting a load of success. Everyone is going to work, and you're just something in the background, not much more interesting than the guy who's changing the billboard. If, OTOH, you're playing in a busy shopping mall on a sunny saturday afternoon, you'll get a large crowd anyhow.
A good street musician knows these things, and applies them even without knowing. He'll instinctively know whether it's a good day to do street music, and he'll rather go to a bar and have a hot drink if it's not.
So why didn't Joshua Bell get a crowd around him? Easy: he isn't a very good street musician.
Mon, 18 Dec 2006
Choir
Last week's sunday (that is, 2006-12-10), we had a concert with the choir. Rather than just singing four songs as we did during our "toonmoment", this time we had about an hour of music, spanning about everything (really) from the Renaissance up to modern music. Pretty fun, that. It went pretty well, too—except for one little note which we totally missed in the low end. But that's because it was really in the low end, and we had gone down a bit.
For those who care about that stuff, there's a (low quality) fragment of the video they made of the concert up on youtube, with us singing "Tourdion", a French Renaissance drinking song, which we opened the concert with—although this version is the one we did at the end, because people asked for another song. I stand at the far right, the last bass singer; at my left (your right), there are only altos. Occasionally, the first alto to my left happens to be Leen Verhelst, my sister, who's been in choirs mostly all her life.
Fri, 23 Jun 2006
Choir concert
I had been in a choir called "Cantilene" since the age of sixteen. Since this was a youth choir, however, I was kindly asked to leave when I hit 26, now two years ago.
Unfortunately, that left me in the cold, as Cantilene was part of the c-koren family which did not really have a choir that appealed to me, with hours that would allow me to attend rehearsals.
This has changed now; since a few months, the C-koren have a new member choir called "Caljenté" (which is supposedly a spanish word meaning "warmth" or some such—I'm sure Spanish people will correct me if I'm wrong;-P ), and we will give our first small concert next week's friday, at 20:30, in the "Sint Lambertuskerk" (church of Saint Lambert) of Ekeren, my home town. Everyone who can make it is welcome to be there...
Wed, 14 Sep 2005
Inge's flute
We have quite a musical family. I play the flute, and have started playing the piano, too; my brother Joris and sister Leen have actually followed piano classes (in my case it's self-education); Roel plays the guitar; and Thomas used to play the drums. Next, Leen, Joris, and myself all have sung in a choir.
Roel's girlfriend also plays the guitar (in fact, if I'm not mistaken, that is how they met). Now since she's finished guitar classes, she was interested in learning a different instrument, and chose the flute.
Last weekend, she arrived at our home with a flute she'd bought second-hand. Nothing too fancy—a Yamaha YFL-211SII, which is a pretty regular beginner's instrument—and asked me to have a look at it.
My initial feeling was Can I? Really?.
Living without a normal flute (and without the budget to buy a new one) for the past year hasn't been too easy. Even if I didn't play the instrument all that often when I still had it, I've always loved making music.
The instrument wasn't in perfect condition (one of the springs had come loose), but it wasn't anything I couldn't fix. I did play it for a while, and that was lovely.
Thu, 19 May 2005
Wrong guess.
It wasn't Star Wars. Instead, my brothers and sister ordered the piano tuner. Which was a good idea – last time our piano was tuned was, according to the guy's records, back in 1998. My brother was still attending piano classes back then, and my parents made sure the piano was more or less tuned correctly most of the time.
Since he stopped those classes a few years back, the piano just stood there. We didn't get rid of it, and I liked to play it every once in a while. Not that I'm extremely good at it, but, well.
I started playing more often lately, since I've discovered the existance of the Mutopia Project. I guess they noticed; and since my now 24-year-old brother has been playing the guitar since he was 10, or so, I guess he got quite irritated with me playing on a piano so direly in need of tuning...
Heh. Well, it does sound a lot better now. Thanks :-)
Sun, 24 Apr 2005
Waffles
For the ensemble's fundraising evening which was yesterday, I spent the better part of yesterday's afternoon baking waffles. The real Belgian ones, with the recepy as is traditional in Brussels. Started doing that at 14:00, finished at 17:30.
Most of it was spent waiting for a waffle to be ready; the waffle iron we have isn't too large (or whatever it's name is) and can only bake one waffle at a time, which takes about 5 to 10 minutes; considering I did about 15 of them, and that I of course also had to prepare the dough (twice, because I didn't have enough at first), well...
In any case, they were good. After removing the failed ones, and eating a few of them, I had 11 waffles left to take to the fundraising event, which was one more than had been asked of me; and there were 4 leftovers, so we're enjoying them today, too. Of course, they don't taste as good cold as they do when they've just been made and are still a bit warm, but with a bit of powder sugar, nobody notices...
Sun, 03 Apr 2005
Missing my flute
It was a beautiful day today. The perfect weather: sun shining, but not so much that you want to stay in the house, out of the sun, doing nothing; no unexpected rain, or other sudden changes; and –especially– it's not the time of the year yet when most plants and flowers are in bloom, so I didn't spend all day sneezing either.
This kind of weather is the perfect weather to sit on our terrace, by the pond, and play some music. Unfortunately, since both my flutes have been stolen, the only instrument I could use to do this was the bass flute. I tried playing Debussy's Syrinx, but it didn't sound good on that instrument (to put it mildly), and I had to redo parts all the time because I couldn't get it right. After some minutes, I suddenly realized I was playing the piece one octave too high, and that the flute was already weighing on my arms.
Discouraged, I put it away again. I would've loved to play some more, but I knew at that point that playing this instrument wouldn't satisfy my desires.
This is the first time since the instruments were stolen that I'm really missing them. I didn't miss the first (and objectively most valuable) instrument when it was stolen, because I still had the second (and oldest, and emotionally more valuable) one at that point. I didn't miss the second instrument when it was stolen, because I could still play the bass flute when I wanted to, and indeed do so each week at the rehearsal. Of course I felt a loss, but didn't actually miss them yet. I do now.
