My Thesis “Die Simulation des akustischen Klaviers in der Musikproduktion” is now published by VDM-Verlag. You can buy a copy at amazon.de. German language only – but here’s the english abstract:
This paper focuses on the possibilities of piano simulation in the current production of music. It begins with a discussion and analysis of the technical development, functionality, and sound production of the mo- dern day, acoustic piano. Next, it examines the method of multi–sampling for piano sound reproduction. Following a definition and historical recapitulation, it analyses the approach of using multi–sampling on the basis of current software products and takes a closer look at a specific example. The second technique analyzed in this work is the sound production approach of physical modeling synthesis. This simulation technique uses a computer generated mathematical model to simulate the laws of physics of a musical inst- rument – in this case the piano. A summary, historical review and an explanation of the technique provides a basic understanding of this process. An example, using a theoretical model, demonstrates the complexity of problems inherent in this process. The only existing software product currently available on the market is analysed in terms of possible applications. The intention of this work is the following comparison of the pros and cons of the aforementioned piano simulation methods. Finally, the appropriateness of the tech- niques will be discussed in the conclusion.
Acoustic Botany
Acoustic Botany, by David Benqué, extracts Synthetic Biology and Genetic Engineering from the usual context of health care, food and environment and examines instead the role they could play in the sphere of culture and entertainment.
BBC Four spoiled its audience recently with a collection of brilliant music documentaries that underline the impact technology, namely the synthesizer, had on popular and academic music in Britain.
What is Burial’s music ‘about’? What does it ‘do’? Come to think of it, what is his music? What does it mean? Of course, all of this is up to the listener’s imagination, but for a while now there’s been a certain degree of consensus on the answers to these questions: Burial ‘mourns the death of rave’, his music is (to paraphrase a handful of commentators) a ‘plaintive echo from a bygone era of collective energy’, ‘a melancholy, ghostly memory of the faded promise of rave, drenched in weathering and mired in urban decay’.
Interesting post about Burial and his music at Rouge’s Foam Blog.
Fugue in E Flat Minor by JS Bach
Plastic representation of the Fugue in E Flat Minor by JS Bach, 1928 by Henri Nouveau.
Bobby McFerrin demonstrates the universal power of music – especially the power of the fifths ;) The audience knows exactly how to follow McFerrin’s jumps…
The major pentatonic scale is formed by taking the 5 “fifths” in succession. If you start on C, you get the notes C, G, D, A, and E. Put those into a single octave and you get the scale of C, D, E, G, A. (In solfege, this is “Do, So, Re, La, Mi”, rearranged to “Do, Re, Mi, So, La”).
These “fifths” are formed by a fundamental ratio in nature of 3:2. (If middle C rings at 291 Hz, then the fifth above it, a G, rings at 392 Hz). The notes’ waveforms will literally line up in space.
That lining up is felt in our bodies. That’s why the audience can sing those notes.
It’s also choirs will nearly always go out of tune only on the 2 notes *not* in the pentatonic scale – in C major, that’s F and B (or Fa and Ti).
Metastasis is an orchestral work by Iannis Xenakis, a Greek composer.
“Metastasis was inspired by Einstein’s view of time (a function of matter & energy) and structured on mathematical ideas by Xenakis’s colleague Le Corbusier. The 1st and 3rd movements don’t have a melodic theme to hold them together, but rather depend on the strength of this conceptualization of time. The 2nd movement does have some sort of melodic element. A fragment of a 12-tone row is used, with durations based on the Fibonacci sequence (1,1,2,3,5,8,13,21,34…) ”
