Slashdot Mirror
Computers Replace Musicians In West End Musical
Albanach writes "The Scotsman newspaper is reporting that despite opposition from the Musician's Union, Sir Cameron Mackintosh will proceed with his plan to replace one half of the musicians in his musical Les Miserables with a computer synthesiser. The Times claims that using Sinfonia will allow the show, the third longest running musical in history, to replace 11 musicians saving 5,000 GBP ($9,450 US) per week. Sinfonia consisits of 2 PCs, one master and one backup, controlled by an trained operator using a musical keyboard."
The musicians are not going to be any Less Miserable.
:)
Sorry
Free XBox, PS2
At least they didn't outsource their jobs to India !
-- You see, there would be these conclusions that you could jump to
They mean a stylophone?
Car analogies break down.
What is the point in going to see live, but fake, music?
BTW, Will the
Just my 0.02$
DrkBr
What not replace the entire orchestra with a CD player? Then you avoid having to use the Sinfonia's capability to play along with live musicans.
The actors and set could also be replaced by projecting an image of a pre-recorded performance onto a large screen.
If there was a way to distribute this recording, people could watch it on smaller projection screens at home, and avoid the cost of theatre tickets and the hassle of having to travel to the theatre.
The only hard part would by syncronising the CD player to the projection, but I'm sure someone will come up with a method in the future.
What's next?!?! A virtual Jimi Hendrix?
The point of going to a live show is just that -- to hear live music from an orchestra of real musicians. Jean Michel Jarre, in particular, has already lost a lot of concert-goers when they found out he sometimes used pre-sequenced synths instead of using an army of keyboardists and playing the lead himself, live.
Sure, some people go to a musical just for the lights, costumes and action... but how many are there? Surely the majority go for the music?
>Art should be a form of expression, not an automated process
The average West End musical is a form of business. The main art involved is that of making a profit.
Although he can replace half, there are still jobs that he needs real musicians for. I wonder if those musicians would boycott or try to put him under pressure to use real musicians for everything? They must still have some leverage if they are needed for the parts that computers can't do...
If the show is not making enough money then that is because it is past it's "sell-by" date. If it's just to make more money by cutting costs then it's pretty disgusting really. Yeah, he might make more money but how about putting money back into the community of musicians who made LM possible when computerisation was not an option? Guess I'm just an old softie really...
that the salary of a professional musician ,who has most probably spent years of training and hard work ,working for a major west end production makes only 450 a week(and this figure is most probably gross).Waiters earn this sum working 7-8 shifts.I mean what happened to cultural society?
How many musicians give up just because they cant survive on these wages?I am appalled.
Wanted : A Signature.
I think they'll find that while samplers can recreate the basic acoustical sound of an instrument perfectly, it just can't handle the incredible detail and expression that comes from having a good musician play the instrument live. I guess I could understand it in a normal play, but in a musical?
The darkness... controls the music. The music... controls the soul.
Surprising this hasn't happened before.
I was just about to bring up the hypothetical situation that the music has to be adaptable to any hiccups that occur on the stage - i.e. an actor forgets a cue so the orchestra plays an extra intro bar.
However, I was working in the theatre when the first automated lighting desks appeared and a skillfull operator could always adapt or delay when changing to the next "scene".
Having said that, lighting is secondary to the performance compared with the music - jumping around the place would be kind of stupid. How do they cope with non-scripted events?
I'm also of the opinion that we pay pretty high ticket prices to see a "live" performance - both for the actors and the musicians - I think I'd feel ripped off knowing that it was a computer orchestra..
This sig is in Spanish when you're not looking....
English is not my mother tongue, but that hurt.
Everybody raise a glass to the master of the house!
Basically, as an artist, unless you are a really famous poet, lauded painter, sought after comic book artist, best-selling writer, or a pop music star, you are broke.
I would gladly spend "full" price to see a performance which was originally meant to be done by machines. But if the spirit of a performance is changed solely to cut costs, the savings should be passed along to me, or I'd rather spend my money on the real thing.
Nope, sorry you are post number 8279449, A far cry from first.
With all of this production going into works now and people able to compose their own music via the pc/mac then lan network, it's not a wonder that everyone is not recording their own Symphonies. And reselling them for .99 cents per pop.
www.linuxfree.net Quality linux distributions on cd/dvd
Did they at least use alsa v.1.0.2?
This issue led to a battle between producers and the musicians union in New York last spring, which eventually resulted in a four-day strike ended by a new contract brokered by the mayor's office. The compromise preserves live orchestras, but reduces the required size. Most media coverage has expired (or moved into paid archives) but a simple Google search turns up:
Anti-synthesizer advocacy site.
Sinfonia article.
Settlement story.
I'm also pretty sure that a musician playing the actual instrument can change more parameters than you can change on a synthesizer simulating that.
Even if you had a perfect recording of sound you wouldn't have the same radiation pattern from your speakers as from real instruments. I'm sure that using this you can tell if it's a live orchestra or a bunch of speakers.
Most of us are only looking at some musicians who will be losing this particular job. When you have a career or an ability, you have to gauge your chances of marketing said ability. If I was a horse-shoer or a gaslamp-lighter, I'd probably not find many job opportunities.
It is said that these individuals have lost these particular jobs, but what about what others have gained? The producers of this show will save money, which means they'll have more disposable income to spend on other things they want (meaning new jobs in other areas). Maybe they'll eat out more, or go on more vacations. Or maybe they'll lower the prices of their tickets, which means the customers who buy tickets will have more disposable income to spend money elsewhere.
Like Bastiat's "Broken Window" myth dismissal, this job dismisall is also a bogeyman. So is "offshore job outsourcing." When some people can't do the job at a price the rest of us are willing to pay, then it is time to find new skills or promote other skills they may have.
All tariffs harm the economy, and fighting for jobs for musicians instead of using synthesizers is ludicrous. If the customer doesn't mind the lower quality inhuman music, why should we care?
$10k per week? At a conservative $50 a pop, that's only equivalent to 200 people in the door - per week. It's sad that they're compromising the art for relatively small savings.
This should be the first post, but it isn't. Where is it? [Hums X-Files theme...]
If you've been following this story, you see that the musicians aren't being replaced merely for the sake of autmation. The issue is that the particular theater is tiny, and the musician's pit can hold only about a dozen musicians.
The producer's viewpoint is that people who go to see Les Mis want to hear the full Les Mis sound, so he's using recorded music to fill in the for the people that the pit doesn't hold.
Humans are in most cases simply acting as input for synthesized instruments anyway. They input the exact same thing over and over. Thus, they can be replaced by computers.
But synthesizers still can't match real instruments, which is why musicians are still needed. But when you put musicians in front of computer inputs, they are bound to be replaced. Good synthesizers still are expensive, but they are bound to come down in price as demand increases, lowering per-unit licensing. Yes, there are free ones available, but it wouldn't come close to the commercial solutions from yamaha, etc.
Makintosh computers! Yuk yuk yuk.
Computer replacement of live theatre musicians became an issue on Broadway last year, as the Broadway musicians' union was preparing to strike over the producers' proposal to reduce minimum orchestra sizes in Broadway theatres. Essentially, the producers said that if the musicians struck, they would keep their Broadway musicals open by substituting a computer simulated orchestra, and some shows even called casts in to rehearse with these systems in preparation for a strike. In the end, the musicians did strike, but since the actors and some technicians honored the picket lines, the musicals were cancelled rather than performed with computer orchestras.
If I go to the opera or to a musical, I expect live musicians and actors/singers. If I wanted canned music, I would save a bunch of money and buy a CD or DVD. I don't care how many whiz-bang gadgets are in the synthesizer, it isn't going to sound like real musicians playing real instruments.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
dada21, I understand what you are saying, but the horse-shoer or the gaslamp-lighter would be better analogized with someone whose job was to manufacture cassette tapes. I should hope and expect that musicians (people) will continue to create and perform music. And that it's not something that will become obsolete - like horses as the main form of transportation.
What really sucks is that it uses the General MIDI synth on the old soundblaster 16 card...
Since pretty much all the well known musicals today are found in New York City on Broadway. This presents a problem because people aren't going to New York as much as they use to due to terrorism concerns. Some musicals had to close because no one was going to NYC. I don't know if the audience numbers have returned to pre-Sept 11th levels or not, but saving a little money can be helpful. However, it really does ruin the experiance, sure the music may be accurate everytime, but I think that the a real musician is a hell of a lot better because he or she can add a whole lot more to the music than prerecorded music can.
Awesome. Did you know that no one can open your userpage?
How do you know it won't become obsolete? Is talent even a necessity to succeed financially? I prefer live music over Britney-pop, so I'll continue to support the bands I love, but they'll never make a killing at it. They KNOW their style of music isn't financially viable, they do it out of love for performance. Their choice.
Just because it is art doesn't mean that we as a society have to accept it -- the only things that really move forward are ones that can profit for the producer -- and profit does not have to mean financially. Some musicians profit by making their audience happy or by providing themselves with happiness.
The producers of this particular theater have decided (or gambled or risked) that their customers won't mind a mechanical reproduction. They're taking the risk. The musicians, if they are good and their product is desired by some consumer(s), will find other work. If they can't find work, then they should find a new job or talent -- the public shouldn't be taxed to save what may become a dead product (or may not).
music to my ears!
I for one welcome our new musical overlords.
I don't really see the big deal. Synthesizers have been replacing musicians for decades, and have been capable of producing fairly passable orchestra synthesis for 20 years. What's new ? These articles to me seem more like publicity for the manufacturer of the machine.
I (mark_dot on /.) read Walter M. Miller Jr.'s The Darfsteller last year in "The Hugo Winners, Volume 1." A brilliant story about actors displaced by robots, who themselves are coordinated by a powerful central AI (machine). This real life story reminds me very strongly of The Darfsteller. I strongly recommend Miller's 50-page short story if you find this real life story intriguing. :)
Mackintosh says he's been forced to do this by moving to the smaller theatre because the pit can only accommodate 11 musicians. Where exactly does the Musicians' Union want to put the rest of the orchestra? Suspend them from the ceiling?
Reading the rather limited blurb about the Sinfonia on the manufacturer's site, it's not like the orchestra or conductor is playing to a click-track or anything, the Sinfonia is operated by someone, presumably playing along to a piano part or some other lead part under the control of the conductor, then the synths on it follow that. Which means the conductor still has overall control of the orchestra, and it seems that the Sinfonia operator can even repeat bars or whatever, in response to what's happening on stage (although in a professional musical, an actor forgetting their line is somewhat unlikely, those things run like clockwork).
Yes, there's no substitute for live musicians, but if it's a case between the show going ahead or not (such as this case on RMS's site), then the answer is obvious to me. It's rather amusing that the musicians' unions are worried, they should be comforted in the knowledge that they can do better than a synth. Indeed, RMS claim that the Sinfonia can free up room for more live musicians by reducing the need for seperate synth players.
Still, I'd like to have a play with it before I'm fully convinced :).
FROM THIS DISEASED MOUTH SPREADS THE WORD OF TROLLKORE
Which word? You people keep talking about spreading the word, but it never comes out. Where is it?
they are just following a score, no creative input what so ever... if a machine can do the job better imo it should
I was right in the middle of a solo, and the music went like beep beep beep and then it was dead and I had to start all over again! And it was a really good solo!
If Slashdot were chemistry it would look like this:Cadaverine
"to replace 11 musicians saving 5,000 GBP ($9,450 US) per week."
That works out to $454.54 per week per musician.
I can assure you that these guys aren't living a rockstar life.
Perhaps the musicians will feel rewarded by the irony of the situation?
...where the entire soundtrack was scored by Commodore 64 SID chips. What now?
If you're a trumpet player, at that level, you'll probably have to put in at least another 2-3 hours EVERY DAY just to keep your lip muscles in conditioned. As a trumpet player, I know...missing just one day, feels like you missed half a week.
As long as the computer is synched with the group by a person, the quality of this will be more than acceptable.
If you're listening, you'll notice that much of TV and movie music is already computerized (often with one or two real woodwinds or a real guitar, which gives it enough life to satisfy nearly anyone).
And, although the tradition of theater is for live music, our musical environments and tastes are constantly being shaped by techno, hip-hop, and even rock that relies upon computerized beats aesthetically (intentionally, to create non-human sounding grooves etc.), so many people like what they hear.
I remember being surprised reading Miles Davis' Autobiography, where he talks about making the switch to a drum machine for his records (in the 1980's). He basically said that it was easier, sounded great, and the time was better. He was convincing.
Now, in terms of putting musicians out of work, and creating a culture where most musicians don't have a chance to learn to be great by playing in bars, cafes, and pit orchestras (even Stravinsky did this in Paris), instead giving us a stream of good musicians who can't interact with a crowd or good-looking performers with shallow musical abilities? That's another, and much sadder, story.
Britney Spears is scheduled to be replaced by two writers, a perfect-pitch filter, and a hacked Aibo.
THIS SPACE INTENTIONALLY LEFT BLANK.
Being a musician myself (violin + percussion), I have heard many stories of this, where live musicians are being replaced by synthesizers. I've never encountered this myself, due to the fact that I don't play professionally, but it is an ongoing trend. What is the point to go watch a performance if half of the orchestra is computerized? What's to prevent you from duplicating this at home (besides the obvious gap in technology)? Musicians already have a hard time finding a source of income, and now their niche is being replaced... On a sidenote to this, one of my violin teachers is/was in the process of getting A+ certified, just so he could support his income...
So they outsourced the musicians eh? Well, at least the drummers are safe.
Les Miserables is an operetta.
-fred
Sign #11 of Slashdot overdose: You see the phrase 'moderate Republican' and you wonder if that would be a +1 or a -1.
I have a feeling that it will not become obsolete for the reasons that you have stated- "They KNOW their style of music isn't financially viable, they do it out of love for performance." and that despite a band's financial success, you will "continue to support the bands (you) love." There are people creating and likewise people supporting.
Might as well throw in a video screen, and just play a DVD while you are at it. Think of all the savings.
-- "maybe happiness is a fragment of existence, but with better packaging"
Wow, I have just lost a lot of respect for Les Mis. I go to see a show such as les mis to expiriance the talent that goes into performing it, the stage performers, the musiciansa, hell, even the ingenious nature of the stage crew entertains me. I do not go to shows to hear a computer reguritate the same shit each time.
I guess I won't be seeing/hearing les mis anymore.
I say this as a computer geek, and a drummer.
--Nuintari
slashdot : where an opinion can be wrong.
The musicians that are missing out on these jobs are just being put out of their misery. Playing the same part in the same musical night after night after night is enough to drive anyone insane.
booo!
;-) )
I go to see musicals because of the live music played by live skilled people AND for the singers and dancers on the stage (and various other places in the room for some musicals
a computer is NOT what i want to hear. if i want that sort of thing, i'll stay at home with a DVD thanks - whats next? no actors/actresses and just some prefilmed footage instead???
Les Miserables is a musical, not a play. The music is vital for setting the mood of the piece. Each character has his or her own motif which lets gives you insight into the characters. For Wagner, this was almost more important for character development than the libretto (lyrics) itself. When I go to a musical, I pay for the best seats so I can sit close to the pit. I want to see the conductor carefully watching the actors on stage and communicating with the musicians so that everything stays together. It is truly an amazing thing to see a large group of people perform together in sync.
When I was in high school, I got to see a touring company of Les Miserables. One of the parts I looked forward to seeing the most was after the barricades fall and Jean Valjean looks through the bodies for Marius. There is a huge oboe solo that plays the melody to Jean Valjean's song, "Bring Him Home." This music conveys to the audience that although Jean Valjean knows he will lose his daughter to Marius by saving him, he knows that is what he should do. As an oboe student, I listened carefully how the musician interpreted the solo. It was a rare opportunity for me to get to hear someone else besides my teachers, and a machine simply would not have been the same.
Once in college as a music major, I got to experience the musicians' union's pettiness. Many times we had to sit in rehearsal for several minutes not allowed to rehearse because our morning rehearsal had gone over several minutes and the union members' lunch break had to be exactly sixty minutes. However when it came time to play, people would get over their egos and make music. (Musicians have always been difficult to deal with - Bach stabbed a bassoonist and Handel tried to throw a soprano out a window!).
Next month, my elementary school music students are going to get a great opportunity. The Nashville Opera company is travelling to our rural mining town and performing The Barber of Seville. The school had a choice whether to watch the performance on a live internet broadcast or have a scaled down version of the opera travel to the school. We chose to have the opera come to the school because seeing it live will engage the students better and just be more exciting for them. The children are prettty pumped about it, too.
It saddens me to think that Les Mis has to move to a smaller theater because of declining ticket sales. Perhaps it would be better to let it close with a little dignity instead of letting go on forever like Cats. But Cameron Macintosh was responsible for Cats lingering on forever too!
I think people are missing out on something obvious here. If the customer minds, the customer will complain or stop paying as often. And to stop that, the musicians will be brought back.
If there is a problem, it'll kinda correct itself, no?
Can't wait to see Silon and Garfunkel
Les Miserables has to move out of its current theater because of renovations, and the theater they're moving into is the only one currently available. But, as it's quite a bit smaller, there's not enough room for the orchestra. But I find it odd, then, that the stage is big enough for the show (which, itself, is quite big) or the cast (which is also quite big), but the pit isn't big enough for the orchestra. And, of course, by ripping out a row or two of seats, the orchestra pit could easily be expanded. But no one wants to do that, because it would cut into the profits. The easiest thing to do for audiences who mostly don't know or care about the difference between virtual music and live music is to replace musicians. But at what point does reducing Les Miserables or any show make it no longer the same show? At a certain point during the Broadway run of the show, they just cut 15 minutes out of it to get it to run under three hours so they would have to stop paying the cast overtime. But the ticket prices, of course, didn't go down. Rest assured that audiences paying to see Les Miserables in London will not be paying less for fewer live musicians. The difference will go right into Cameron Mackintosh's pocket, as is always the case.
Personally, I think when it comes time to start cheating the audience out of the full experience of the show, as in either the current London case or the Broadway one I mentioned above, it might be best to just close the show and move on. But that's speaking from an audience member's perspective--from the perspective of someone who is something of an industry insider, sure, take the customers who don't know the difference for as much money as you can. The ones who do know the difference probably have already seen Les Miserables one or more times and have no desire to go back to see a reduced version of the show.
--Matthew
"If the lights of Broadway blind me, I won't mind..."
Try this link:
http://slashdot.org/users.pl?uid=182850
One guy trained to use a proprietary system sounds like it could eventually become more expensive than actual musicians. I would expect the demand for this sort of talent to far outweigh the supply. What happens when demand makes him more expensive than the original musicians?
Were I a theatre patron, I would be sorely disappointed that the show I paid good money for involved this. I think they've miscalculated what an audience demands. I think an audience *does* want a live orchestra if they're paying for a top-quality show. This fails to deliver in that regard, and devalues the performance accordingly. I guess ticket sales will show exactly how much.
To address a few of the concerns raised here:
Les Mis is not a play, it is a musical. In fact, there is little to no spoken word in Les Mis making it almost an opera, which would make the music quite important.
Many people seem to think that if all the musicians are doing is playing from the score, then a machine may as well be doing it. To me, that's like saying, "if all the actors are doing is reading from the script, then we may as well replace them with robots." The fact is, despite the mess of markings that is a classical score, there are many more things not on that page that musicians are expected to fill in. There is a passion and subtlety of emotion, expression, articualtion, and sound that no machine can reproduce.
As a classicaly trained musician soon to graduate with my Master's in performance, I may be a bit biased, but the majority of my training hinges on those very points. Playing the music on the page is a given, you just have to be able to do at least that. What gets you a job and makes the music worth listening to, is doing more than what's on the page.
Now admittedly, that's hard to do for a show that's been running for so long. Many people have pointed out the business end of this decission. So, lets look at this from a business point of view...If the market demand for performance of this show no longer supports it being preformed in a space big enough, then the market has no more need for this show. Maybe it's time to learn a new show.
I think that all adds up to about $.04. Thanks for reading
Expression and interpretation are impossible to obtain out of a computer (and always will be, i feel).
Garbage in, garbage out. Expression in, expression out. You can get expression out of what is in essence a recording, albeit the same expression every time. More sophisticated software can receive cues from a performer in the pit, as you mention next:
Imagine going to a concert where a guy is playing his keyboard on stage emulating the sound of a great symphony orchestra.
Seeing a live performance of a musical drama is like seeing a performance by a boy band. The median viewer doesn't care much about the performers he doesn't see; he just wants their performance to match those of the performers he does see on the stage.
All tariffs harm the economy
Please show me the proof that there exists no tariff such that Y with tarrif is less than Y without tarriff.
How about you read up on the asian miracle of the 80's and 90's. Many countries such as Korea did very well because of tariffs. Often infant industries cannot be competitive on a world market, but could once a critical mass is reached.
Your argument is so sad it would get you laughed right out of any serious international trade class.
'most' musicians these days don't play digital synthesized instruments.
I'll grant that what you said may be true of the number of human beings who act as musicians, but when you count the amount of music the people hear every day, a lot of the top-40 pap played on commercial radio and over the PA in stores has everything but the vocalist(s) synthesized.
With a name like Sircam(eron)...
There's a musician's union for the West End. Union rules specifically state how many musicians need to be hired for any musical specifically to STOP this from happening, ie, to keep Broadway musicians employed. Believe me, if they could get away with it, pit bands would've been replaced by a CD player a long, long time ago. Broadway is exactly the same way.
McIntosh wants to replace half the orchestra, not because of artistic reasons per se, but because of practical ones - Les Mis is moving to a theater with a much, much smaller pit that simply can't accompany the number of musicians hired by the current production.
It's ALL business. Don't think art has anything to do with it. THey'd replace the actors with robots if they thought it'd make a buck and save a few more.
Triv
Soon robots will make your burgers at macdonalds..
Stock the shelves at walmart
size and fit you at your favorite cloting store
take out the trash, fly your plane, it can go on and on..
If you think this jobless recovery was bad wait until the next one.
I mean, people go and see some DJ at a club. They use terms like "he's one of the best DJ's in the country". I mean...um...he spins records. How is that a musical talent? Also, I still think that hip-hop, or rap or whatever they're calling it this week is basically a bunch of guys with a rhyme dictionary and a drum machine. Perhaps that's a generalization, but it does seem to be people wanting to get into music with little to no musical knowledge and not really wanting to take the time nor the effort to learn an instrument. But I digress.
So, what are we in store for in the future. Going to see Synth programmers in concert? He'll come out on stage, take a bow and go and click a mouse, as the computer starts it's sequence. Afterwards the crowd goes wild! "He's the best synth programmer in the country, no one can beat his sequences!"
Sorry, I like my music live and for the most part acoustic. I grew up as a nerd, liking all of these things, computers doing music and artwork, digital photography and the rest. But now my tastes are going more and more ludite it seems. I keep thinking that the mindset these days seems to be if it's older than 30 years, it's outdated and everything now is better. Also many think that a computer could do everything better. Is this the case?
Yes, it's a cost thing for orchestra pit musicians being replaced by a synth. I get that. But is it "better" or are we now shooting for "just as good"?
"Music is everybody's possession. It's only publishers who think that people own it." - John Lennon.
Heck, why stop there, let's generate computer animated singers and plug them into the SuperBowl halftime show. No one cares when computer animations strip, right?
The DJ you mention is the conductor of a performance that uses primarily pre-recorded elements. Likewise, the person operating the synthesizer here is the conductor of the synthesized performance. However, a conductor's labor is much cheaper than that of a conductor plus several human musicians; hence the system in the article.
many people go to these presentations to appreciate the means.
Then give one out of n performances as old-fashioned "means" performances with a full live orchestra at a higher ticket price, and let the people who care to see only "end" see "end" at a discount. Approximate analogy (though more extreme) to "West Side Story" on stage vs. "West Side Story" the movie.
I'm also pretty sure that a musician playing the actual instrument can change more parameters than you can change on a synthesizer simulating that.
You should look not at wavetable but at waveguide synthesis. Waveguide synthesis models an instrument as a tunable delay line with filters on its inputs and outputs, and changing those filters can produce surprisingly expressive effects. For example, a waveguide electric guitar can simulate pick position (a 2-tap FIR delay on input), pickup position (another 2-tap FIR delay on input), pick vs. fingering (an IIR equalizer on input), and even feedback from the speakers.
I've run a series of keyboard controllers midi'd to a sequencer and a bunch of modules to do a concert version of Les Miserables a number of years ago. I transcribed the main sequences from the symphonic recordings and arranged them to be played via the sequencer and for two keyboard players. During performances, I tended the sequencer, modules and played secondary parts on keyboard while the MD played and coordinated the whole thing from a performance point of view. For two guys with where the orchestra should have gone it sounded pretty impressive. Oh and it was a school production.
Virtual orchestras are not jut being used in theatrical productions but seem to be comming fairly common and inexpensive. Personal Orchestra (personalorchestra.com) is $249 and sounds pretty convincing from their mp3s. Their being used by students to learn music. According to the Personal Orchestra website, Berklee College of Music and other colleges are requiring students to have virtual orchestras for their classes.
That episode where The EMH Doctor performs to audiences on some planet, but one of them produces a "superior" musical hologram, able to conort its voice around the grotesque compositions of its creator.
"Absorbing your worst..."
Why not replace the entire staff with a movie projector and screen? They could save a lot more money that way.
"Sir Cameron Mackintosh will proceed with his plan to replace one half of the musicians in his musical Les Miserables with a computer synthesiser." ;-)
Put the muscians on display?
;D
I used to love looking down into those pits they put them in when I was a kid. Mind you, the computer sounds nearly as good
A blog I run for the wealth
As someone who has more than 5 musicals in a pit playing trombone, and another one working crew including: (...)
Call me a nut, but some of the best moments I've ever felt in music were when things weren't going 100% the way they were rehersed. The combined human factor of 10 pit musicians relizing that Mr. Hyde was going crazy with his stuff tonight made something come alive.
Now call me a nut, but unless you're really into a specific show (like, go see it multiple times) you won't notice if it's a bit off - only if it's a big screw-up. That's just you that's rehearsed it a thousand times and played it a dozen.
To you, delivering the same piece each night is routine. But to most of the audience, it's a unique experience. They won't be talking about how Mr. Hyde missed his que - they'll be talking about the entire performance of Mr. Hyde in the show, because it was all new to them.
The primary reason people go out and watch a live performance, is that it feel more "real" - you know you're watching real people, not images on a cinema screen. Same with live music vs. stereo (now I'm not talking about rock concerts where you jump with the crowd, that's a different story, but the kind of concerts where you sit in your seat and listen...)
As long as there are actors on the scene, giving you that "real" feel, I don't think most people will care about or even notice if part of it is artificial. Hell, just look at how many go to concerts with playback - it's all artifical, but still popular. It merely gives the impression of "live".
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Vangelis? John Tesh? ... (shudder) ... Yanni?
Shop as usual. And avoid panic buying.
(FYI, the most useful definition I've heard is that rap refers to the musical form, hip hop to the culture, which also includes breakdance and grafiti art)
Rap is a drum machine and a rhyme dictionary in the same way that blues is four chords and a gravelly voice, or jazz is hitting the wrong keys and pretending you did it on purpose, or rock is two power chords and a stage show, or classical is machine-like repetition of a score. There are recordings that fit those descriptions, and before you get used to the form it might all sound like that. There's also a hell of a lot more to it -- but if you don't care to learn, more power to you, it's probably not for you anyway.
If you like rock, or blues, or jazz, or classical, though, you are hereby prohibited from making stupid generalizations about rap.
I really think my city is going down hill. 5000!? come on this is London were talking about, were supposed to be rich and we cant even affort to pay 5000 extra a week for some musicians in a major west end musical. I saw this on the news and the musicians are quite rightly pissed off, next thing we know the other half of the orchestra will be outsourced half way around the world on voip. I guess it doesnt surprise me, we pay the most rediculous prices for pretentious crap coffee shops (starbucks would have you believe their specially trained 'barista' with years of experience (jim, student, 2 off of the minimum wage) is serving you a cup of gold, the transport, lets not go there, and the rent in most places is so high that only big chain-store designer clothes shops can make it (i used to have a decent supermarket 2 minutes from my house, now its an 'accessorize' and a costa coffee shop). Its not like i hate this city its great and i wouldnt want to live anywhere else, but the economy here pisses me off so much, i guess the lesson is that in london, you are either exploiting or being exploited.
-- i couldnt be bothered to spell check
This comment does not represent the views or opinions of the user.
I think it is appropriate that "Le Miz" is leading the way in this area. I've seen a few of these mega-musicals, and they are theater for dummies. If you read the Hugo's book (highly recommended), you realize exactly how how little respect the producers have for the taste and intelligence of their audiences. It's all about getting people to shell out way north of $100 per seat so they can sit there with their brains turned off.
What they are trying to do is ape Hollywood movies with explosions and eye popping effects. These things require so much stage machinery that the orchestra ends up, no longer in a pit, but actually submerged underneath the stage. In order for the music to be heard, it is amplified and played through speakers. Canning the music is just the logical next step, and I suppose the step after that is to have the actors lip synch the songs.
I have to admit, the geek in me was pleased by the special effects where Javert jumps off the bridge in Le Miz, or the helicopter in Miss Saigon. But, it's telling that those are the things that stick with you more than a few days. For the life of me I can't understand why people shell out good money for the soundtracks to these shows. They typically have one fair to middling song, which is dutifully belted out according to the show-stopper template, and the rest is sonic wallpaper.
These kinds of shows are total crap with fancy window dressing. If you have the money to go to a show, you're better off going to something put on by a small local troupe. I've got more pleasure from college student productions than I had from Les Miz. Hell, I've seen high school productions of George Bernard Shaw that were much more memorable. Stay away from "hot" Broadway shows an their touring progeny, unless maybe it's Sondheim. I'm not a huge fan of his because he serves up a rather too steady diet of cynicism for me. But he doesn't condescend to the audience and there's always something worth seeing and hearing. The Witch's big song in Into the Woods is so much better than anything in Le Miz Claude Michel Shonberg should hang his head in shame.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
let's get all the actors next, we could just show projections of them, oh wait that's called a movie. this is evil, who wants to be replaced by a computer, even worse this isin't a production line job, but art, we are becoming slaves to computer created art.
Well art is art isn't it, but then again water is water; and east is east; and west is west; and if you take cranberries
Musical theater can be pretty expensive. I'd be OK with Les Mis-lite if it cost 50% less. Just a thought (then again, I hate musical theater).
Personally, I think this is the wrong fight. If they're using synths to provide part of the music, as long as they're open about it, it's no big deal. Let the market decide if it's important. About a year and a half ago, I saw Rush in concert. They use a variety of synths, sequencers and samples on stage, and it allows the 3 of them to do amazing things. It was a fantastic and wekk-attended show, and people got exactly what they paid for.
Similarly, DJ shows can be fantastic and worthwhile as well. There's a lot more to it than "just spinning records", and again, people know exactly what they are getting.
The practice I have a problem with is pop "concerts" that are simply a choreographed show to a recording of the performer in question. It blurs the line, and people are often not aware of what they are actually seeing. That's where the real tragedy is.
Frank Zappa did this years ago.
siggy played guitar
Computers, no matter how sophisticated they may be, are absolutely pathetic at reproducing the sound of unamplified, acoustic music from real musicians. I've heard the best attempts. All are hopeless imitations. Even the best synthesized strings have incredibly bad attack, sloppy pitch-shift vibrato, lack of texture, artificial resonances, lack of emotion, and a grainy horrid quality which seems to accompany everything digitally reproduced.
Not only will this anger the music crowd, but audience members with any real spirit or soul are going to be disappointed. Shame on these idiots.
I've never seen pizzas delivering pizzas.
What's it mean when there's a guitar player on your porch?
Your pizza's here.
What's it mean when there's a singer on your porch?
She doesn't know when to come in, and couldn't find the key anyway.
What do you call a guy who hangs around with musicians?
The drummer.
What did the bass player get on his IQ test?
Saliva.
This should encourage musicians to create new styles and music as well as create more compositions. Sure a computer can play it as well as it's been programmed, but it can't compose a masterpiece...can it? yet...
I mean, people go and see some DJ at a club. They use terms like "he's one of the best DJ's in the country". I mean...um...he spins records. How is that a musical talent?
I mean...um...because he's not a DJ like you hire for your eight-year-old's skate party. He doesn't cue up pre-recorded tracks and let them play; otherwise an iPod would do just as well. Famous DJ's, whether they're playing trance, house, jungle or stright-up old-school techno, spend years perfecting their timing running multiple sound/effects tracks simultaneously, anticipating breaks before they happen, interleaving harmonious lines and a lot of other things people outside the scene know nothing about. And, if it's not obvious, only a few can do this really well, and yes, it requires talent. At least as much as "my music live and for the most part acoustic," whatever that means.
Also, I still think that hip-hop, or rap or whatever they're calling it this week is basically a bunch of guys with a rhyme dictionary and a drum machine. Perhaps that's a generalization, but it does seem to be people wanting to get into music with little to no musical knowledge and not really wanting to take the time nor the effort to learn an instrument.
You cannot be serious. First of all, rap and hip-hop are only "wahetever they're calling it this week" if you're an idiot and willfully withdrawn from popular culture. Hip-hop has been around under a variety of names, e.g. hard bop and bounce, for many years, but rap is a very fresh, very youthful music genre, and it's got a hell of a lot more vitality than American jazz, regular pop, new punk, alt-country or whatever else you're probably listening to. Your comment stinks of laughably provincial white-culture elitism.
If you haven't tried - and clearly you haven't - you cannot pick up a "rhyme dictionary and a drum machine" and produce creditable music, of any kind. Rapping requires imagination, flexible diction, a great sense of rhythm and, certainly not least, some kind of message. If you haven't noticed, rap artists become public figures, free-speech advocates in some cases, politically controversial figures and idols in their communities. And they make shitloads of money. Sounds kind of like your "real" musicians, doesn't it?
It seems to me you're compartmentalizing "music" in an eighth-grade-school-band kind of way, and making the (ridiculous and offensive) generalization that anything non-conventional is simply some new-fangled, lower-quality imitation of everything you've heard before. News flash: you're walking around in an opaque bubble just barely larger than your head.
Enough of putting down your trollish denigration of today's music. Similar to the way you apparently reject anything newer than 30 years old, you reject the possibility that new artistry is introduced and new nuances born when Sinfonia replaces some pit musicians. I don't know if that's possible or not, but other posters have indicated that may be true.
In both cases, just because you don't like it and don't know anything about it - and I really mean it, based on your post you're so in the clouds you don't know what shit smells like - doesn't mean it's only "just as good."
I call DJs musicians like I call drummers musicians. And I am a drummer. It takes skill, but what is produced is pure accompaniment, and will not stand up on its own as actual music. Sure a DJ can mix together some tracks and make a "song," but it's all stuff that other people, ACTUAL musicians created and put on a record for him to mix together. Sit a drummer down at an unfamiliar kit and he can jam along with whatever group he's with. I'd love to see a DJ sit in on someone else's equipment and unfamiliar records and jam with a rap/hiphop group.
Make me a friend and I'll mod you up
Get out of town, dood.
At the end of the day, a good dj picks songs, and a good musician makes them. The difference between DJs and rappers versus good classically trained musicians is the same difference between VB wizard boys and fluent systems programmers.
Both can make entertaining works, but the latter invested more to get more skill, and they need to be taken more seriously because they have earned it.
If you want to see someone be good at making rhymes and picking songs for you, rap is good. But if you want someone that really understands music, then, you need someone who actually knows how to play a real musical instrument.
This is my sig.
uh, thanks a lot.
feel upmodded.
the computer is online
i am not at it
what a waste of ressources
without the art, it wouldn't exist at all.
If people don't want to see art being peformed live, then they can go to a movie.
That how they make money, with a live performing art.
Would somepeople in broadway replacethe music with a CD? sure, but the first time an actor misses a cue, and there is no orchastra to help in the recovery, they will be out of business.
ersonally, I don't see a lot of plays, or operettas, however when I do go see one, I want too see a live performance of art.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
From the numbers given, it is clear the musicians don't make squat.
So how much does the computer system cost? are there any recurring fees? how much does the operator cost? storage? whats the redundency of the system?
really, without that information, it's not really a slashdot piece.
The fact that it mentions a piece of technology, dosn't make it a technology piece.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
it is like telling a drummer: "here, you got some wood, some pieces of metal and a cow. build some drums and jam with us!" the dj's instrument is mostly skills and knowledge of the music he has in his case.
the computer is online
i am not at it
what a waste of ressources
(wont somebody please think of the musicians?)
Most of those "actual musicians" you refer to are DJs themselves. Also, the music on the records is rarely complex enough to stand on it's own. This is intentional. It's meant to be mixed with other music. The skill is in knowing what goes with what, and being able to mix it in at the right time. Besides, would you call a pianist who plays a Franz Liszt an actual musician? All he's doing is reading sheet music and translating it into keypresses on the piano.
If a job's not worth doing, it's not worth doing right.
All it takes is one guy in the parking-lot out back with a HERF gun pointed in the general direction of the computers and synths, and everyone will quickly realize the value of a human musician.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
CAn'T CompreHend SARcaSm?
replacing actors with automatons? if i wanted to see something computer generated and not performed by real people i would not go to a theatre (performance), i would go to a theater (movies).
-illumina+us "I put on my robe and wizard hat..."
Your amazing ability to miss my point astounds me. My point was that a drummer can improvise and jam with people. That's music.
Make me a friend and I'll mod you up
All he's doing is reading sheet music and translating it into keypresses... Listen to the same piece as played by a MIDI synth, even a very realistic sounding one (heck, hook it up to a real piano), then listen to it played by a human being. The human performance will sound *human*, with dynamics and phrasing that no computer could ever even hope to try and emulate. There's another thing, I would love to see a DJ try and put that kind of dynamics and phrasing into a song. Ever listen to a rap/electronic "song" and compare it to a well-performed classical piece? The disparity in musicality is amazing.
Make me a friend and I'll mod you up
The point of the Sinfonia isn't to replace musicians, it's to allow a single musician to play multiple instruments. The logic used against the Sinfonia is quite irrational; by using that logic, we should bycott any polyphonic instrument because it's replacing multiple vocalists! (A polyphonic instrument is an instrument that can play multiple notes at a time, such as a piano.)
I'm all for DJs getting their due, but what about the projectionists in movie theatres? They have to operate a complicated machine, their work is enjoyed by hundreds of people at a time, they help inspire a wide range of emotions in the audience. When will they be celebrated? Reviewed? Make more money? Let's stand up for the projectionists!
Most rap is inane, bellicose garbage with precious little variety, both lyrically and aurally. I'm not a rap musicologist, but I think Run DMC did it best, and with the most intellect--and that was 1983.
DJ'ing is a complete joke. I find it hilarious to see prepackaged 'DJ starter kits' for 14 year-olds. As if the 90s stigmatized learning to actually play an instrument enough with tone-deaf music and creatively bankrupt lyrics, now we have this. Just sync tempos and you'll go far.
I'd feel pretty ripped off going to see a musical where all of the music came from a bunch of synth modules.
Ah well. This, too, shall pass.
I call DJs musicians like I call drummers musicians. And I am a drummer. It takes skill, but what is produced is pure accompaniment, and will not stand up on its own as actual music.
As I sit here I'm listening to an absolutely enthralling album of iranian percussion. A Grateful Dead drum solo never fails to satisfy. Taiko drums are amazing, and a good djembe can really blow your mind.
Yeah, the standard rock and roll drum solo doesn't hold one's interest very long, but we've been hitting things with sticks for thousands of years. There's a lot more out there than just rock and roll.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
lol, well-said :).
Replace the actors with a projector screen!
I'm sure Cameron Diaz looks better than Cameron Makintosh anyway.
Can't replace a musician with a computer. Sorry. Computers can't interpret music, they can only generate certain tones using certain patterns at a certain tempo. An orchestra ain't a chess game.
Business isn't willing to pay for products, innovation and careers, so we get brands, mortgage commercials and layoffs.
The bass player move the dishes before peeing in the sink.
more jokes.
I'm just more interested in hearing how the drums interact with the rest of the musicians, I guess. I've listened to quite a few "classic" drum/percussion solos, but they just don't hold my interest. Usually they're just big displays of raw chops, which I hate. It's like musical masturbation.
Make me a friend and I'll mod you up
Outsorced to a keyboard?
Is it Indian??
"quadripeligic" (sp?) means you're paralyzed in all four limbs, parapeligic means just two - usually the legs. "Quad" is short for quadripeligic, but has nothing to do wit fingers and toes. There are people born w/ fewer than usual (or even without) fingers/toes, but they're not quads. Could be, but quad!=fewer_fingers_and_toes(), and vice-versa.
/w you, though, that electronic music is taken for granted, even considering the 99% rule. Which I believe was originally the *90*% rule. Sturgeon's Law.
Cats and PotO are both great musicals - the performance you saw might not've been great. Just b/c Cats has no plot doesn't mean it's bad - it's like just b/c HHG2G movies didn't have great sets/acting didn't mean they sucked. Quite the reverse.
I agree
Isn't the concept of Utopia represented by an idylic society where no one *has* to work?
At some point some global decision needs to be made...is humanity working toward *u*-topia or *dys*-topia?
Personally, all I really need to be happy is access to:
1) some kind of library (to satisfy my curiosities);
2) occasional sex with a female I care for;
3) a comfortable place to sleep;
4) access to quality food and water;
5) access to a musical instrument (a piano, in my case).
My current situation provides for all of these needs, and will continue to do so for at least two more years, unless some economic disaster occurs. I'm satisfied. Not rich, not famous, but satisfied. Happy and productive, too.
I'm guessing the average person would be satisified if they had these things, and was able to somehow get past the commercial mindset they've been raised with.
Wanna play the rat race and try to be the next Bill Gates? Go ahead, but it might be impossible to have a bunch of Bill Gates in the world without a lot of destitute people on the bottom end...hardly a *u*-topian scenario.
Hopefully this planet will somehow figure out a way to stop focusing on creating billionaires and start focusing on creating a livable world for all people, even if that means finding a techological/social solution to providing the above enumerated items to all people, guaranteed from birth, even if most of them just want to lay around, eat, and screw their lives away.
The ones who decide to do something more with their lives, as a percentage, might actually increase...innovation might increase...because the need to constantly scrap for food and shelter is removed, and these few people could spend far more time following their curiosities.
Such a society might be closer than anyone realizes.
All you need is a thirteen year old girl to run:
/dev/random > /dev/audio
cat
and start screaming when she finds what she likes.
When Aibo hears the screaming, it records - when it hears applause (before a concert) it plays. KISS principle, Occam's Razor, etc.
Easy for someone to say who lives in his mom's basement. For those of us WITH jobs, well, the guy can do what he wants, but I'm not sitting through a musical with taped parts. What a joke.
Boycott everything - they're all trying to fuck you one way or another
I wasn't trying to troll, I'm sorry that you became so defensive in your love of hip-hop. I was voicing my opinion.
But let's face it. The Emperor has no clothes. Hip-hop is here today, gone tomorrow. If you were as in touch as you claim to be, you would notice that hip-hop artists have zero staying power. Zero. In fact, there was a special documentory about how fleeting hip-hop artists are. You say they become public figures, and idols in their communities. Yet that only lasts about a year, perhaps more. Then they're gone. Also, I guess I'm not as shallow to think that making "shitloads of money" is a measurment of talent.
Yes, I was being general in my sweeping remarks on this genre, but that's how I feel. It's an opinion. Also, you yourself are making sweeping denigrations of what I was talking about. YOU are the one that is walking around in an opaque bubble if you think that hip-hop is "today's music". Today's music covers a very very broad spectrum and hip-hop is a small part of it. A vocal minority. Also, I wasn't rejecting anything newer than 30 years old, I was mearly pointing out that "some" people "seem" to not like anything older than 30 years old.
But your post was really defensive, if you wish to actually argue the points I would be happy to, but you need to learn a little more about today's music and get out of just one small part of it.
But I guess in your world others can't have contrasting opinions.
"Music is everybody's possession. It's only publishers who think that people own it." - John Lennon.
you're just a typical whiteboy. defining everything through your limited suburban filter.
...the show is moving from its present home to another theatre that just doesn't have a large enough orchestra pit for all the musicians required by Les Mis.
I am NaN
For an example of what you dismissively term "just playing records", might I suggest you check out The Avalanches. They get called DJ's, but it's a very long way away from what a DJ does at an office party (which is actually a more difficult skill than you think, having tried it). Virtually everything on there is sampled from something else, but the sources are very obscure and they're combined in ways you'd never think of.
And as for hip-hop, they're poets who work to a drum beat. Sure, Sturgeon's law applies, but I can name approximately 1 squillion mediocre rock acts. (Creed? Any nu-metal act with a misplaced "k" in their name?) A good example of the close relationship was the well-known poet Allen Ginsberg's 1996 collaboration with Paul McCartney and Phillip Glass, The Ballad of the Skeletons. Or, alternatively, you could try listening closely to Eminem's Stan. It's a very perceptive commentary on the mentality of some of his own fans, and Dr. Dre, his producer, was brilliant to figure out how well Dido's Thank You fitted with it.
Oh, and as for performances based mostly around sequencing, ever heard of 1970's German techno precursors Kraftwerk?
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
In both cases, just because you don't like it and don't know anything about it - and I really mean it, based on your post you're so in the clouds you don't know what shit smells like - doesn't mean it's only "just as good."
If you fucking read his post, he wasn't commenting on fucking rap music being "just as good" he was talking about a synth being "just as good" as a live musician.
Talk about elitism, you don't know SHIT about music. Go listen to your fucking rap music crap with zero talent. That guy hit the nail on the head. It's a drum machine and a rhyme dictionary, and just because you fucking fell for their crap and spent all your dominoes pizza money on their CD's doesn't make it music.
boring music for boring people.
any better dj can grab his records and improvise and jam with the beats he knows, too.
i was just making the point, that giving him a different setup and unknown records is the same as stealing the drums from your drummer. and this is why your argumentation is wrong.
the computer is online
i am not at it
what a waste of ressources
the problem with this conversation is, that most people haven't heard good electronic or generally mixed music. but almost everyone has heard some of the best classical tunes.
:-)
if noone knows, that they are prejudiced, how could they act accordingly?
this converstion is doomed...
the computer is online
i am not at it
what a waste of ressources
I didn't read the article. I just love the name Sir Cameron Mackintosh. Sounds like he's either right out of a Blackadder episode or is somehow connected with Spinal Tap.
Perhaps it's closer to sitting him down at an unfamiliar kit and blindfolding him. I just thought about it and you're right on that point.
/legitimate musical instrument out there, though. You simply can't apply it to most musical situations, and where I have heard it used outside of rap/hiphop, it's just seemed excessive to me.
I still wouldn't exactly call it the most versatile
Make me a friend and I'll mod you up
>Enough of putting down your trollish denigration
^^^^^^^^^^^
Whoa whoa whoa, let's not get racialist, okay?
I think it's mostly because I'm just an analog musician myself, and really like the live music scene. There's something about the combined aspects of improvisation, musical dialog with fellow musicians, and just plain grooving your butt off that's just plain cool. Plus, one thing I think really makes music fun is to be able to jam out someone else's music, play a cover every once in a while. It can really bring that music to life for you. Jut being able to say "This one's in the key of G" and play it by ear is really cool, especially since you don't have to buy any new records or tediously program it into your computer.
Make me a friend and I'll mod you up
Enlighten me. What should I listen to. Where is the good mixed music?
Well, for a good start try listing to the albums Permutation and Supermodified by Amon Tobin. His music is made entirely from samples.
La Traviata is Italian.
So's Verdi. Giuseppe Verdi. Giuseppe. French? Christ.
Die Zauberflote (aka The Magic Flute), properly, is not opera nor operetta but a singspiel.
English was the first language to have an opera (Dido and Anaeus by Henry Purcell). Popular English operas include the translated works of Kurt Weill (The Threepenny Opera, Street Scene) and more recently Moore's The Ballad of Baby Doe.
If you'd like to discuss French opera composers, the only one of real note was Bizet, of Carmen fame. You could possibly make a case for Gounod for Faust and Offenbach for Les Contes d'Hoffman, but Bizet's the big French operatic gun.
Regarding opera seria:
Thanks, Wikipedia.
Oh dear I should have read tepples' post before posting
That's very perceptive of you Mr Stapleton and rather unexpected in a G Major
Yeah, you could spot one in the background of a tune played on a crystal radio kit. There's an irony in there somewhere. It's an instrument designed to mimic other instruments or make sounds that physical instruments can't, yet always sounds kinda the same no matter how it's programmed.
Brainfart re: Dido. It was early and i was hungover as a result of Valentine's Day. I don't remember seeing anything about The Abduction (because i can't spell Entfurung), but really as far as I'm concerned Flute's a singspiel but an opera to everyone else.
Me, I call it a marathon. Papageno's a role and a half. I hurt myself twice during the production.
I won't even touch Wagner yet, I'm only 25; besides that, my voice and style lends itself more to comic roles like Figaro and Papageno, though I've done parts of Rigoletto and have an intense desire to be Iago in Otello.
Ah, Verdi. That's opera.
The alternative is that you score the music for the number of musicians available. The great composers didn't write for a symphony orchestra comprised of a few players and a computer - they wrote chamber music.
If the performance space won't accomodate the previous number of musicians, it is likely that to synthesise a band of the same size will overpower the space in which the performance is being staged.
It is the same mentality as putting an all-singing-all-dancing electronic organ with the range of the most exotic instrument into a small church. In previous ages, small churches had small organs which suited the space, and the resourceful organist could extract a good range from them.
To just use the same scoring as before, and fill in half the blanks with a machine seems an artistically bankrupt approach.
Dunstan
The last scintilla of doubt just rode out of town
I have read the posts with interest. It is obvious that many statements are being made about Sinfonia out of a lack of understanding about the system, the realities of professional musical production. I would like to help clarify these points. First, my background (briefly!). I hold three degrees in music (composition and electronic music), was a symphonic violinist for twenty years, am active in composition for both electronic and traditional ensembles, and have spent the last fifteen years researching orchestral simulation in live environments. I feel qualified to speak about the aesthetics and philosophy of musical production with anyone. Second, modern professional musicals have been using pit enhancement technologies for decades. Whether it consists of synthesizer keyboards, tape playback, or reduced orchestrations, one finds that it is impossible to in most cases to provide the original orchestration the composer intended. The question then becomes: what type of technology will provide the most realistic and musically compelling solution? Third, Sinfonia is constantly referred to as a "device" or "machine". People compain that the computer can not replace the performer. This analogy does not hold. In reality, Sinfonia is a musical instrument: it is performed by a skilled musician that must follow the score and practice their part. The hallmark of Sinfonia is its complete tempo flexibility: the instrument responds to detailed temporal nuance only because of how the sinfonist performs it each night. Thus, the better analogy is to the violin, not the violinist. Fourth, Sinfonia is an ensemble instrument: it sounds best in conjunction with other musicians. It would be unfair to require ANY one instrument to be judged on its ability to provide a full blown orchestral experience: surely this should not be the criterion of newer musical instruments as well. Finally, the philosophical approach to Sinfonia R&D. It is the intention to analyze musical output of live performance, and remove from the performer's consideration all aspects that are fixed, and allow realtime control of those aspects that should be malleable in performance. Thus, the actual pitches, rhythms and orchestrations of a piece, which will not change, can be taken over by aspects of the instrument/instrumentalist symbiosis most appropriate to deterministic processes. The nuance and interpretation that change from performance to performance, such as tempo, blend, and level, can be played by the human component. I hope these points help dispell some of the misinterpretations that have emerged on this thread
David B Smith