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Concert to be Performed from Beyond the Grave
rtphokie writes "Raleigh, NC based Zenph Studios is hosting a live concert performed by two piano virtuosi long since dead. Zenph developed software which digitally transcribes performances even from the scratchy recordings. A more faithful transcription of timing, key and pedal pressure is achieved using Yamaha's high resolution version of MIDI."
The original music, recorded on vinyl, as you say, was played by the performer from sheet music, which includes dynamic cues and precise timing data.
I even have this fancy software (not sure if it's still published) called 'Desktop Sheet Music' published by Midisoft. It lets you enter the score, completely and 100% accurately, and then it's played back EXACTLY how the composer intended.
When I want to listen to a great performance of classical music, I want the original recording, played back on equipment that does the best possible job of playing back that actual recording. Worrying about and/or corrupting the fidelity of the recording to remove 'scratches' seems to me like fretting about the back of the theatre seat in front of you at a theatre performance. Deal with the fact that you have no business 'cleaning up' something you didn't originate.
How well does this software you mention deal with the subtle nuances of a performance? Accellerandos and decelerandos (as notated on the original score)? You know, there's a lot more to a performance than playing it note perfect...
I'll turn into a supernova and burn up everything. Well I'll turn into a black little hole and you'll turn into string.
Zenph Studios, a software company based in Raleigh, North Carolina, claims that it has found a solution to the problem, although it refuses to say how for commercial reasons.
There have been attempts at music transcription software since the 1970's. For some obscure reason, many of the people who tried didn't seem to think of the fact that classical music comes with a score.
So, the "solution" to the problem is simple: use the known score to get the notes and polyphony, and use the recording primarily to infer the performance parameters. It's not a very complicated problem, actually. I suspect the main reason why you haven't seen this before is because it is of fairly little commercial interest.
Who gets the royalties?
uhh... no, it's really not like that. if that were the case, there would be nothing special about a great pianist. they're not just excellent "button pushers".
the score doesn't indicate with that much precision how the notes are supposed to be played- it'll give the rhythms, general tempo and volume changes, but it's the subtleties that make it difficult. a good pianist is one who reads the music and interprets it with the appropriate feeling, which often means playing notes behind/ahead of the beat, playing certain notes slightly louder or softer, or shorter/faster. if ordinary sheet music had notation for all of these things, it would be too complex to be readable (it's bad enough as it is, IMHO)
this software is translating a master performance into a high resolution form of MIDI- a form of musical notation that has the capability to record all those subtleties. ordinary computers can play a MIDI file that is technically correct, but sounds totally lame for lack of feeling. it's like Data's poetry.
A recording does not contain enough information due to the mechanical limitiations of the technology to enable such a transferance of performance to occur. The dynamic range is too limited, even for just a single note, and the bandwith/resolution does not allow for a workaround. Although it might fool most people, it's NOT a *reproduction* of a performance, but a *facsimile* of one.
Not difficult at all. I got 100% right on the first try. I don't think those midi clips were recorded using a player piano though. They're most likely from a synthesized source, just like your sound blaster's midi synthesizer(maybe a bit better admittedly). You can always tell; the attack, decay, timbre are all wrong. Alternately, you can have a facsimile based on one sampled note, very often C3. To get all the other notes, that sample of c3 is pitched up or down. Again, you can tell it from the real thing because c3 might sound amazing but all the other notes have an odd synthetic timbre to them, getting odder the further away you get from C3. But now if you have an actual MIDI player piano recreating a virtuoso's performance, that would be very hard to tell appart from the real deal.
I got a fever...and the only cure is more cowbell!
Wow. This has got to be one of the most uninformed and/or naive posts regarding music I have read in a long time. Musical notation is quite imprecise. Modern composers have been in fact often struggling to find out how to translate their musical ideas into sheet music. Sure, you can write a program that plays Bach pretty well. But get into the romantic and modern repertoire, and there is simply no way you can have software that does a good job at this today.
Sheet music leaves a lot of room for interpretation. This is why the Horowitz and Rubinstein of this world are important. This is why an orchestra conductor is the most important element of a symphonic or operatic performance, something few people are aware of.
There is also not a unique way of interpreting a piece of music. Composers themselves has been known to perform their own music differently at different times of their lives. Sometimes, they are impressed by the interpretation of their own music made by other musicians, interpretation that they had not necessarily intended.
> He would steep his hands and forearms
> in steaming hot water to loosen them
> and increase the circulation.
He most likely had a repetitive strain injury (RSI) from his piano playing, and this was how he reduced the pain. That his arms came out burnt red may indicate the level of pain he felt.
The software scans the exact performance (to a certain precision), not the original "sheet". The original sheet is an inaccurate representation of the composers idea.
MIDI takes those things into account
You seem to be suggest that MIDI can only play back roughly quantized events, however, MIDI clock can be set to accurate as, say, microsecond (1/1,000,000 second). At such clocks, all variations and nuances will also be recorded.