This discussion has gone way out of hand, but i feel compelled to clarify a few last issues.
"You've been watchin 'Amadeus' too much"
yes, at least for the whole funeral and mass grave part...BTW, some people think the film portrays a way vulgar and off-beat Mozart. But truth be told it's a fictional account by a senile Salieri of a man he hated. It's this fictional jealous Salieri, in his late hour, personal take on Mozart. I think the movie is absolutely delicious as pure fiction. And has one of the best soundtracks ever in a Hollywood flick, thanks to a dead man.:)
"Do you think it is so easy that these people should work for free."
In this day and age and in the foreseeable future, publishing of classical works is no more. Everyone and his dog has a computer and a printer if he wishes to actually print stuff rather than just display it at a monitor. There are many efforts all around in terms of scanning of old books, musical scores and other content. Couple that with OCR technologies and XML and web intengration and classical works are to be what they actually are: a common good of mankind.
Publishers will earn money from contemporary works. There's no more need for typesetting of classical works.
"One minute you've made the statement with an 'IF' in it implying you didn't know and the next you're saying they're well written."
Sorry but no. I'm a software programmer and had logic as part of my formation. It's a common logic statement (IF A THEN B), let's analize it:
"if the original manuscripts survived to this day, chances are that printed published scores for the same works from old time still exist"
We know they did survive, otherwise we wouldn't be discussing this whole thread. It means in logic: "given that original manuscripts survived, this implies that printed copies survived as well".
no distortions, i just should've been more careful with the choice of words. sorry...
"the copy of Mozarts Manuscript they have at Wikipedia, the final stave line looks like a dogs hind leg."
yes, musical symbols indeed resemble a dog's hind leg.
"Just copying another published version would give them a nasty lawsuit."
Not so if they copy from a 19th century published version. Do you really think this practice is uncommon?
I don't like publishers, i like creators. Publishers are leeches that live off other people's works. They are exactly like the RIAA or other common associations of unimaginative middlemen.
In the case of publishers of music scores, the history of music makes that a lot more patently clear: they payed very little for works by the likes of Mozart, Schubert and Chopin and were at constant fights with these guys. Once they were dead, though, they start publishing and republishing and publishing musical theorists' take on the score and so on. They got rich and yet negleted their main artists some real source of income which in turn could well have made them live a little longer.
I truly hate middlemen with a passion.
"As Z34107 has pointed out, YOU CAN GO AND GET copies of the manuscript which is in public domain."
Again i repeat: you can also get fully arranged musical scores from the 19th century for said works. And they are not under copyright!
"Only YOU seemed to be pissed off that you'd have to pay for the published piece that someone has put time and effort into making."
The only person who did put "real time and effort into making" was Mozart, and he died poor because of the leeches of the day. Other just copied and recopied from yet others.
"As Z34107 has stated: 'Arranging and formatting music is extremely difficult and complex. How many people would I have killed for sheet music with better typesetting?'"
It's not so difficult when you've had a few centuries worth of others previous typesettings from where to copy.
"And as Z34107 Also stated: 'Go get your own - Mozart's original manuscripts are free.'"
Keep repeating the same lie. As i said, it's not just original manuscripts, but also non-copyrighted, old versions of printed and published scores are also available.
"Fact is, you've caught yourself OUT in your own assumption that everyone was assuming it, when it's not true."
if it's not true, why you keep insisting on the original manuscripts thing?
"'which btw, in the case of Mozart is really well written.'
Really? You saying this based on your own assumption again?"
No, on others opinions. People who've had access to them.
"I have to ask this as you previously also stated 'if the original manuscripts survived to this day' Which certainly implies that YOU DON'T KNOW if the manuscripts are around."
No. I said "if the original manuscripts survived to this day, chances are printed published versions also did". I know they survived, i was merely doing some logic-like statement here. I meant: "the original manuscripts survived, so surely a few printed published copies survived as well, since there were a lot more of those, even from much closer a time as in the 1800s."
Do you think publishers have to really go through the original manuscripts to republish work? Bible publishers go through the original Moses and Jesus followers manuscripts or they simply republish from previously published printed works? same for Shakespeare...
if it's some obscure little melodic Mozart clarinet line written in some toilet paper found in the ruins of an ancient bathroom, sure, bring on the specialists and pay them a fortune for discovering what exactly Mozart was thinking while he took a shit.
"You make out as though you're being RIPPED off by a publishing company who have put time and effort into producing a good quality version of it, as though that time and effort should not be rewarded."
You know, once efforts like MusicXML and MIDI integration with it get going, you can kiss publishers of classical music bye-bye. There won't be any need for middlemen in this case.
"I've noticed that some of the best synth programming appears in the music from the tracker scene."
I notice that too and it's simple: mod files come with their own samples, so they don't have to rely on external libraries lacking the exact nuances the tracker want wanted.
"Certain articulations, bow strokes, etc - they can be suggested in the score, or maybe mapped to a controller in MIDI, but you need to have the appropriate sounds. In a lot of cases you need to bank switch on a sampler just to differentiate between up and down bows. Since most consumer-grade sound libraries don't have more to their strings than "marcato" and "slow strings" you're certainly not going to get things like detache, spicatto, or col legno properly represented."
I wholeheartdily agree. Except that sound and image computer synthesis get better year-after-year. Eventually, just as you won't be able to tell if characters in a movie are computer generated or not, you won't be able to tell the difference between synthetic Strings or natural.
Sample-based music today is a fad, because actual real-time generation of timbres is not yet up to snuff. But someday it will. And so, instead of relying on just a few samples and applying a few post-effects upon it, the synth will simply render it in real-time, with full complex variations applied.
"The way you've mixed fact and utter bullshit together is intriguing."
Not as much as the way you mix up my words.
"merely using a halfway decent synth won't 'sound almost as great as any recording'."
Yes, sorry. Should have mentioned only MIDI recordings of masterful performances in featureful MIDI gear will sound great. Like in the file i linked to.
"In fact listening (with Timidity, no less) to the file you reference leaves me astonished at your lack of perception."
My "lack of perception"?! I'm a classical music fan and while i don't have "absolute ear", i do have good taste. I haven't said they sound "as great as any recording", i said "almost as great". The orchestra parts are some of the best i've ever heard in MIDI -- which is an incredible accomplishment in itself -- and the whole thing has a very "live" feel to it. It sounds almost as the real thing, and I maintain that. But you can certainly tell it's recorded string sounds being played in a rather limited mechanical way, thought it sounds good enough.
I can only imagine what better real-time sound synthesis technologies aiding sample-based playback reserves for us in the future...
"it's ludicrous to make a blanket statement like 'In these days of wavetable synths, any throw-away MIDI file sounds almost as good as leaning over the conductor's shoulder.'"
yes, i'll agree the statement was pretty generic and a MIDI produced by a cheap Casio keyboard played by, say, an unskilled youtube musician, won't sound as great as a MIDI recording of Claudio Arau playing at a Yamaha Clavinova...
"I'll quickly concede that given a very good MIDI file and a decent synth you'll get something fairly good, but not because wavetable synths are some magic bullet that turns crap into gold. It would be because of the quality of the MIDI file, completely and absolutely."
Yes, but the quality of the MIDI recording won't matter if it's being played through some lousy midi player with terrible samples and no effects, which is what i think the parent i replied to implied.
"If you play that same good MIDI file through the lamest synth you can find it's still going to sound phenomenal."
No it won't. Try listening to Beethoven's Hammerklavier by a good performer on a MIDI player that doesn't take into account: * touch sensibility * vibrato * tremollo * echoing
Just imagine all notes sounding like the piano keys are hit with the same force: no piano, pianissimo or fortissimo sections! No concert-hall-like echoing! And the piano timbre itself? Let's get a piano timbre which does the work justice, ok?
It'll sound even lamer than hearing a 32-bitrate mp3 rendition of a live recording...
"Likewise, playing the MIDI files you've linked to will sound passable at best (depending on instrumentation -- harpsichords won't suffer from the lack of attention to dynamics) on whatever synth you choose."
yeah, whatever...
anyway, you said you used timidity. Timidity default settings are pretty conservative regarding CPU usage. I'd suggest you try with my command-line switches for a much more rewarding experience and post your thoughts:
"In summary, MIDI isn't any better than it once was. MIDI has always been fine."
Yes, after all it's the same MIDI protocol of always. The only difference is that now common household gear finally got some decent MIDI players up to the task.
"It's a misrepresentation of available MIDIs to recommend them to classical music fans with working ears. A MIDI file *can* sound good. The odds you're likely to find this file? About the same as the odds of finding the fountain of youth. All the good orchestrators are at work on stuff like movie scores."
I am a classical music fan with a "working ear" and have a few rarities here in live recording like Schubert's Winterreise by Dietrich
"Go get your own - Mozart's original manuscripts are free."
You, just like everyone else in this thread, is assuming that the only arranged scores available for classical music is the original manuscripts from the composer -- which btw, in the case of Mozart is really well written.
Fact is: if the original manuscripts survived to this day, chances are that printed published scores for the same works from old time still exist. Why should it be a concern to scan these old editions, which are not under copyright anymore? Isn't it the same old preserved books?
Did nowadays publishers suddenly burned them all so that the only way for us to get Mozart work is either paying for their hard-earned work -- like copying from such old editions rather than from the manuscripts indeed?
again, fuck the publishers and their perpetual copyrights for dead man works.
"Perhaps you should listen to more work from Mozart rather than just the well-known light-hearted stuff such as the Alla Turca sonata movement or Eine Kleine Nachtmusik..."
and BTW, even these are much more profound music than the likes you cited...
Sorry, but no: pop musicians from the day have their music played today just as much as Madonna some 200 years from now. Except Madonna still has the technologic advantage that it has never been so easy to copy and distribute works through a network, so it won't ever really be lost like Bach's music has been for many decades...
Perhaps you should listen to more work from Mozart rather than just the well-known light-hearted stuff such as the Alla Turca sonata movement or Eine Kleine Nachtmusik...
"I'm sure Mozart is finally wealthy enough to where having his music in the public domain won't hurt him."
Funny thing is: he was a poor man. His wife wasn't even able to buy him a proper burial!
Something is very wrong with the world when people copying someone else's works and making money off it claim that other people can't do that with one of makind's most renowned artists...
I'm sorry, but perhaps you have not heard midi music in a long time. Long are the days since soundboards came with lousy samples and no effects whatsoever: todays midis, with great samples and full wav synthesis with effects applied sound almost as great as any recording, specially works for piano, harpsichord and acoustic guitar alone. I agree String sections still sound rather synthetic though...
If you're on Linux, use timidity++, which is the best MIDI synthesis software available. On Windows, be sure that you have in Control Panel -> Sounds and Multimedia -> Audio -> MIDI Reproduction set to Software Wavetable Synthethizer, otherwise it'll sound just as bad as you heard before.
Right now i'm listening to Saint Saen's Animal Carnivel and even though it includes orchestra as well as the piano, it sounds absolutely vibrant and lively! Give it another shot, i tell you. I believe i got this MIDI from here: http://www.classicalarchives.com/main/s.html#SAINT -SAENS
why only the original manuscripts from Mozart's own pen? If so many book editions from that period survive to this day and indeed Mozart's own manuscripts, then why no score editions from that period? Why should i scan from this copyrighted edition in particular?
Indeed. Besides, converting the wav output from a MIDI synthethizer like timidity into mp3 won't make it sound any better -- only good instrument samples and right timidity settings for effects like reverb, sustain and others can do that.
Not sure slashdot is really losing readers to digg or reddit. One of the latest front-page additions to digg is a story named "Crazy Man Dancing In Best Buy!!!". While not much worse than yesterday's slashdot story on "unskilled musician playing instruments via stop-motion video editing" youtube stupidness, at least the latter is a well-crafted hack.
If slashdot is losing some readers for that, i'd say it's nothing losing much. Specially as digg's comments are "teh suck". Won't even touch on reddit and its political agenda: not stuff that matters for nerds...
I feel that slashdot's filter for submitted stories is a lot better than having to filter them myself when searching news on digg...
"published copies of them are still under copyright by whomever published them"
fuck them! Mozart's music is a universal cultural hallmark of mankind.
And to think this copyright insanity will only get worse: some 100 years from now some stupidass ageless entity -- say, Disney -- will still retain rights over work produced by people who worked for them.
Oh, so he's a "youtube artist"! So that's why no one was taking the time to comment on the music itself of such unskilled musician. why am i not surprised?...
Yes, totally false because a bunch of scholars like Pythagoras or Stockhausen doing mathematical experimentations with sound form the exception that is the norm.
Get serious: music composition revolves around playing with instruments, getting your hands dirty and sometimes, getting lucky and coming up with something great. It's not about writing random notes, fixed series or whatnot. See what Einstein has to say about ingenuity.
The point is: what are we discussing here? The music? The stop-motion approach to music composition? The video itself?
Yes, acting, filming, music composition are all unoriginal by themselves. What makes them interesting is the individual genius behind each artistic expression. I don't think a youtube video is exactly that, but then, i'll save it for when i actually see it.
"The 'meaning' behind any piece of music is arbitrary. I hear people say that they hear the story of the triumph of the human spirit in a certain Beethoven piece. I don't, I just hear a certain well-worn 19th-century structure of sounds without any story behind it."
Yes, yes. I did not say it carries any particular meaning: it's "meaning" is completely subjective and personal for each listener. Still, tonal music and its filigrans of complex tension/distension relationships allow for people to clearly distinguish between heavily dramatic sections and "allegro" ones. You can't hear the Apassionata Sonata and say it's just a buch of notes thrown together or use it to celebrate happy moments: it's clearly out of focus.
"The diaphonic singing of the Shop people in Bulgaria (yes, a land where minor seconds are considered pleasing to the ear) may sound shrill and angry to many Western listeners. But to the Shop, the music accompanies songs whose lyrics are about love, family life, and so forth. So, the meaning of a given piece is totally arbitrary,"
It's not that arbitrary, then: it depends on cultural context! I'm not Bulgarian, i'm a westerner and am used to the long tonal music tradition.
"the complexity or informational content of a piece is the deciding factor."
One thing's for sure: in no cultural musical traditions in the world, composers and musicians compose like they were drawing mathematical functions.
I don't have access to youtube here from work, so i can't say. But people are commenting about the process he undertook to get it done, not about the music itself.
I take it the music is barely ok and perhaps the only "innovative, thought-provoking" artistic features in it is the carefully methodic process by someone who has enough time in his hands to do so...
"their work was mostly derivative of a genre of art originated by someone who is mostly unknown in modern main stream culture. You would then proceed to go home and research this artist and convince yourself that because this artist was the first they are better than the artist whose work you completely overlooked in the gallery."
Mozart and Beethoven certainly felt that way about Bach...
"it became apparent that the music I found most exciting and endlessly deep, instead of just something transparent and boring after one has listened just a single time, was twelve-tone (or based on Norgard's infinity series)."
Randomness, impredictability or cold-precision methodically written series sure may sound as deep as any natural random phenomena, which really don't aim at anything other than filling the silence with sounds. Still, i believe most music lovers really care much more for music with a history of their own to tell, as far as such an abstract art as music permits...
"In hollywood, they swing the swords at the other swords - blade to blade - instead of trying to actually hit the other guy."
Well, suppose you try to actually hit the other guy. What should the other guy do? Options: 1) do nothing and get hit 2) throw his sword at the floor and laugh at you missing the swing just before you try once more and cut his head off 3) run away like a coward 4) parry the swing with his sword and try again
Options 3 and 4 are reasonable enough but since this is a Hollywood flick, it wouldn't bode well to either have a cowardly hero or bad guy. Hence, long swordfights with lots of parrying...
Slashdot Mirror
This discussion has gone way out of hand, but i feel compelled to clarify a few last issues.
:)
"You've been watchin 'Amadeus' too much"
yes, at least for the whole funeral and mass grave part...BTW, some people think the film portrays a way vulgar and off-beat Mozart. But truth be told it's a fictional account by a senile Salieri of a man he hated. It's this fictional jealous Salieri, in his late hour, personal take on Mozart. I think the movie is absolutely delicious as pure fiction. And has one of the best soundtracks ever in a Hollywood flick, thanks to a dead man.
"Do you think it is so easy that these people should work for free."
In this day and age and in the foreseeable future, publishing of classical works is no more. Everyone and his dog has a computer and a printer if he wishes to actually print stuff rather than just display it at a monitor. There are many efforts all around in terms of scanning of old books, musical scores and other content. Couple that with OCR technologies and XML and web intengration and classical works are to be what they actually are: a common good of mankind.
Publishers will earn money from contemporary works. There's no more need for typesetting of classical works.
"One minute you've made the statement with an 'IF' in it implying you didn't know and the next you're saying they're well written."
Sorry but no. I'm a software programmer and had logic as part of my formation. It's a common logic statement (IF A THEN B), let's analize it:
"if the original manuscripts survived to this day, chances are that printed published scores for the same works from old time still exist"
We know they did survive, otherwise we wouldn't be discussing this whole thread. It means in logic: "given that original manuscripts survived, this implies that printed copies survived as well".
no distortions, i just should've been more careful with the choice of words. sorry...
"the copy of Mozarts Manuscript they have at Wikipedia, the final stave line looks like a dogs hind leg."
yes, musical symbols indeed resemble a dog's hind leg.
"Just copying another published version would give them a nasty lawsuit."
Not so if they copy from a 19th century published version. Do you really think this practice is uncommon?
"Why are you being so hostile?"
I don't like publishers, i like creators. Publishers are leeches that live off other people's works. They are exactly like the RIAA or other common associations of unimaginative middlemen.
In the case of publishers of music scores, the history of music makes that a lot more patently clear: they payed very little for works by the likes of Mozart, Schubert and Chopin and were at constant fights with these guys. Once they were dead, though, they start publishing and republishing and publishing musical theorists' take on the score and so on. They got rich and yet negleted their main artists some real source of income which in turn could well have made them live a little longer.
I truly hate middlemen with a passion.
"As Z34107 has pointed out, YOU CAN GO AND GET copies of the manuscript which is in public domain."
Again i repeat: you can also get fully arranged musical scores from the 19th century for said works. And they are not under copyright!
"Only YOU seemed to be pissed off that you'd have to pay for the published piece that someone has put time and effort into making."
The only person who did put "real time and effort into making" was Mozart, and he died poor because of the leeches of the day. Other just copied and recopied from yet others.
"As Z34107 has stated:
'Arranging and formatting music is extremely difficult and complex. How many people would I have killed for sheet music with better typesetting?'"
It's not so difficult when you've had a few centuries worth of others previous typesettings from where to copy.
"And as Z34107 Also stated:
'Go get your own - Mozart's original manuscripts are free.'"
Keep repeating the same lie. As i said, it's not just original manuscripts, but also non-copyrighted, old versions of printed and published scores are also available.
"Fact is, you've caught yourself OUT in your own assumption that everyone was assuming it, when it's not true."
if it's not true, why you keep insisting on the original manuscripts thing?
"'which btw, in the case of Mozart is really well written.'
Really? You saying this based on your own assumption again?"
No, on others opinions. People who've had access to them.
But you may see for yourself:
http://www.mcq.org/presse/images/partition_gp.jpg
context:
http://www.mcq.org/presse/aahypersymphonique.html
"I have to ask this as you previously also stated 'if the original manuscripts survived to this day' Which certainly implies that YOU DON'T KNOW if the manuscripts are around."
No. I said "if the original manuscripts survived to this day, chances are printed published versions also did". I know they survived, i was merely doing some logic-like statement here. I meant: "the original manuscripts survived, so surely a few printed published copies survived as well, since there were a lot more of those, even from much closer a time as in the 1800s."
Do you think publishers have to really go through the original manuscripts to republish work? Bible publishers go through the original Moses and Jesus followers manuscripts or they simply republish from previously published printed works? same for Shakespeare...
if it's some obscure little melodic Mozart clarinet line written in some toilet paper found in the ruins of an ancient bathroom, sure, bring on the specialists and pay them a fortune for discovering what exactly Mozart was thinking while he took a shit.
"You make out as though you're being RIPPED off by a publishing company who have put time and effort into producing a good quality version of it, as though that time and effort should not be rewarded."
You know, once efforts like MusicXML and MIDI integration with it get going, you can kiss publishers of classical music bye-bye. There won't be any need for middlemen in this case.
leeches. of dead men...
"I've noticed that some of the best synth programming appears in the music from the tracker scene."
I notice that too and it's simple: mod files come with their own samples, so they don't have to rely on external libraries lacking the exact nuances the tracker want wanted.
"Certain articulations, bow strokes, etc - they can be suggested in the score, or maybe mapped to a controller in MIDI, but you need to have the appropriate sounds. In a lot of cases you need to bank switch on a sampler just to differentiate between up and down bows. Since most consumer-grade sound libraries don't have more to their strings than "marcato" and "slow strings" you're certainly not going to get things like detache, spicatto, or col legno properly represented."
I wholeheartdily agree. Except that sound and image computer synthesis get better year-after-year. Eventually, just as you won't be able to tell if characters in a movie are computer generated or not, you won't be able to tell the difference between synthetic Strings or natural.
Sample-based music today is a fad, because actual real-time generation of timbres is not yet up to snuff. But someday it will. And so, instead of relying on just a few samples and applying a few post-effects upon it, the synth will simply render it in real-time, with full complex variations applied.
"The way you've mixed fact and utter bullshit together is intriguing."
Not as much as the way you mix up my words.
"merely using a halfway decent synth won't 'sound almost as great as any recording'."
Yes, sorry. Should have mentioned only MIDI recordings of masterful performances in featureful MIDI gear will sound great. Like in the file i linked to.
"In fact listening (with Timidity, no less) to the file you reference leaves me astonished at your lack of perception."
My "lack of perception"?! I'm a classical music fan and while i don't have "absolute ear", i do have good taste. I haven't said they sound "as great as any recording", i said "almost as great". The orchestra parts are some of the best i've ever heard in MIDI -- which is an incredible accomplishment in itself -- and the whole thing has a very "live" feel to it. It sounds almost as the real thing, and I maintain that. But you can certainly tell it's recorded string sounds being played in a rather limited mechanical way, thought it sounds good enough.
I can only imagine what better real-time sound synthesis technologies aiding sample-based playback reserves for us in the future...
"it's ludicrous to make a blanket statement like 'In these days of wavetable synths, any throw-away MIDI file sounds almost as good as leaning over the conductor's shoulder.'"
yes, i'll agree the statement was pretty generic and a MIDI produced by a cheap Casio keyboard played by, say, an unskilled youtube musician, won't sound as great as a MIDI recording of Claudio Arau playing at a Yamaha Clavinova...
"I'll quickly concede that given a very good MIDI file and a decent synth you'll get something fairly good, but not because wavetable synths are some magic bullet that turns crap into gold. It would be because of the quality of the MIDI file, completely and absolutely."
Yes, but the quality of the MIDI recording won't matter if it's being played through some lousy midi player with terrible samples and no effects, which is what i think the parent i replied to implied.
"If you play that same good MIDI file through the lamest synth you can find it's still going to sound phenomenal."
No it won't. Try listening to Beethoven's Hammerklavier by a good performer on a MIDI player that doesn't take into account:
* touch sensibility
* vibrato
* tremollo
* echoing
Just imagine all notes sounding like the piano keys are hit with the same force: no piano, pianissimo or fortissimo sections! No concert-hall-like echoing! And the piano timbre itself? Let's get a piano timbre which does the work justice, ok?
It'll sound even lamer than hearing a 32-bitrate mp3 rendition of a live recording...
"Likewise, playing the MIDI files you've linked to will sound passable at best (depending on instrumentation -- harpsichords won't suffer from the lack of attention to dynamics) on whatever synth you choose."
yeah, whatever...
anyway, you said you used timidity. Timidity default settings are pretty conservative regarding CPU usage. I'd suggest you try with my command-line switches for a much more rewarding experience and post your thoughts:
timidity --output-24bit -OsS -EFdelay=b,1000 -EFreverb=g,100 -m 2000 -T 100 midifile.mid
This will sound a lot better.
"In summary, MIDI isn't any better than it once was. MIDI has always been fine."
Yes, after all it's the same MIDI protocol of always. The only difference is that now common household gear finally got some decent MIDI players up to the task.
"It's a misrepresentation of available MIDIs to recommend them to classical music fans with working ears. A MIDI file *can* sound good. The odds you're likely to find this file? About the same as the odds of finding the fountain of youth. All the good orchestrators are at work on stuff like movie scores."
I am a classical music fan with a "working ear" and have a few rarities here in live recording like Schubert's Winterreise by Dietrich
"Go get your own - Mozart's original manuscripts are free."
You, just like everyone else in this thread, is assuming that the only arranged scores available for classical music is the original manuscripts from the composer -- which btw, in the case of Mozart is really well written.
Fact is: if the original manuscripts survived to this day, chances are that printed published scores for the same works from old time still exist. Why should it be a concern to scan these old editions, which are not under copyright anymore? Isn't it the same old preserved books?
Did nowadays publishers suddenly burned them all so that the only way for us to get Mozart work is either paying for their hard-earned work -- like copying from such old editions rather than from the manuscripts indeed?
again, fuck the publishers and their perpetual copyrights for dead man works.
"Perhaps you should listen to more work from Mozart rather than just the well-known light-hearted stuff such as the Alla Turca sonata movement or Eine Kleine Nachtmusik..."
and BTW, even these are much more profound music than the likes you cited...
Sorry, but no: pop musicians from the day have their music played today just as much as Madonna some 200 years from now. Except Madonna still has the technologic advantage that it has never been so easy to copy and distribute works through a network, so it won't ever really be lost like Bach's music has been for many decades...
Perhaps you should listen to more work from Mozart rather than just the well-known light-hearted stuff such as the Alla Turca sonata movement or Eine Kleine Nachtmusik...
"I'm sure Mozart is finally wealthy enough to where having his music in the public domain won't hurt him."
Funny thing is: he was a poor man. His wife wasn't even able to buy him a proper burial!
Something is very wrong with the world when people copying someone else's works and making money off it claim that other people can't do that with one of makind's most renowned artists...
I'm sorry, but perhaps you have not heard midi music in a long time. Long are the days since soundboards came with lousy samples and no effects whatsoever: todays midis, with great samples and full wav synthesis with effects applied sound almost as great as any recording, specially works for piano, harpsichord and acoustic guitar alone. I agree String sections still sound rather synthetic though...
T -SAENS
If you're on Linux, use timidity++, which is the best MIDI synthesis software available. On Windows, be sure that you have in Control Panel -> Sounds and Multimedia -> Audio -> MIDI Reproduction set to Software Wavetable Synthethizer, otherwise it'll sound just as bad as you heard before.
Right now i'm listening to Saint Saen's Animal Carnivel and even though it includes orchestra as well as the piano, it sounds absolutely vibrant and lively! Give it another shot, i tell you. I believe i got this MIDI from here:
http://www.classicalarchives.com/main/s.html#SAIN
I believe the one i'm listening in particular is this one (the byte size matches):
http://www.classicalarchives.com/m/0/00crnval.mid
You have to get a free registration to download and that only gives you 5 downloads a day, which is kinda lame. But the MIDI's are of superb quality.
I also have another stunning source of quality MIDIs:
http://kunstderfuge.com/
Free registration and 10 downloads/day. This one is specially great for solo keyboard works.
why only the original manuscripts from Mozart's own pen? If so many book editions from that period survive to this day and indeed Mozart's own manuscripts, then why no score editions from that period? Why should i scan from this copyrighted edition in particular?
Indeed. Besides, converting the wav output from a MIDI synthethizer like timidity into mp3 won't make it sound any better -- only good instrument samples and right timidity settings for effects like reverb, sustain and others can do that.
Don't know why people modded you funny.
Not sure slashdot is really losing readers to digg or reddit. One of the latest front-page additions to digg is a story named "Crazy Man Dancing In Best Buy!!!". While not much worse than yesterday's slashdot story on "unskilled musician playing instruments via stop-motion video editing" youtube stupidness, at least the latter is a well-crafted hack.
If slashdot is losing some readers for that, i'd say it's nothing losing much. Specially as digg's comments are "teh suck". Won't even touch on reddit and its political agenda: not stuff that matters for nerds...
I feel that slashdot's filter for submitted stories is a lot better than having to filter them myself when searching news on digg...
"published copies of them are still under copyright by whomever published them"
fuck them! Mozart's music is a universal cultural hallmark of mankind.
And to think this copyright insanity will only get worse: some 100 years from now some stupidass ageless entity -- say, Disney -- will still retain rights over work produced by people who worked for them.
Oh, so he's a "youtube artist"! So that's why no one was taking the time to comment on the music itself of such unskilled musician. why am i not surprised?...
i thought i had replied to you. see:
2 25900
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=211456&cid=17
the comment just below.
"Totally false."
Yes, totally false because a bunch of scholars like Pythagoras or Stockhausen doing mathematical experimentations with sound form the exception that is the norm.
Get serious: music composition revolves around playing with instruments, getting your hands dirty and sometimes, getting lucky and coming up with something great. It's not about writing random notes, fixed series or whatnot. See what Einstein has to say about ingenuity.
The point is: what are we discussing here? The music? The stop-motion approach to music composition? The video itself?
Yes, acting, filming, music composition are all unoriginal by themselves. What makes them interesting is the individual genius behind each artistic expression. I don't think a youtube video is exactly that, but then, i'll save it for when i actually see it.
That was not directed at the music -- which as I said I didn't hear to and am not seeing people comment upon.
I was aiming at the unoriginal stop-motion process.
"The 'meaning' behind any piece of music is arbitrary. I hear people say that they hear the story of the triumph of the human spirit in a certain Beethoven piece. I don't, I just hear a certain well-worn 19th-century structure of sounds without any story behind it."
Yes, yes. I did not say it carries any particular meaning: it's "meaning" is completely subjective and personal for each listener. Still, tonal music and its filigrans of complex tension/distension relationships allow for people to clearly distinguish between heavily dramatic sections and "allegro" ones. You can't hear the Apassionata Sonata and say it's just a buch of notes thrown together or use it to celebrate happy moments: it's clearly out of focus.
"The diaphonic singing of the Shop people in Bulgaria (yes, a land where minor seconds are considered pleasing to the ear) may sound shrill and angry to many Western listeners. But to the Shop, the music accompanies songs whose lyrics are about love, family life, and so forth. So, the meaning of a given piece is totally arbitrary,"
It's not that arbitrary, then: it depends on cultural context! I'm not Bulgarian, i'm a westerner and am used to the long tonal music tradition.
"the complexity or informational content of a piece is the deciding factor."
One thing's for sure: in no cultural musical traditions in the world, composers and musicians compose like they were drawing mathematical functions.
"Art takes many forms how many can you master ?"
I for myself am a master of the skillful lasagna-eating art!
I don't have access to youtube here from work, so i can't say. But people are commenting about the process he undertook to get it done, not about the music itself.
I take it the music is barely ok and perhaps the only "innovative, thought-provoking" artistic features in it is the carefully methodic process by someone who has enough time in his hands to do so...
Creative? perhaps. Though-provoking? no. Great? absolutely not.
"their work was mostly derivative of a genre of art originated by someone who is mostly unknown in modern main stream culture. You would then proceed to go home and research this artist and convince yourself that because this artist was the first they are better than the artist whose work you completely overlooked in the gallery."
Mozart and Beethoven certainly felt that way about Bach...
"it became apparent that the music I found most exciting and endlessly deep, instead of just something transparent and boring after one has listened just a single time, was twelve-tone (or based on Norgard's infinity series)."
Randomness, impredictability or cold-precision methodically written series sure may sound as deep as any natural random phenomena, which really don't aim at anything other than filling the silence with sounds. Still, i believe most music lovers really care much more for music with a history of their own to tell, as far as such an abstract art as music permits...
"In hollywood, they swing the swords at the other swords - blade to blade - instead of trying to actually hit the other guy."
Well, suppose you try to actually hit the other guy. What should the other guy do? Options:
1) do nothing and get hit
2) throw his sword at the floor and laugh at you missing the swing just before you try once more and cut his head off
3) run away like a coward
4) parry the swing with his sword and try again
Options 3 and 4 are reasonable enough but since this is a Hollywood flick, it wouldn't bode well to either have a cowardly hero or bad guy. Hence, long swordfights with lots of parrying...