mp3 and ogg on the same page

I've experimented with this on my new Haydn page:

http://66.98.148.43/~xenharmo/haydn.htm

I'd appreciate hearing feedback.

Gene,

{you wrote...}
>I've experimented with this on my new Haydn page:
>
>http://66.98.148.43/~xenharmo/haydn.htm
>
>I'd appreciate hearing feedback.

Good experiment. You certainly took a different angle than I thought of: instead of files with (roughly) equivalent fidelity but differing lengths, you offer complete movements (pieces) by utilizing differing factors of compression, as you so aptly put "lo-fi" and "hi-fi". Not a comparison of the codecs, but that isn't what you intended anyhow.

I listened to the 3rd movement of the Haydn and - no surprise - the ogg (hi-fi) version sounds much better, having better frequency range.

I *would* suggest that you lay it out a little more tabular, as the lo/hi-fi selections bump right up against one another, and may not be totally intuitive. If nothing else, put some space in there (even a blank.gif with a width of something uniform).

And then there is the "I suggest just listening to the music without fussing about "correct" soundfonts"... This suggests that music is nothing more than pitches and notes of varying lengths and volumes, as if composers never really cared about what timbral resource might be utilized. I understand your point, and we have never seen eye-to-eye (or eye-to-anything, for that matter :).

But since some recent discussions around here have toyed with the philosophy that the rendered/recorded sounds utilized in a lot of our electronic microtonal stuff has a lot to do with it's semi-lameness, I can only offer this: one of the things that good composers things about is *everything*. I realize that there are areas of music where performance can vary a lot in terms of instrumental/vocal resources (and I'm *specifically* not referring to _transcriptions_), but a composition is the sum of its parts, and the scoring of the piece - the way that it becomes sound from dots on a page, etc - can be just as important as the rhythms and pitches.

I can only speak for myself: I experience music holistically. I listen as much to the phrasing, to the 'orchestration' (if you will), to the mix (in recorded situations), as much as I do to melody, harmony, and rhythm. How could one not? (strictly rhetorical)

All of that _said_, I didn't find the soundfont objectionable, and it was at least as good as most 'arco' string sounds that you find on good synths or samplers. However, even if one leaves out real string playing, there is a huge world of music that can be made with string sample libraries, but it requires one to use many kinds of samples and to really understand the phrasing of a string player as exhibited in the writing of the piece. I've heard very, very effective mock-ups of works using samplers, but it requires a lot of work to get the sound right.

Going back, you might look at the html layout of a couple of the music sites (like zebox, soundclick, etc) for how they spreadout the various sound file formats for downloading/streaming, to make your page more clear...

Cheers,
Jon

--- In MakeMicroMusic@yahoogroups.com, "Jonathan M. Szanto"
<JSZANTO@A...> wrote:

> And then there is the "I suggest just listening to the music without
> fussing about "correct" soundfonts"... This suggests that music is
nothing
> more than pitches and notes of varying lengths and volumes, as if
composers
> never really cared about what timbral resource might be utilized.

This suggests Haydn used sounfonts. He didn't. In any case, if you
want to complain about a lack of authenticity, it seems to be
considered acceptable to butcher the tuning, even when an orchestra as
excellent as the BPO is playing. Why is the BPO playing in 12 equal
with A set high and with inflated resources acceptable, but using the
"wrong" soundfont isn't? This suggests music has nothing much to do
with pitches, and that heavy-handed big band sounds are just peachy
for this kind of music. Why is that better than using arco strings?

I
> understand your point, and we have never seen eye-to-eye (or
> eye-to-anything, for that matter :).

But I've never really understood yours. You seem to think the arco
strings work for this piece, but are suggesting they shouldn't be used
anyway--or something. I don't really know what your point is, about
this or the oboe question either one.

> I can only speak for myself: I experience music holistically. I
listen as
> much to the phrasing, to the 'orchestration' (if you will), to the
mix (in
> recorded situations), as much as I do to melody, harmony, and
rhythm. How
> could one not? (strictly rhetorical)

How much does tuning matter, in this view? How significant is the idea
content of the music? Obviously listening to Beethoven's late quartets
and playing attention only to how good the string playing is misses
most of the point. Schnabel was not a technically brilliant pianist,
but people still listen and learn from his pioneering recordings,
because so much of Beethoven is about *ideas*. Where do ideas fit in?

However, even if one leaves out real string playing, there is
> a huge world of music that can be made with string sample libraries,
but it
> requires one to use many kinds of samples and to really understand the
> phrasing of a string player as exhibited in the writing of the
piece. I've
> heard very, very effective mock-ups of works using samplers, but it
> requires a lot of work to get the sound right.

It sounds like something which would make a great course--how to
produce a Hollywood mock-up.

Gene,

{you wrote...}
>But I've never really understood yours. You seem to think the arco strings >work for this piece, but are suggesting they shouldn't be used anyway--or >something.

No, that isn't correct at all. I said that the soundfont didn't bother me too much, and that is because it is a decent emulation of an arco string note, with a fair amount of bow attack. I didn't say anything about *not* using them - if you read carefully, you'll note that I mention that successful use of samples in emulating an complex instrument (in this case, and most notably, string articulations) requires not one kind of sample but many. The variety of attack envelopes and nuances in the phrasing of a bow are numerous and have a great degree of impact on how that phrasing creates a musical line. All one need do is take a look at the score, or even better, study a string player performing such a part, to see that one kind of sample will not give an effective rendition of a well composed line.

>Where do ideas fit in?

Obviously, they are also part of the whole.

>It sounds like something which would make a great course--how to produce a >Hollywood mock-up.

There have only been two string quartets that went by the name of the Hollywood String Quartet. The first was actually of such prodigious talent, being made up of some European ex-patriots during WWII, that their few recordings have been reissued. But if you were simply being a jerk when all I was trying to do was give some feedback on your experiment, then I've duly noted that as well.

Jon

--- In MakeMicroMusic@yahoogroups.com, "Jonathan M. Szanto"
<JSZANTO@A...> wrote:

> >Where do ideas fit in?
>
> Obviously, they are also part of the whole.

For some kinds of music--high on abstractness, low on
corporeality--it's the ver essence. Bach's Art of the Fugue was not
written with a specific ensemble in mind, which shows your claim that
composers always do this to be false. It is abstract. It is all about
the notes. It is also, IMHO, great music.

> >It sounds like something which would make a great course--how to
produce a
> >Hollywood mock-up.
>
> There have only been two string quartets that went by the name of the
> Hollywood String Quartet. The first was actually of such prodigious
talent,
> being made up of some European ex-patriots during WWII, that their few
> recordings have been reissued. But if you were simply being a jerk
when all
> I was trying to do was give some feedback on your experiment, then I've
> duly noted that as well.

Why do you always leap to any conclusion which allows you to conclude
I am a jerk? I wasn't talking about the Hollywood String Quartet at
all--obviously not, if you will read what I wrote, which was about
mock-ups, a subject you brought up yourself and which I merely
responded to in a friendly manner. I don't know what your problem is,
but you really need to get over it. Please!

Gene,

{you wrote...}
>For some kinds of music--high on abstractness, low on corporeality--it's >the ver essence. Bach's Art of the Fugue was not written with a specific >ensemble in mind, which shows your claim that composers always do this to >be false.

I wrote: "I realize that there are areas of music where performance can vary a lot in terms of instrumental/vocal resources". And I meant that, yes indeed, there is music of a very abstract nature, both older music (and lots and lots of it a lot older than Bach fugues) as well as abstract newer music. I never said composers *always* do this.

>It is also, IMHO, great music.

Agreed.

>Why do you always leap to any conclusion which allows you to conclude I am >a jerk?

Sorry. (read on)

>I wasn't talking about the Hollywood String Quartet at all--obviously not, >if you will read what I wrote, which was about mock-ups, a subject you >brought up yourself and which I merely responded to in a friendly manner.

Again, sorry. Many, many classical musicians not only look down their noses at commercial music, but the even more distilled form of Hollywood commercial music. We were talking about Haydn, and you brought up Hollywood. Pavlovian for me, and sorry - the only jerk in the room (apparently) was the jerk in my "knee-jerk".

>I don't know what your problem is, but you really need to get over it. Please!

Fine, see above. If you ever want to take seriously the idea of making these electronic renderings breath and phrase more naturally, let us know. It can be done, and in fact I'm going to do a recording tomorrow with a friend of mine: he is - God forbid - not only a Hollywood composer but was one of the 5 this year to be nominated for an Emmy for his work on a television series. Larry can write/play/record string lines that would fool almost every set of ears I can think of, and all done with both sampling and synthesis (and, of course, done strictly to show the director how the cue will go, before going into the studio to record live with a full orch).

I'll ask him for some pointers. If you care to take your musical adventures to another level, I'd be happy to share anything I learn.

Jon

--- In MakeMicroMusic@yahoogroups.com, "Jonathan M. Szanto"
<JSZANTO@A...> wrote:

> I'll ask him for some pointers. If you care to take your musical
adventures
> to another level, I'd be happy to share anything I learn.

I could use some pointers.

--- In MakeMicroMusic@yahoogroups.com, "Jonathan M. Szanto"
<JSZANTO@A...> wrote:

> Again, sorry. Many, many classical musicians not only look down
their noses
> at commercial music, but the even more distilled form of Hollywood
> commercial music.

Well, I don't need to do that, not being a classical musician, but a
musical mad scientist. I'm also a fan of Erich Wolfgang Korngold and
Bernard Herrmann, and not in the habit of sneering at film composers
in general. I've had a couple of occasions where I thought I might
have discovered an underappreciated film composer, where I saw how
first-rate talent does make itself known. Once was when I saw On the
Waterfront--"Who *is* this guy? He's fantastic! What other films has
he done??" It turned out to be Leonard Bernstein, of course. He didn't
get the Oscar, which went to Dimitri Tiompkin, who didn't need the
spare, but the Academy Awards can be screwy. I was similarly impressed
by the score of The Red Pony, which turned out to be by some guy named
Copland. By the time I saw Alexander Nevksy I was a little more aware
and knew the score was by Prokoviev. I've never seen Scott of the
Antarctic, but I did see Monty Python's parody.

Leonard Bernstein never won an Oscar, but Elmer did. So have Copland,
Corligliano, Arnold, and Dun; Korngold glommed three.

Lenny should have won that year. :(

Film music has been one of the areas where non-tonal music can find a wide audience. I have sometimes noticed some microtonal music as well -- albeit often as an unintended result of a poorly tuned sample bank. Even the prepared piano has become a studio staple (on second thought, that's not surprising, as the prepared piano was, in a real way, an ancestor of contemporary samplers). But composition for film is an enterprise with its own rules. The recent discussion over the "composer's responsibility" for all aspects of a score does not apply to film. Consider, for example, the excellent scores of Alex North. Without Henry Brant as orchestrator, they would scarcely be recognizeable. Was North neglecting his responsiblity? Nope. His responsibility including handing his particell over to Brant in due time.

DJW

Gene Ward Smith wrote:

> --- In MakeMicroMusic@yahoogroups.com, "Jonathan M. Szanto"
> <JSZANTO@A...> wrote:
>
> > Again, sorry. Many, many classical musicians not only look down
> their noses
> > at commercial music, but the even more distilled form of Hollywood
> > commercial music.
>
> Well, I don't need to do that, not being a classical musician, but a
> musical mad scientist. I'm also a fan of Erich Wolfgang Korngold and
> Bernard Herrmann, and not in the habit of sneering at film composers
> in general. I've had a couple of occasions where I thought I might
> have discovered an underappreciated film composer, where I saw how
> first-rate talent does make itself known. Once was when I saw On the
> Waterfront--"Who *is* this guy? He's fantastic! What other films has
> he done??" It turned out to be Leonard Bernstein, of course. He didn't
> get the Oscar, which went to Dimitri Tiompkin, who didn't need the
> spare, but the Academy Awards can be screwy. I was similarly impressed
> by the score of The Red Pony, which turned out to be by some guy named
> Copland. By the time I saw Alexander Nevksy I was a little more aware
> and knew the score was by Prokoviev. I've never seen Scott of the
> Antarctic, but I did see Monty Python's parody.
>
> Leonard Bernstein never won an Oscar, but Elmer did. So have Copland,
> Corligliano, Arnold, and Dun; Korngold glommed three.

Daniel,

{you wrote...}
>Film music has been one of the areas where non-tonal music can find a wide >audience. I have sometimes noticed some microtonal music as well -- >albeit often as an unintended result of a poorly tuned sample bank.

There is some very purposeful stuff as well; James Newton Howard is one that comes to mind.

>But composition for film is an enterprise with its own rules. The recent >discussion over the "composer's responsibility" for all aspects of a score >does not apply to film.

That isn't universally true (these days). In the "golden" age of film scoring, the composer sat at the piano and banged out sketches, and the orchestrator did the other work. But the field has spread in both directions, from the younger midiot composers who only know how to bang out things with a sequencer and samples and loops and *need* someone to write out the stuff for other instruments (and try to explain what the composer wants to the instrumentalists in terms they understand), to composers who are intimately tied with their choice of instrumentation. One other thing to throw into the mix is the inhumane time compression of the scoring environment, which these days practically dictates a team approach.

I'll cut out, as we're probably way OT at this point...
Jon

{you wrote...}
>--- In MakeMicroMusic@yahoogroups.com, "Jonathan M. Szanto"
>I'm also a fan of Erich Wolfgang Korngold and Bernard Herrmann, and not in >the habit of sneering at film composers in general.

I'm a fan, too, and have ties to that community. Also, I would note that music from Hollywood is not singularly about film, but much of popular music.

>Leonard Bernstein never won an Oscar, but Elmer did. So have Copland, >Corligliano, Arnold, and Dun; Korngold glommed three.

There are a lot of good, young, film composers out there these days.

Jon

> > >Where do ideas fit in?
> >
> > Obviously, they are also part of the whole.
>
> For some kinds of music--high on abstractness, low on
> corporeality--it's the ver essence. Bach's Art of the Fugue was not
> written with a specific ensemble in mind, which shows your claim
that
> composers always do this to be false. It is abstract. It is all
about
> the notes. It is also, IMHO, great music.
>

Obviously, there are different levels of "abstractness" of musics.

Bach is tricky though . . at first it seems totally abstract. But
then you notice, you can sing it, you can play it, it sounds good
when you sing it and play it. The voices fit into typical
instrumental ranges: flute, oboe, violin, etc. They don't just
wander willy-nilly all over the staff.

I remember as a student writing fugues--this was a problem: my
fugues would be technically correct, but nobody could sing them
because there was never a time to breathe, and the range was too
wide, etc. etc.

You don't always notice Bach solving these "mere
instrumental/orchestrational" problems, but he is.

I should also say that one of the things I love about Bach's music
(and I prefer Bach greatly over Mozart and Beethoven) is the SOUND of
it, when played on "authentic" instruments . . .the sounds that
Bach heard. He WAS writing for the instruments of his day, in very
sophisticated and subtle ways, that aren't obvious on the score.

But there are certain ways of playing those instruments that are
very expressive, or have very clear characters, and Bach takes
advantage of this in his music. I'm thinking of the "Baroque swell"
effect one often hears on suspensions.

This is not to say that substitutions can't be made: I think Glen
Gould's interps are great, I also love Wendy Carlos' versions. but
in a certain sense those are happy accidents that those folks
stumbled upon and took skillful advantage of.

So when I hear a MIDI rendering that feels like "something's not
quite right", then, well, something's not quite right. Either the
music's not quite fitting the timbre, or the other way around.
What I suggested the other day, was to think in terms of the former,
rather than always starting with the latter.

BTW, I agree with Gene that BPO of Beethoven is not so great. I
really can only stand Beethoven (at least, the symphonies), with
authentic timbres, and authentic tunings, both. Otherwise, I feel
that the "ideas" are not being framed clearly enough . . like they
have an extra layer of mud or frosting on them . . . .

peace,
C Bailey

>I've experimented with this on my new Haydn page:
>
>http://66.98.148.43/~xenharmo/haydn.htm
>
>I'd appreciate hearing feedback.

It seems to me you're doing it backward -- wouldn't
ogg for low bitrate, mp3 for high be the more natural
choice?

-Carl

--- In MakeMicroMusic@yahoogroups.com, Carl Lumma <ekin@l...> wrote:

> >I've experimented with this on my new Haydn page:
> >
> >http://66.98.148.43/~xenharmo/haydn.htm
> >
> >I'd appreciate hearing feedback.
>
> It seems to me you're doing it backward -- wouldn't
> ogg for low bitrate, mp3 for high be the more natural
> choice?

Since people can use the mp3 to see if they want to download the ogg,
but might complain of being unable to use the ogg if they wanted to
see if they should download the mp3, this seems better. In any case
I've already uploaded 1.3 gigabytes of ogg files, so it's a little
late in the day to make that change.

>> >I've experimented with this on my new Haydn page:
>> >
>> >http://66.98.148.43/~xenharmo/haydn.htm
>> >
>> >I'd appreciate hearing feedback.
>>
>> It seems to me you're doing it backward -- wouldn't
>> ogg for low bitrate, mp3 for high be the more natural
>> choice?
>
>Since people can use the mp3 to see if they want to download the ogg,
>but might complain of being unable to use the ogg if they wanted to
>see if they should download the mp3, this seems better. In any case
>I've already uploaded 1.3 gigabytes of ogg files, so it's a little
>late in the day to make that change.

It's a fine strategy.

-C.

PS- This was delivered to me after your other messages, even though
it's dated earlier.

--- In MakeMicroMusic@yahoogroups.com, "Gene Ward Smith"

/makemicromusic/topicId_7638.html#7638

<gwsmith@s...> wrote:
> I've experimented with this on my new Haydn page:
>
> http://66.98.148.43/~xenharmo/haydn.htm
>
> I'd appreciate hearing feedback.

***I think this is the *perfect* solution, as I'd mentioned
previously, or whenever I'd mentioned it...

J. Pehrson