Subject: Re: Can Musicians practice with hearing protectors? (latency) - From: Rodney Berry <rodney(at)ATR.CO.JP> Date: Sat, 14 Sep 2002 08:16:04 +0900Now Balinese gong kebyar gamelan playing raises some thoughts... 1. These instruments are really loud! Are all balinese people a little deaf as a result? 2. Gong Kebyar is traditionally played outside. Could a musical style that involves very loud instruments with sharp transient attacks and long sustained decays have developed in a 'concert hall' oriented music culture? 3. Most rhythmically precise and complex drum or gong traditions i can think of seem to have emerged in climates where playing outdoors is preferable. Maybe this is because indoor performers would have been turned off by the volume and reverberation-induced latencies? 4. Has anyone written much about how the acoustics of a place affect the emusical styles evolving there? rodney Dan Freed wrote: > I think that some musical instruments require more precise control of timing > than others. Instruments with clearly defined attacks are less forgiving of > imprecise timing than instruments with softer attacks. The same point can > be made for musical styles. For example, Balinese gamelan music employs a > technique called kotekan, where a very fast 16th-note melody is divided into > two syncopated interlocking parts, played by two groups of musicians. Very > precise timing is required to ensure that the two parts join seamlessly to > create the fast melody. Trying to play this music in the presence of > reverberation or strong echoes is a real nightmare, even for well-trained > musicians. > > Dan Freed > > -----Original Message----- > From: AUDITORY Research in Auditory Perception > [mailto:AUDITORY(at)LISTS.MCGILL.CA]On Behalf Of Andy Vermiglio > Sent: Friday, September 13, 2002 10:50 AM > To: AUDITORY(at)LISTS.MCGILL.CA > Subject: Re: Can Musicians practice with hearing protectors? > > > No disservice to classical organists was intended. Perhaps it would have > been more precise to say that organists are trained to deal with this > latency problem as opposed to other musicians who typically (and thankfully) > do not routinely struggle with this issue. > > Best, > > Andy > > -----Original Message----- > From: AUDITORY Research in Auditory Perception > [mailto:AUDITORY(at)LISTS.MCGILL.CA] On Behalf Of Harvey Holmes > Sent: Friday, September 13, 2002 7:25 AM > To: AUDITORY(at)LISTS.MCGILL.CA > Subject: Re: Can Musicians practice with hearing protectors? > > Dear list, > > I think this latest comment does a disservice to classical organists, who > often have to synchronize with major professional orchestras, choirs and > soloists in very demanding classical sacred music, organ symphonies etc., > such as mass settings by composers such as Mozart, Haydn, Verdi and > Bruckner. The demands of this music on precision are at least comparable > to those of jazz, but are routinely satisfied by organists who are trained > to handle this latency problem. > > Harvey Holmes > > At 23:57 13/09/2002, you wrote: > > >>It is true that church organ musicians routinely work with long latencies. >>However, few church organists work in jazz fusion bands where precise >> > timing > >>is much more crucial. The several hundred millisecond delays, while >>tolerable for the church organist and an individual singing the national >>anthem at stadium events, would have disastrous musical consequences in >>contemporary jazz settings. >> >>Andy >> >>-----Original Message----- >>From: AUDITORY Research in Auditory Perception >>[mailto:AUDITORY(at)LISTS.MCGILL.CA] On Behalf Of Mikael Fernström >>Sent: Friday, September 13, 2002 6:06 AM >>To: AUDITORY(at)LISTS.MCGILL.CA >>Subject: Re: Can Musicians practice with hearing protectors? >> >>About the issue of MIDI versus "real" instruments and latency: >>I think that musicians are extremely flexible people ;-) For example, a >>piano player that learns to play church organ. Suddenly you can have >>latencies up to several hundred milliseconds, primarily due to the >>mechanism, secondarily due to the speed of sound if the pipes are far away >> >>from the console. And still, excellent music can be made. > >>/Mikael >> > >