tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8060605.post3904477946623560985..comments2024-03-15T20:32:39.815+00:00Comments on On An Overgrown Path: 5.1 surround concert halls have arrivedUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger9125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8060605.post-82092496118391993302014-06-06T13:00:02.032+01:002014-06-06T13:00:02.032+01:00I've been hesitant to comment on this thread: ...I've been hesitant to comment on this thread: I carry a card identifying me as officially a 'Technotwit' in case I lose consciousness in an electronics store or while trying to make sense of Windows 8.1.<br /><br />However, I think Pliable has made more than clear the distinction between amplification of the orchestra and ambient sound enhancement. Two experiences in two different venues in Vancouver certainly make it clear to me. The Vancouver Symphony Orchestra plays in the Orpheum Theatre, and I'd rather chew glass than listen to a concert from a seat under the balcony in there. I had to once, in 1986, when a friend bought tickets for four of us to hear Arrau playing the 'Emperor'. Arrau's playing of that concerto was extraordinary in that year, and the only thing that saved the occasion to a degree for me was that I already knew that from listening to a radio broadcast of his performance in Calgary the week before. A little irony in that. If ambient sound enhancement can rectify that problem, I'm all for it.<br /><br />But then there is the tale of a concert half-ruined, at least. At the Queen Elizabeth Theatre, I went to a concert by Count Basie, Ella Fitzgerald, Joe Pass, and Oscar Peterson, and it was amplified. What a disaster, and such a senseless one! Ye Gods, whoever had the idea that Basie and Fitzgerald couldn't reach the back of any venue short of a soccer stadium! We were in the front row of the balcony and I just wanted the racket to stop. Sad. <br /><br />Amplification of musicians dismays me, and in that case gave me a depressing sense of a potentially great occasion missed. But if ambient sound enhancement can help those people who regularly renew their VSO subscriptions for seats under that balcony, it must be a good thing, for many, more likely most, of them have never heard what an orchestra in concert sounds like. Philip Amoshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11739418522974972567noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8060605.post-72506174328855945162014-06-05T20:14:37.317+01:002014-06-05T20:14:37.317+01:00" The concept is repulsive to me."
Brut..." The concept is repulsive to me."<br /><br />Brutus, let's amicably differ, shall we?Pliablehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10616598845886342325noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8060605.post-88340286247971176302014-06-05T19:42:02.940+01:002014-06-05T19:42:02.940+01:00I can’t comment on the Carmen System at the Theatr...I can’t comment on the Carmen System at the Theatre Royal except to say that if I were in attendance, I would not even want to know of its existence. The concept is repulsive to me. YMMV<br /><br />The confusion about whether a sound is natural or artificial is part of the issue here. Some instruments produce their sound through electronic mediation (electric guitar, electronic organ, ondes Martinot, theremin), sometimes even finding their way into orchestral works. Traditional orchestral instruments and voice do not require a plug. To say that architectural adjustments to concerts halls (curtains, shells, reflectors, structures to break standing waves, etc.) renders sound artificial is a stretch, like saying that cupping ones hands to focus yelling across distance is unnatural. Installing speaker systems of any sort, now that’s a line to be crossed only with due consideration. For popular music, knock yourselves out. For centuries-old art music, I’d much rather it be unplugged.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8060605.post-18091426504867618772014-06-05T17:40:33.064+01:002014-06-05T17:40:33.064+01:00DW, thanks for that constructive contribution. I a...DW, thanks for that constructive contribution. I am not proposing whole orchestra amplification, but rather ambient sound enhancement. Certainly the Carmen system at the Theatre Royal, Norwich shows how effective the subtle use of electronics can be. Performances by the Britten Sinfonia of the St John Passion and many other works, and of Jordi Savall's complex Jerusalem project were just two of the performances that were beneficially digitally enhanced. I am very much looking forward to hearing the Freiburg touring Parsifal in the Theatre Royal in July - complete with digital sound enhancement. <br /><br />As described in an earlier post, the Carmen system only adds non-directional reverberation. But it is an impressive taster of what a digital 5.1 sound shaping system could do without crossing the crucial boundary between natural and amplified sound. Pliablehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10616598845886342325noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8060605.post-72826528436833669382014-06-05T17:26:34.307+01:002014-06-05T17:26:34.307+01:00Pliable: "The proposal is not to raise overal...Pliable: "The proposal is not to raise overall sound levels. It is to make the marginal listening areas in a hall, where younger/newer concertgoers sit, experience the same sound as the front row of the stalls."<br /><br />There are other possibilities. In the early 1980s (I think it was), the LSO tried to address the old problem of producing the correct orchestral bell pitch without resorting to several tons of heavy and uncontrollable metal on stage. If I remember correctly, they experimented with pickups connected to the strings of a grand piano with some success. It was certainly more satisfactory than the wretched tubular bells normally used.<br /><br />More recently, the ENO at the Coliseum used suitably impressive electronic bells in their production of Parsifal.<br /><br />Selective and subtle use of electronics might be the way forward. Certainly my experience of whole orchestra amplification has been appalling and in a direct comparison between a pipe organ and a Thomas 'computer' organ, an easier challenge one would think, the former won hands down as the Thomas had a hardness of tone which became very tiring in a relatively short time. Perhaps the amplification and speakers used were not up to scratch.D Whitleyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11636017099028332321noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8060605.post-58404959804012380682014-06-05T16:06:16.484+01:002014-06-05T16:06:16.484+01:00It is pleasing that this topic is now receiving th...It is pleasing that this topic is now receiving the attention and debate it deserves. In response to the two equivocal comments I would restate two points made in earlier posts.<br /><br />The 'natural' sound we hear in the concert hall is actually artificially enhanced by reverberation. Listening habits now favour a more inclusive sound, and the new digital technologies offer a way to make the sound more inclusive, in the same way as building materials have traditionally been used to make concert halls sound warmer.<br /><br />Talk of amplified sound is misleading. The proposal is not to raise overall sound levels. It is to make the marginal listening areas in a hall, where younger/newer concertgoers sit, experience the same sound as the front row of the stalls. <br /><br />The Pritzker Pavilion on Chicago is a salutary case study. But I can counter it with a more nuanced and much more successful case study. I have extensive experience of the acoustic Theatre Royal here in Norwich before and after the installation of the state of the art Carmen sound enhancement system. The results have been revelatory and avoid the directions effects apparently experienced at the Pritzker Pavilion. More about the Carmen installation and the sound it produces here - http://www.overgrownpath.com/2010/10/beethovens-grand-slam.html Pliablehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10616598845886342325noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8060605.post-13272146402675567082014-06-05T15:35:44.448+01:002014-06-05T15:35:44.448+01:00What a tangle of competing impulses. So the record...What a tangle of competing impulses. So the recording era has finally produced a significant enough inversion of values that the concert performance must now sound like what’s delivered via headphones and earbuds. Acoustic sound is replaced by reproduced sound. For many venues and musical styles, this is clearly a boon; but for classical music performed in traditional concert halls, I cry foul. A decade ago when “sound boosters” were installed in concert halls, I felt that the effect was akin to cheating. The newest development you report could be even worse.<br /><br />The Pritzker Pavilion on Chicago is a case in point. It’s a familiar outdoor/lawn concert venue (with a wicked proscenium) situated downtown amid traffic noise and city bustle. It draws large audiences, many attending for free on the expansive lawn under a speaker array that delivers terrible sound (not that most would recognize the fact). Even in the pavilion’s paid seating up front, I defy anyone to hear sound emanating directly from the stage rather than what’s aimed at them from speaker columns arranged at the sides. The venue is entirely unsuitable for serious listening, much less so even than other similar venues (Ravinia, Tanglewood, Blossom, Wolf Trap, etc.). Audiences respond by not bothering to listen but instead merely soak in the atmosphere, munching cheese and sipping wine. So now the engineers are moving productions indoors to warehouses, arenas, and other unsuitable venues. Blech.<br /><br />http://www.cityofchicago.org/city/en/depts/dca/supp_info/millennium_park_-artarchitecture.htmlAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8060605.post-24656515896766488392014-06-05T14:30:34.585+01:002014-06-05T14:30:34.585+01:00"A marriage between high end audio and classi..."A marriage between high end audio and classical music is nothing new."<br /><br />I recall a row of Quad Electrostatics being used to assist Ravi Shankar at the Queen Elizabeth Hall in the 1970s. Not extended to anything else at the time, as far as I'm aware.<br /><br />Not the most durable or practical sound reinforcement speaker.D Whitleyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11636017099028332321noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8060605.post-59314705922452738742014-06-05T13:45:42.724+01:002014-06-05T13:45:42.724+01:00Although I see the logic in your last posts, I'...Although I see the logic in your last posts, I'm also afraid that amplifying live classical music will remote one of the main advantages of classical music concerts (at least in my eyes).<br /><br />I listen to a lot of music on headphones but the whole point of going to see a live orchestra is precisely that the music in the concert does not sound like the music on headphones. If the sound is the same, why bother to go to the concert?Thomas F.https://www.blogger.com/profile/01011996332342973561noreply@blogger.com