December 19, 2022
We're taking a short break to recharge over the Christmas holidays but will return bright-eyed and bushy-tailed for 2023. We have much to look forward to, including sharing weekly classical music news, features, and hot takes.
Thanks for reading, and happy holidays from all your pals at Ludwig Van.
In today’s email:
- The big idea: Canadian organization wants to put 3D-printed violins in students' hands
- Research: New study probes connections between music and empathy
- Tech: Google Blobs are back with new classical music and Beethoven games
- Nostalgia of the week
- Around the web: Archive of extinct sounds, holiday toys by birthyear, Jonas Kaufmann cooking dinner, plus more curious internet finds.
CLASSICAL CHARTS
THE BIG IDEA
Canadian Organization Wants to Put 3D-Printed Violins in Students' Hands
3D-printed violins offer a win-win solution to make music education more accessible, according to the Montreal-based AVIVA Young Artists Program.
The Canadian organization is launching an initiative they hope will put music education — and the latest tech — within reach of every student.
The cost of instruments is one of the major and persistent barriers to music education for many, whether it’s from the perspective of individual students or that of an entire school board. AVIVA Young Artists Program has been researching ways to counteract that issue, and the organization recently presented their solution at the Acoustical Society of America’s conference in December 2022.
The idea: a low-cost pattern to make 3D-printed violins.
Mary-Elizabeth Brown, director of AVIVA, gave the presentation titled “Old meets new: 3D printing and the art of violin-making.”
“The team’s inspiration roots in multiple places,” said Brown in a media release. “Our goals were to explore the new sound world created by using new materials, to leverage the new technology being used in other disciplines, and to make music education sustainable and accessible through the printing of more durable instruments.”
The design is simple:
- The violin prints in two pieces;
- The body is produced in a polymer material using the same techniques that produce traditional instruments;
- The neck and fingerboard are printed in smooth ABS plastic that is meant to be comfortable.
The sound the printed violin produces is mellower and darker than that of traditional instruments made with wood.
The initial design comes in at the cost of $7 USD printed and under $30 fully assembled.
“The next step is to explore design modifications as well as efforts to lower the costs of production while making such instruments more widely available, especially in the realm of education,” said Brown.
The plan is to make the pattern available publicly, so they can be printed by anyone, anywhere. While they make last-minute tweaks to the design, interested parties can stay in touch with developments here.
THE LATEST
Opera: The Met Opera gets its website back online after a cyberattack knocked it out for nine days.
Round-up 1: The New Yorker’s Alex Ross shares his top performances and recordings of 2022.
Round-up 2: The Guardian’s best classical releases of 2022.
#MeToo: The contemporary music community is dealing with some troubling allegations by former Juilliard composition students against a well-known composer.
Conductor: Orchestre symphonique de Québec has announced a new music director.
Music Biz: 50,000 unsold tickets to live arts in London will be distributed to people who cannot afford to go.
Issues: Mezzo J’Nai Bridges speaks up regarding the state of housing for opera singers.
Politics: Russia is using opera singers to help with low morale amid the Ukraine conflict.
Opinion: Sir John Tomlinson wades into row over cuts to English National Opera’s grant as signs indicate Arts Council may review the decision.
STUDY
New Data Says Classical Music Use on YouTube Is up 90% Over 2021
Classical music is the fastest-growing genre on YouTube, according to newly released research by a major global music company. New research data from Epidemic Sound, a music tech company based in Sweden, reveals that the use of classical music has jumped by more than 90% in the past year.
The figures come from creators worldwide who use music the company offers as the soundtrack to videos of various kinds. While they relate strictly to the music production company’s own tracks, it’s worth noting Epidemic Sound’s music was used in more than 14 million videos, representing 1.5 billion views per day on YouTube.
Epidemic Sound is a somewhat contentious company within the global music community because of their royalty-free music production model. The payout to artists is a flat fee, leaving Epidemic to resell the “royalty-free” tracks as often as they like, as opposed to the traditional royalty model, which compensates songwriters and composers for each broadcast or stream.
However, it does put them in a unique position to evaluate the data from the more than 35,000 tracks they now manage. The report analyzed metadata from their vast catalogue between January 1, 2022 and October 31, 2022.
Classical music is on a high
The figures show that online content creators are choosing classical music more and more often.
- The use of classical music has risen by over 90% worldwide on YouTube, and by 64% on the Epidemic Sound platform;
- That year-over-year growth spurt was shown across Europe, Latin America, the Middle East, Africa and the U.S.;
- On the Epidemic Sound platform, classical music was the fifth most downloaded genre in 2022;
- In 2022, Epidemic Sound’s classical music titles were streamed more than 200 million times across multiple streaming platforms;
- On YouTube, it was the fastest growing genre in categories such as Comedy, Education, Entertainment, Gaming, How To & Style, News & Politics, and Science & Technology.
“Classical music is certainly timeless, but our research shows this genre is particularly relevant right now,” said Epidemic Sound CEO Oscar Höglund in a media release.
“Perhaps it’s that sense of comfort and escapism that people are looking for, but we do know that the genre has this unique ability to move people on an emotional level — and storytellers are catching on to that. I expect there will be an even larger movement towards storytellers using classical music in their content, which also creates an opportunity for classical music artists to continue to modernize the genre and appeal to new audiences.”
The report suggests that it’s the versatility of Western classical music that makes it useful for pairing with video and films of various kinds. Outside of YouTube, Epidemic Sound’s classical tracks were streamed 11.5 billion times per month via TikTok videos.
TECH
Google Blobs Are Back With New Classical Music and Beethoven Games
Google’s Blob Opera is back to see 2022 out the door and spread the joy of classical music.
Blob Opera was an online sensation in 2021, a machine learning experiment by creator David Li
with Google Arts & Culture. Users can create their own song in opera style by manipulating the colourful Blobs on their screens.
Two new games offer users fun ways to explore classical music, including one with a focus on our namesake, Ludwig van Beethoven.
Blob Beats
Blob Opera Blob Beats offers a mini-game that takes users through five of the most beloved compositions of Western classical music arcade style.
Here’s how it works…
…You can access the new experiment here.
- Choose from Beethoven’s Fur Elise, Wagner’s Valkyrie, Vivaldi’s Spring, Mozart’s Turkish March or Offenbach’s Infernal Galop;
- Choose from easy, medium or hard level of play;
- As the music plays, you’ll be controlling the blobs as they sing;
- For PC or laptop, the goal is to hit the S, D, F and G keys to coincide with the notes as they drop into a white circle to make the corresponding blob sing the correct note.
The game records how often you can accurately hit the notes as the piece plays. It also dispenses a few facts about the composers along the way.
Beethoven Beats
Beethoven Beats was developed with Deutsche Grammophon, a brand new game where users only need the keyboard spacer to play.
Play the game here.
- Users have four seconds to tap out a random rhythm sequence using the keyboard space bar;
- The game will instantly match the rhythm with a section of one of Beethoven’s piano sonatas;
- It plays the sonata and invites the user to explore the piece in more depth.
The game features recordings by pianist Daniel Barenboim.
The initiative was announced on Beethoven’s 252nd birthday as part of the Beethoven Everywhere project.
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AROUND THE WEB
📅 On this day: Johannes Brahms premieres his Piano Trio No. 3 in C Minor, Op. 101 in 1886.
👨🍳 Video: Watch Jonas Kaufmann cook Christmas dinner.
👂 Neat: An online archive of sounds that are going exctinct.
⚙️ Useful: This tool lets you search and filter through last.fm's top 30.000 artists of all time and play the top track for every artist.
🤖 Curiosity: Find out what the most popular toy was from the year you were born.
NOSTALGIA OF THE WEEK
Credit: '"Violin Virtuoso" Saturday Evening Post Cover, April 28, 1923. Norman Rockwell
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