July 4, 2023

After 72 years, Oregon has finally legalized pumping your own gas. Fun fact: Full-service gas stations were once the norm across North America as it was considered too dangerous to allow people to use pumps themselves.

+++

In today's email:

The big idea: Robot maestro shakes up the classical music scene in South Korea
The report: How classical musicians move — and how it's woven into their performance
Relic of the week
Around the web: A password game, a classical music app that allows you to cough at a concert, and the surprising history of chowder, plus more curious internet finds.

CLASSICAL CHARTS

THE BIG IDEA

Robot Maestro Shakes up the Classical Music Scene in South Korea

OMG, that conductor's got nuts & bolts.

EveR 6, an android robot, has just debuted as an orchestra conductor in Seoul, South Korea. Call it an amazing step forward in technology or a chapter from a dystopian fantasy novel, the robot waved its baton at the National Orchestra with expert precision.

Where technology and culture meet

The robot was created by the Korean Institute of Industrial Technology and led a performance by the National Orchestra of Korea, marking a first in the country. This 1.8-metre-tall tech wizard, equipped with arms capable of imitating a human conductor's movements, strutted its stuff in a sold-out performance at the National Theatre of Korea in Seoul.

Engineered with sophisticated programming, she's able to interpret and conduct complex musical scores, respond to the orchestra's tempo, and somehow make a soulful connection with the audience. Sounds surreal, right?

Digging Deeper: Curiosity was the driving force behind the creation of EveR 6. The Institute wanted to explore whether robots could replace conductors and to what extent they could contribute to creative fields like the arts. But don't worry, no humans were replaced in the making of this performance. The concert, titled "Disproof", was co-conducted by EveR 6 and Soo-yeol Choi, the artistic director of the Busan Philharmonic Orchestra. The finale saw a unique blend of artificial and human conductors leading the orchestra together.

The performance featured a special 12-minute piece, "Feel", written by Il-hoon Son, specifically designed to leverage both the robot and human conductor's strengths. EveR 6 was preprogrammed to conduct 30 cycles of beat patterns, while Choi led the ensemble through an improvisational score, reacting in real-time to the music. However, the robot can't improvise, and it can't hear or use generative AI.

What’s next: Developers are considering incorporating data learning into EveR 6's programming, allowing orchestras to request specific tempo or beat patterns from it.

Why it matters: This robotic foray into the world of classical music highlights the potential for collaboration between humans and technology in creative fields. While EveR 6 could accurately execute the beat patterns, Choi insists that the human touch is irreplaceable when it comes to the artistic and musical aspects of conducting.

But this also raises questions. While the technology behind EveR 6 is impressive, it’s no Karajan.

TOUR DE HEADLINES

Photo courtesy of the Dallas Symphony Orchestra

Dallas Symphony and MIT Launch Education Center — The Dallas Symphony Orchestra (DSO) is partnering with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) to create a new educational center at the Meyerson Symphony Center, set to open in fall 2024. The center, offering STEAM-based learning activities and incorporating new technologies like virtual reality and artificial intelligence, aims to double the DSO's student outreach by attracting an additional 50,000 students annually. | The Dallas Morning News

Solti Family Estate on Sale — The family home of the late Georg Solti and his wife Valerie, who passed in 1997 and 2021 respectively, is up for sale. The seven-bedroom property, featuring a lovely garden and indoor pool, is listed for £17 million ($21.5 million) to benefit their two daughters. | The Times

Classical Music Education Under Threat — Classical music education, previously accessible to all, is now increasingly the preserve of the privately educated due to a lack of support from entities like the BBC and Arts Council England. If not adequately funded, it risks losing diversity as children from disadvantaged families lack opportunities available to their affluent peers, threatening economic and cultural equality. | The Guardian

Kaufmann Withdraws from 'Werther' at Royal Opera House — Jonas Kaufmann has pulled out of the remaining 'Werther' performances at the Royal Opera House due to illness. Yuval Sharon will replace Kaufmann, continuing the performances as scheduled. | OperaWire

Philadelphia Orchestra Partners with U.S. Embassy in Ukraine — The Philadelphia Orchestra has collaborated with the U.S. Embassy in Ukraine for a unique partnership. This partnership aims to extend the Orchestra's 'Our City, Our Orchestra' program to Ukraine. | The Violin Channel

The National Youth Orchestras of Scotland Appoints First Music Director — The NYOS has appointed Jamie Atkinson as its first music director. Atkinson's role, starting later in 2023, will involve overseeing the artistic and educational direction of the NYOS. | The Violin Channel

REPORT

Joseph Haydn playing quartets, before 1790 (anonymous painting at the StaatsMuseum, Vienna/public domain)

How Classical Musicians Move — And How It's Woven Into Their Performance

There are many ingredients that have to come together to create an inspired musical performance. When an ensemble is involved, there is a somewhat mysterious element of chemistry that enters into the picture. While the academic focus is on technique and interpretation, that chemistry is typically left up to chance.

An international research team from Austria, Norway, China and Germany has added to the science of musical performance in an original study that looks at the relationships between head movements of performers in small ensembles. Their paper, titled, Interperformer coordination in piano-singing duo performances: phrase structure and empathy impact was published in the journal Psychological Research in 2023.

Essentially, they ask: how do the body motions of performers relate to the music, and their relationship to each other in a small ensemble? And, the study adds, how does the empathy of the performer tie into the picture?

Previous Research

It’s no secret that moving as you perform is crucial to playing in an ensemble, particularly without a conductor. It’s one of the ways that musicians can communicate with each other as they play. That movement, however, is not often discussed in the context of Western classical music, and is anything but random.

Previous studies, all published within the last 15 years, have revealed some of the characteristics common to the movements of musicians as they play.

Head movements often reflect the emotions that musicians want to convey;
Movements are greater in scope during expressive passages;
A study of piano duos demonstrated that the leader raised their fingers higher than the followers;
The leader of a string quartet influences the movements of the whole group.

When the timing of a piece is irregular, or breaks a pattern, the movements become more synchronized across an ensemble. Head movements also allow communication when the performers can’t necessarily hear each other’s parts clearly.

While most would assume that the first violin of a string quartet is the leader, a 2017 study revealed a more complex and fluid arrangement, where any member could become “leader” within certain passages. Those fluid relationships are reflected in their movements.

In other words, their motions show the ways that musicians adapt and communicate while playing.

Moving To The Music

The new study used 24 subjects who were advanced piano and vocal students at the University of Music and Performing Arts, Vienna. The researchers specifically wanted to look at:

How musician’s head movements related to the phrasing of the piece;
How those movements relate to the musician’s empathy profile.

Playing together and performing as an ensemble requires a certain degree of empathy, or the ability to understand what another person experiences. Previous studies have also shown that there is a correlation that works both ways between the level of coordination between working groups and their levels of empathy.

Playing in ensembles is also known to increase empathy, and vice versa – higher empathy makes for better ensemble playing, which involves anticipating the other musicians’ actions.

The “empathy profile” of each musician was created using measures that are widely accepted in the psychological community. After the empathy test (Empathy for Pain Task or EPT), the musicians were paired together with two other musicians, one whose EPT was similar, and the other whose EPT was at the opposite end of the scale

The assigned pairs rehearsed Fauré’s Automne and Schumann’s Die Kartenlegerin;
They performed each piece once before rehearsing, and three times during the rehearsal process;
Motion capture data of the head movements, and audio as well as MIDI recordings were taken of the performances to analyze.

The Results

In Fauré’s Automne, the distinction between the role of singer and pianist was clearer; the piano is an accompanist. Conversely, in the Schumann piece, the piano plays a more prominent role, and at times takes over the melody.

The performers were most coordinated in their movements at moments which corresponded to the phrase structure of the piece;
The leader-follower dynamic tended to depend on the EPT of the singer, along with how many takes had occurred, but only for the structurally simpler Fauré piece.

Performing the Fauré piece the second time, the higher the singer’s EPT score, the lower their tendency to lead. However, when the third take came around, that relationship was reversed, and the singer tended to lead the duo. In other words, the leader-follower dynamic can be fluid, as influenced by the empathy levels of those involved.

The leader’s motions are larger than the followers. They provide a visual cue for the other performers when it comes to timing, expression, and other elements. Within the lieder duos set up by the study, the pattern of movements suggests that the communication continues unbroken even during passages where the singer does not sing.

There is much yet to be deciphered about the mysteries of musical performance and the ways that musicians together can become more than the sum of their parts. Science is looking for answers.

QUIZ

Which B-word describes a “short and sweet,” light-hearted piece usually composed for solo piano? (Hint: Beethoven had three sets of them, among them “Für Elise”)

Scroll down for the answer…

AROUND THE WEB

📅 On this day: English choral composer William Byrd died in 1623.

👀 Cure boredom: Someone made a game that makes you choose a password with increasingly unhinged rules.

😂 Hilarious: Someone made an app that allows you to cough during a classical concert guilt-free!

🍲 Interesting: The surprising history of chowder, which was once something totally different.

🔨 Useful: Now, you can have the perfect sound design/ambiance to accompany your next “D&D” campaign.

🦀 Aww: This little crab is having fun with bubbles.

THING OF THE PAST

This is an illustration of a phonautograph, a device invented by Édouard-Léon Scott de Martinville.

It was the first device ever created for capturing sound. Before this invention, there were methods to trace vibrations made by objects, such as tuning forks, when they made contact with other objects. However, these methods could not capture actual sound waves travelling through the air or other substances. Martinville secured a patent for his groundbreaking invention on March 25, 1857.

QUIZ ANSWER

Bagatelle

How did you like today's email?

Today's email was brought to you by Anya Wassenberg and Michael "Phonautograph" Vincent.

CONTACT US