{"id":9615,"date":"2013-02-08T09:28:12","date_gmt":"2013-02-08T14:28:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/?p=9615"},"modified":"2013-02-08T09:28:12","modified_gmt":"2013-02-08T14:28:12","slug":"classical-music-101-acoustics-so-much-of-what-an-instrumentalist-does-is-play-to-a-room","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/2013\/02\/08\/classical-music-101-acoustics-so-much-of-what-an-instrumentalist-does-is-play-to-a-room\/","title":{"rendered":"Classical Music 101: Acoustics &#8212; &#8216;So much of what an instrumentalist does is play to a room&#8217;"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_9619\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-9619\" style=\"width: 864px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-full wp-image-9619\" alt=\"The Gothic vaulting at Exeter Cathedral.\" src=\"http:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2013\/02\/exeter.jpg\" width=\"864\" height=\"648\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-9619\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">The Gothic vaulting at Exeter Cathedral.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Renaissance choral composers wrote for vast, reverberant spaces. Bach wrote his harpsichord pieces for small rooms that wouldn&#8217;t smudge the intricate counterpoint. In the same way, a performer needs to adapt their playing style to the place where people are going to hear it.<!--more--><\/p>\n<p>The practical side of acoustics is something we instinctively react to, but seldom think about.<\/p>\n<p>The Banff Centre has produced a wonderful, 10-minute podcast, &#8220;These rooms are instruments,&#8221; that illustrates how space affect and inspires composers, performers and audiences, that is well worth hearing:<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http:\/\/w.soundcloud.com\/player\/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fapi.soundcloud.com%2Ftracks%2F75395129&amp;show_artwork=true\" height=\"166\" width=\"100%\" frameborder=\"no\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>+++<\/p>\n<p>The podcast helped me remember how hearing my little voice fill a very large space for the first time had me walking on air for a long time afterward, and how important it is to get children out of the dry acoustic of a classroom and out into a space where they can experience the wonder of natural amplification.<\/p>\n<p>It is the road to musical epiphanies.<\/p>\n<p>Here is a setting of the<em> Te Deum<\/em> by English composer John Ireland (1879-1962) written to sound its best in an acoustic like the one we hear around the choir of Lincoln Cathedral, led by Colin Walsh (the organist is Andrew Post):<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/HqIjk2Ll0M0\" height=\"113\" width=\"150\" allowfullscreen=\"\" frameborder=\"0\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><em>John Terauds<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Renaissance choral composers wrote for vast, reverberant spaces. Bach wrote his harpsichord pieces for small rooms that wouldn&#8217;t smudge the intricate counterpoint. In the same way, a performer needs to adapt their playing style to the place where people are going to hear it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":9619,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[3,22,31,36,1],"tags":[166,451,855,1123,2602,2873],"yst_prominent_words":[],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2013\/02\/031.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9bakr-2v5","amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9615"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9615"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9615\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9619"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9615"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9615"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9615"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=9615"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}