We can now tune the instruments of our digital orchestra dynamically, in real time, just like orchestral musicians do. The computer can tell what intervals are playing and then tune them to fit the harmony more precisely than any fixed tuning.

This is a huge advance over equal temperament … an advance that beautifully exploits the power of the computer to analyze and modify sounds on the fly. This approach is far more powerful than “Auto-tune” which merely shoe-horns notes into predetermined frequencies without any awareness of what harmonies are being played at the moment.  For example, dynamic tuning can sense that a major third is being played, and make it more consonant.  Later, one of those same notes might be part of a minor third, and so must be tuned differently to make the minor third as consonant as possible.

Pianos (and computers that blindly adopt their fixed tuning approach) cannot change the pitch of their notes on the fly, but orchestras, choirs, string quartets, etc. can, and do.  That’s part of what helps blend sounds into a pleasing whole.

In Bach’s day a compromise tuning system was all the rage. Keyboard instruments were tuned so that every note was equally out of tune. But the computer can determine what intervals are sounding at any given moment and tune them very close to their perfect form.  Indeed, that’s what great musicians do when they play together. And now digital orchestras can do it, too, using Hermode tuning in Apple’s Logic Pro software, along with the latest version of Vienna Instruments Pro by the Vienna Symphonic Library.

Earlier versions of the Vienna Instruments ignore Logic’s tuning commands.  And not all audio workstation software implements Hermode tuning.

Moon River, for strings arranged by Donald McDonnell

Danny Boy (arr. for strings)

We just finished recording a lush string orchestra accompaniment for Danny Boy, arranged by Romeo Cascarino. We’re reminded again just how important smart arranger-chops are to getting a great performance.

Second movement, andante cantabile con moto, from Beethoven’s Symphony No. 1 in C Major, Op. 21
Conducted by Paul Henry Smith. Recorded live, in concert, May 20, 2009.

Third movement, menuetto: allegro molto e vivace, from Beethoven’s Symphony No. 1 in C Major, Op. 21
Conducted by Paul Henry Smith. Recorded live, in concert,  May 20, 2009.

]]> http://www.fauxharmonic.com/2009/06/beethoven-symphony-no-1-in-c-op-21-iii-menuetto-allegro-molto-e-vivace/feed/ 0 http://www.fauxharmonic.com/2009/05/recording_download_may_20/ http://www.fauxharmonic.com/2009/05/recording_download_may_20/#comments Mon, 25 May 2009 22:37:02 +0000 admin http://www.fauxharmonic.com/?p=186

Thank you very much for attending the inaugural concert in our Beethoven Digital Symphonies Series. As a small token of appreciation, we’re happy to offer you these recordings from that historic evening. As you know, it was the first time a Beethoven symphony was played in a live concert with a digital orchestra.

To get your free download, visit InstantEncore and enter your download code (printed in your concert program). Enter it in the upper right corner of the web page.

If you’d like to know about our upcoming concerts, just let us know and we’ll add you to our announcement list.

Enjoy!

- Paul H. Smith

Concert 1
May 20, 2009
Holy Name Church, West Roxbury, Massachusetts

Tom Myron
Two Arias from Iphigenia at Aulis
Tynan Davis, mezzo soprano

II. Mother, why are you silent?
III. Lead me on, destroyer of Illium’s city

George Frideric Handel
‘Ombra mai fu’ from Xerxes
Tynan Davis, mezzo soprano

Ludwig van Beethoven
Symphony No. 1 in C, op. 21
I. Adagio molto – Allegro con brio
II. Andante cantabile con moto
III. Menuetto: Allegro molto e vivace
IV. Adagio – Allegro molto e vivace

Order a full quality audio CD of the

concert for $12.95 (plus $5 s/h)

]]> http://www.fauxharmonic.com/2009/05/recording_download_may_20/feed/ 0 http://www.fauxharmonic.com/2008/09/beethoven-symphony-no-1-op-21-iv-adagio-allegro-molto-e-vivace/ http://www.fauxharmonic.com/2008/09/beethoven-symphony-no-1-op-21-iv-adagio-allegro-molto-e-vivace/#comments Tue, 16 Sep 2008 21:33:35 +0000 admin http://www.fauxharmonic.com/?p=139

Finale from Beethoven’s Symphony No. 1 in C Major, Op. 21
Conducted by Paul Henry Smith. Recorded September 12, 2008.

The Fauxharmonic Orchestra has begun a massive project to perform all nine Beethoven symphonies. This may well be the first digital orchestra performance of the symphonies.

About the winning composition

Listen to the Fauxharmonic Orchestra performance: A Screaming Comes Across the Sky

“A Screaming Comes Across the Sky” was commissioned by the Immanuel and Helen Olshan Texas Music Festival for its “New Texas Overtures” season in 2005. The title of the piece is the first sentence from Thomas Pynchon’s novel Gravity’s Rainbow. The piece was premiered in 2005. One reviewer of that performance wrote:

David Heuser’s ‘A Screaming Comes Across the Sky’ was a shot-in-the-arm beginning. … Heuser’s music certainly matched the title through its intense, driving rhythms and thunderclap-loud outbursts. This was all-American music at its most dynamic and visceral. Yet the piece by the University of Texas-San Antonio composer was well-crafted and smartly orchestrated … The music continually engaged mind and body as it careened along.

— Houston Chronicle (July 2005)

About the composer

David Heuser is associate professor of theory, composition, and electronic music at the University of Texas at San Antonio. Heuser’s music has been performed by various groups and individuals and on festivals and conferences throughout the US and abroad. He has won a variety of awards, grants and commissions including an ASCAP Young Composer Award, many ASCAP Standard Grants, a First Music commission from the New York Youth Symphony, an Immanuel and Helen Olshan Texas Music Festival “New Texas Overture” Commission, and the Delius Composition Contest Chamber Music Award.

More about David Heuser

Honorable Mentions

The following outstanding compositions were selected by the judges for hornorable mention:

About the contest

The Fauxharmonic Orchestra’s international composition contest was established in 2005 to help foster new orchestral composition, and to showcase digital orchestral performance. The contest winner receives a $1,200 prize and a recorded performance by the Fauxharmonic Orchestra.

This year’s contest involved eighty-six entries by composers from the US, China, Taiwan, Japan, South Korea, Australia, and Canada. Judges for the 2006 contest were:

Emily Doolittle, composer (bio)

Markand Thakar, Music Director of the Baltimore Chamber Orchestra and the Duluth Superior Symphony Orchestra; Co-director of the graduate program in orchestral conducting at the Peabody Conservatory of Music (bio)

Herb Tucmandl, CEO and Founder, Vienna Symphonic Library, the world’s pre-eminent maker of digital orchestral instruments and performance systems (bio)

Paul Henry Smith, Music Director of the Fauxharmonic Orchestra, a digital orchestra ensemble devoted to producing recordings of orchestral music, new and old, of the highest artistic caliber.

Digital thoughts — Paul Lansky

For the past fifty years computers have played a role in musical composition. The significant recent change is that the technology has now moved out of composition studios and into the performer’s hands.