Week 83: Zenph Studios 2
Our culture is a slave to the clock. We are slaves to a mechanized experience of time that rules our lives more strictly than any Nurse Ratched ever could. It is maybe this aspect of our modern experience that has fostered our fascination with time. This fascination has many manifestations, from science fiction to theoretical physics, mathematics to music. In every part of our culture people are dealing with time, trying to make more of their time, get somewhere on time, find some free time... Time has us in its unrelenting iron grip, so we look for ways to escape, ways to fly over the cuckoo’s nest.
Over the past century music has become one of the prime resources for escaping the unrelenting forward march of time, allowing us short breaks from its inevitability. Music in itself is able to modulate time, slowing it down, speeding it up, allowing us a different experience of time. Maybe because it can make time a little flexible, music has become the object of many attempts to capture time, to freeze a moment in time for future listeners to experience. From phonographs to multi-track recordings to digital sound, each new technology attempts to create an even more faithful reproduction of a musical moment so that at a later time we can re-live that moment in all the splendor that it had when it was happening.
So far the escape is just a fantasy, we are not yet truly transported away from the present and to another time to hear the actual performance that took place. Therefore, the technology must continue to advance. Upon multiple listenings the seams of the fantasy always show. But the dream remains, to one day be able to recreate an experience so faithfully that it will be indistinguishable from the original event it recreates. When the dream comes true we might then be free from the grip of the linear clock and able to experience time in a fluid, non-linear way of our choosing.
It is easy to be cynical of such dreams, but dreams like that have gotten us to Mars, inside protons and neutrons, and to the ever-rising top of the Burj Dubai, among other places. So why not dream about going to a Thelonious Monk performance at the Five Spot Cafe? Or to a Hector Lavoe show at the Cheetah Night Club? Or to a Pink Floyd (with Syd Barrett) psychedelic blowout at the UFO?
Of course some of these listening experiences are available on CD or DVD today, but can we make the experience more real? Zenph Studios, in North Carolina, is taking some giant steps towards fulfilling that dream. They are working on recreating the experience of a live performance so faithfully that one will hear it as if one where at the performance 10, 30, 50, 100 years ago when the original performance took place.
A few weeks ago I went to Zenph Studios in Raleigh for a demonstration. Zenph CEO, John Q. Walker, Ph.D., welcomed me and another musician who had also called for the demonstration, and lead us to the listening room. The room is one of the most beautiful sounding rooms I’ve been in. It is approximately 35’ x 35’, with adjustable wood paneling all around, a moderately vaulted ceiling, a slightly elevated stage area, and not a single right angle anywhere. Dr. Walker told us the room usually sits about 65 people, but that day there were five pianos in the room, two on stage and three more where the seating area would be. And there were three of us there to listen.
The Zenph team produces re-performances. For a re-perforamance, the Zenph team does a careful study of an original recording from which they then create a digital map of the performance. The map digitally describes in painstaking detail the velocity, attack, intensity, and any necessary details (pedal use for pianos, for example) of each note played in the original performance.
Other technology is then used to convert the digital map into actual notes being played on an instrument. Currently the best technology is that available for piano, so the Zenph public re-performances and recordings of re-performances have focused on solo piano compositions.
For the piano re-performances, Zenph uses high resolution MIDI along with various piano playback systems such as the Yamaha Disklavier Pro. The resulting re-performances are truly a wonder to hear.
The first re-performances we heard were a couple of Bach’s Goldberg Variations as played by Glenn Gould in 1955. The complete re-performance of Gould’s Goldberg Variations have been recorded by Zenph and released by Sony BMG to critical acclaim. And it’s easy to hear why. In 1955 Gould recorded with the technology of the day, the Zenph team, on the other hand, had available the best in modern recording technology. Live, however, it’s just a mind blowing experience. It’s sitting a few feet away from a master pianist listening to him play while watching the keys and pedals move without being blocked by the body and hands of the pianist.
Dr. Walker reminded us that the original recording was done in a different room, on a different piano, and in a different context to which Glenn Gould was responding. The re-performance would not respond to the piano, the room, or us in the same way Gould might have, had he actually been there. Fair enough, but being that Gould passed away in 1982, I can safely say that this is as close as I’ve felt to being in the same room listening to him play. And this was just the opening act!
After listening to Gould, we were treated to a sample from a turn of the 20th century Rachmaninoff performance, re-performed on a 1909 Steinway Grand equipped with an SE (Stahnke Edition) playback system. Dr. Walker explained that the original Rachmaninoff recording was live in front of a large audience so that the re-performance would sound big in the moderately small listening room we were in. He was right, Rachmaninoff was an expressive pianist and the chords on that re-performance landed on that concert grand like they were being played for a packed house at Carnegie Hall. However, this did not detract from the experience, to the contrary, the contrast between the Gould and the Rachmaninoff only helped make the performer's personality stand out even more.
The Zenph team is already developing digital maps for bass re-performances and working with other companies to develop the technology to be able to get those digital maps to play on actual basses. In the meantime, however, Dr. Walker was able to play for us a bass re-performance using a high-end loudspeaker.
We listened to Kadota’s Blues originally recorded by the Oscar Peterson Trio (Peterson, Ray Brown, and Ed Thigpen) in 1961. For the re-performance, the Oscar Peterson part played on a Bösendorfer Imperial Grand with a CEUS playback system while the Ray Brown part played through an MBL 101e Radialstrahler loudspeaker designed by Wolfgang Meletzky.
The Peterson and Brown re-performance was so vivid that I could almost see them right in front of me smiling and making faces as they responded to each others notes. It seemed like a strange reverse creative process where instead of the performers creating the music, the music was creating the performers.
After the Peterson and Brown re-performance came the headliners of the day, Fats Waller and Art Tatum.
The Waller re-performance was played on the same 1909 Steinway Concert Grand that had earlier played the Rachmaninoff. The differences were striking. While Rachmaninoff was heavy and dramatic, even a little scary, Fats Waller’s playful humor had us laughing as if he had been sitting right in front of us winking at us as he cleverly toyed with melody and rhythm.
But the real headliner of the day was Art Tatum. In 1949, Tatum recorded Piano Starts Here, live at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles. On June 3rd Zenph is releasing a recording of the re-performance of the complete Tatum album, plus a few bonus tracks, recorded in front of a live audience at the same Shrine Auditorium where the original was recorded. How's that for bending time? Furthermore, on June 19, 20 and 21 the re-performance is also being played to a live audience at the Apollo Theater. What I wouldn’t give to go hear that.
We heard several Art Tatum re-performances including an incredible version of Tiger Rag. I’d heard several versions of Tiger Rag before by Tatum and others, but watching the Steinway re-perform Tatum’s blistering runs complete with pedal moves and the humor, flair and depth of a true live performance really made me feel like I was time traveling. Bravo Zenph!
Of course there is nothing like the real thing; nothing like listening to an unexpected performer in an unexpected situation playing some music that truly transports you to another place and time. And although Zenph is focusing on classic recordings from years ago, the technology could very well be applied to new music as well. I imagine home performances that can be experienced around the world on real instruments and not just via television or a stereo, for example.
When I asked at what point the technology would be so readily available and affordable that we would be able to hear re-performances in local piano bars, Dr. Walker, pointed out that the technology is still in its early stages of development. The re-performances that they have been developing are of very specific moments in time and place. A Carnegie Hall performance on a 10-foot grand probably won’t work as well re-performed in a small bar with an upright piano. The instruments themselves, and pianos in particular, have their own idiosyncrasies as well. But the Zenph team is working on it. After bass, they’ll be working on drums, then saxophone, then guitars and eventually voice. But their ultimate objective, their holy grail, is to be able to find the signature for each performer’s style, their musical DNA, the algorithms that would allow us to hear not just a re-performance, but a re-performer who could then perform in any number of contexts and any number of musical compositions, even ones the original performer might never had played. I know, the whole thing sounds a little spooky and it makes me a little uneasy, but that is the same feeling I imagine we’ll get when we are actually able to time travel, it’s the feeling of the future happening in the present.
Over the past century music has become one of the prime resources for escaping the unrelenting forward march of time, allowing us short breaks from its inevitability. Music in itself is able to modulate time, slowing it down, speeding it up, allowing us a different experience of time. Maybe because it can make time a little flexible, music has become the object of many attempts to capture time, to freeze a moment in time for future listeners to experience. From phonographs to multi-track recordings to digital sound, each new technology attempts to create an even more faithful reproduction of a musical moment so that at a later time we can re-live that moment in all the splendor that it had when it was happening.
So far the escape is just a fantasy, we are not yet truly transported away from the present and to another time to hear the actual performance that took place. Therefore, the technology must continue to advance. Upon multiple listenings the seams of the fantasy always show. But the dream remains, to one day be able to recreate an experience so faithfully that it will be indistinguishable from the original event it recreates. When the dream comes true we might then be free from the grip of the linear clock and able to experience time in a fluid, non-linear way of our choosing.
It is easy to be cynical of such dreams, but dreams like that have gotten us to Mars, inside protons and neutrons, and to the ever-rising top of the Burj Dubai, among other places. So why not dream about going to a Thelonious Monk performance at the Five Spot Cafe? Or to a Hector Lavoe show at the Cheetah Night Club? Or to a Pink Floyd (with Syd Barrett) psychedelic blowout at the UFO?
Of course some of these listening experiences are available on CD or DVD today, but can we make the experience more real? Zenph Studios, in North Carolina, is taking some giant steps towards fulfilling that dream. They are working on recreating the experience of a live performance so faithfully that one will hear it as if one where at the performance 10, 30, 50, 100 years ago when the original performance took place.
A few weeks ago I went to Zenph Studios in Raleigh for a demonstration. Zenph CEO, John Q. Walker, Ph.D., welcomed me and another musician who had also called for the demonstration, and lead us to the listening room. The room is one of the most beautiful sounding rooms I’ve been in. It is approximately 35’ x 35’, with adjustable wood paneling all around, a moderately vaulted ceiling, a slightly elevated stage area, and not a single right angle anywhere. Dr. Walker told us the room usually sits about 65 people, but that day there were five pianos in the room, two on stage and three more where the seating area would be. And there were three of us there to listen.
The Zenph team produces re-performances. For a re-perforamance, the Zenph team does a careful study of an original recording from which they then create a digital map of the performance. The map digitally describes in painstaking detail the velocity, attack, intensity, and any necessary details (pedal use for pianos, for example) of each note played in the original performance.
Other technology is then used to convert the digital map into actual notes being played on an instrument. Currently the best technology is that available for piano, so the Zenph public re-performances and recordings of re-performances have focused on solo piano compositions.
For the piano re-performances, Zenph uses high resolution MIDI along with various piano playback systems such as the Yamaha Disklavier Pro. The resulting re-performances are truly a wonder to hear.
The first re-performances we heard were a couple of Bach’s Goldberg Variations as played by Glenn Gould in 1955. The complete re-performance of Gould’s Goldberg Variations have been recorded by Zenph and released by Sony BMG to critical acclaim. And it’s easy to hear why. In 1955 Gould recorded with the technology of the day, the Zenph team, on the other hand, had available the best in modern recording technology. Live, however, it’s just a mind blowing experience. It’s sitting a few feet away from a master pianist listening to him play while watching the keys and pedals move without being blocked by the body and hands of the pianist.
Dr. Walker reminded us that the original recording was done in a different room, on a different piano, and in a different context to which Glenn Gould was responding. The re-performance would not respond to the piano, the room, or us in the same way Gould might have, had he actually been there. Fair enough, but being that Gould passed away in 1982, I can safely say that this is as close as I’ve felt to being in the same room listening to him play. And this was just the opening act!
After listening to Gould, we were treated to a sample from a turn of the 20th century Rachmaninoff performance, re-performed on a 1909 Steinway Grand equipped with an SE (Stahnke Edition) playback system. Dr. Walker explained that the original Rachmaninoff recording was live in front of a large audience so that the re-performance would sound big in the moderately small listening room we were in. He was right, Rachmaninoff was an expressive pianist and the chords on that re-performance landed on that concert grand like they were being played for a packed house at Carnegie Hall. However, this did not detract from the experience, to the contrary, the contrast between the Gould and the Rachmaninoff only helped make the performer's personality stand out even more.
The Zenph team is already developing digital maps for bass re-performances and working with other companies to develop the technology to be able to get those digital maps to play on actual basses. In the meantime, however, Dr. Walker was able to play for us a bass re-performance using a high-end loudspeaker.
We listened to Kadota’s Blues originally recorded by the Oscar Peterson Trio (Peterson, Ray Brown, and Ed Thigpen) in 1961. For the re-performance, the Oscar Peterson part played on a Bösendorfer Imperial Grand with a CEUS playback system while the Ray Brown part played through an MBL 101e Radialstrahler loudspeaker designed by Wolfgang Meletzky.
The Peterson and Brown re-performance was so vivid that I could almost see them right in front of me smiling and making faces as they responded to each others notes. It seemed like a strange reverse creative process where instead of the performers creating the music, the music was creating the performers.
After the Peterson and Brown re-performance came the headliners of the day, Fats Waller and Art Tatum.
The Waller re-performance was played on the same 1909 Steinway Concert Grand that had earlier played the Rachmaninoff. The differences were striking. While Rachmaninoff was heavy and dramatic, even a little scary, Fats Waller’s playful humor had us laughing as if he had been sitting right in front of us winking at us as he cleverly toyed with melody and rhythm.
But the real headliner of the day was Art Tatum. In 1949, Tatum recorded Piano Starts Here, live at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles. On June 3rd Zenph is releasing a recording of the re-performance of the complete Tatum album, plus a few bonus tracks, recorded in front of a live audience at the same Shrine Auditorium where the original was recorded. How's that for bending time? Furthermore, on June 19, 20 and 21 the re-performance is also being played to a live audience at the Apollo Theater. What I wouldn’t give to go hear that.
We heard several Art Tatum re-performances including an incredible version of Tiger Rag. I’d heard several versions of Tiger Rag before by Tatum and others, but watching the Steinway re-perform Tatum’s blistering runs complete with pedal moves and the humor, flair and depth of a true live performance really made me feel like I was time traveling. Bravo Zenph!
Of course there is nothing like the real thing; nothing like listening to an unexpected performer in an unexpected situation playing some music that truly transports you to another place and time. And although Zenph is focusing on classic recordings from years ago, the technology could very well be applied to new music as well. I imagine home performances that can be experienced around the world on real instruments and not just via television or a stereo, for example.
When I asked at what point the technology would be so readily available and affordable that we would be able to hear re-performances in local piano bars, Dr. Walker, pointed out that the technology is still in its early stages of development. The re-performances that they have been developing are of very specific moments in time and place. A Carnegie Hall performance on a 10-foot grand probably won’t work as well re-performed in a small bar with an upright piano. The instruments themselves, and pianos in particular, have their own idiosyncrasies as well. But the Zenph team is working on it. After bass, they’ll be working on drums, then saxophone, then guitars and eventually voice. But their ultimate objective, their holy grail, is to be able to find the signature for each performer’s style, their musical DNA, the algorithms that would allow us to hear not just a re-performance, but a re-performer who could then perform in any number of contexts and any number of musical compositions, even ones the original performer might never had played. I know, the whole thing sounds a little spooky and it makes me a little uneasy, but that is the same feeling I imagine we’ll get when we are actually able to time travel, it’s the feeling of the future happening in the present.
Labels: Thursdays, Zenph Studios
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