The best way to play "Fur Elise" and "Moonlight Sonata" by Beethoven.

[ihatepop]

Here is some CG I have made for you all:

"Traumerwind!"

Phil

That's preety!!! Love it!!!

ihatepop

[vladimirdounin]

QUOTE

Hold on a second... Doesn't it remind a TV commercial about loosing 50lb. in a week... and it is absolutely free? And somehow, of course, IT ALWAYS WORKS... instantly, and forever.
On the other hand, I would gladly leave all my duties here and buy a ticket on a next flight to Canada, if you promise to teach me in one free lesson how to play Brahms op.10, or Rahmaninov Vocalise, as beautifully as Gilels. (Yes, I am able to play those pieces.)


ANSWER (SORRY, THERE IS NO "CHANGE COLOR" BUTTON IN MENU)

You are right. I have not enough time and I just quoted my "commercial" to save it. On the other hand I will reimburse your money if I will not teach you to play Brahms op.10 or "Vocalise" as beautifully as Gilels ("NO 1 among all the pianists in the world" - look at my story about Golubovskaya), provided that you will bring his recordings along.

How it will happen? Step 1. We will listen to Gilels' recordings and I will make marks in the score.
Step 2. I will play some short section of the score following the marks that I did (copying Gilels' performance)  and ask you: if you noticed any differences with the original? If any, and you can say clearly: what exactly was different - I will correct my marks and play the same section again until you will be happy. Step 3. I will teach you to read these marks and you will play exactly like I did (copying Gilels). My routine lessons look like this (except Gilels' recording). I just play a few versions of the same section and ask my students: which variant do they prefer? What exactly was different? This method always results in great progress in musicality and understanding of the nature of music.

If you do not want to put your and my money at risk,  simply read, please, my last answer in my posting "Fur Elise" (in "Audition Room") regarding "step by step learning" all these rules. (Tell me please, how did you try EXERCISE ONE?)

QUOTE

[First, I'd like to know what are those "modern technologies"? Is it kind of software, hardware, or some newest scientific developments, or anything else?]



ANSWER

About modern technologies: I am a human, and you are a human, "errare humanum sum" - we always do mistakes. However, if we will use Japanese "hardware" Disklavir "Jamaha" and compare report about our performance printed on the paper to the same report about Gilels' performance - then our result will be scientifically identical.

QUOTE
Second, I agree the rules of musicality are pretty simple, however, it is not about rules, but their implementation. Sure, on a surface dynamics


ANSWER

Please, do not confuse "Dynamics" and "Temperature". Dynamics is about summary, total strength of all voices. The "Temperature" just about the single note at this certain moment.



QUOTE
can improve musicality, or rather SEEMING musicality. However, you cannot fool a professional, who will immediately spot the real talent from hundreds of those who "play with dynamics", or "play musically according to the rules".


ANSWER

I invite you to listen to my recently posted "Fur Elise", "My Way" and "Russian-Japanese-Canadian" in Audition Room. Tell me, please, how exactly did you spot immediately  that I am not a real talent. (If you are a mentioned "professional", of course). I will really appreciate this information and use it in the future.




QUOTE
Musicality is not about dynamics, or phrasing, or even expression. Musicality is about WHO YOU ARE and your emotional and personal connection with music. You cannot "improve" musicality without improving yourself. Does it take one free lesson? I wish it was so...


ANSWER

I will definitely  improve your musicality in one free lesson time "or your money for airticket back". However, it can happen very likely that we will spend this hour for one page, or one line, or even for one bar. It depends on WHO YOU ARE, of course. Your emotional connection with music does not matter - in any case it will be changed or corrected.

 

QUOTE

To me it rather takes LIFETIME.


ANSWER

You are absolutely right! Let us do it together.


QUOTE
Dynamics, phrasing, expression, are only a SMALL PART of musicality, and have nothing to do with real artistry, which is much more complex and also involves many other things, such as taste, artistism, belief in what you are doing, and most of all--ability TO BREATH LIFE INTO MUSIC. It would be a very unfortunate fallacy to believe we could do it with mere dynamics.

ANSWER

The mentioned "Disklavier" knows only 3 things: Pitch, Timing and Volume of each note. It does not know anything of above listed by you. However "Disklavier" plays absolutely in the same way  like Gilels played. No one professional can spot any difference.

[m]

You are right. I have not enough time and I just quoted my "commercial" to save it. On the other hand I will reimburse your money if I will not teach you to play Brahms op.10 or "Vocalise" as beautifully as Gilels ("NO 1 among all the pianists in the world" - look at my story about Golubovskaya), provided that you will bring his recordings along.

Dear Vladimir,

I even did not have to make a search for your Golubovskaya quote (which BTW, is very interesting) for confirmation that Gilels "speaks thruth". Not many pianists in the history had that rare quality. To my mind come some other names--V. Sofronitsky, S. Rachmaninov, O. Boshniakovitch, E. Novitskaya. That is a very rare quality, which very hard to explain, reproduce, or document, however, once heard, immediately can be identified as such.

I am afraid, I will argue all of your other points.

You say:

How it will happen? Step 1. We will listen to Gilels' recordings and I will make marks in the score.
Step 2. I will play some short section of the score following the marks that I did (copying Gilels' performance)  and ask you: if you noticed any differences with the original? If any, and you can say clearly: what exactly was different - I will correct my marks and play the same section again until you will be happy. Step 3. I will teach you to read these marks and you will play exactly like I did (copying Gilels). My routine lessons look like this (except Gilels' recording). I just play a few versions of the same section and ask my students: which variant do they prefer? What exactly was different? This method always results in great progress in musicality and understanding of the nature of music.

I say:

What you are proposing is instead of "speaking the truth" we just "copy the truth"? It is rather like making a photocopy of 'Mona Lisa'. But.... however wonderful and "life-like" this copy is, it never will become an original. And excuse me, the original is priceless, and you pay for the photocopy $100, at the most.
So what did we do here?

No thanks, instead of copying somebody else I'd rather carefully look at the score, try my best (whatever bad it is), but do my own mistakes. At least they will be original.

You say:

If you do not want to put your and my money at risk,  simply read, please, my last answer in my posting "Fur Elise" (in "Audition Room") regarding "step by step learning" all these rules. (Tell me please, how did you try EXERCISE ONE?)

I say:

Sorry, I did not do that excersises, as I have no idea what they suppose to show, what they suppose to develope, or what their purpose is.

You say:

About modern technologies: I am a human, and you are a human, "errare humanum sum" - we always do mistakes. However, if we will use Japanese "hardware" Disklavir "Jamaha" and compare report about our performance printed on the paper to the same report about Gilels' performance - then our result will be scientifically identical.

I say:

To my knowledge, Gilels never left any recordings on Disklavier. I don't really know how the machine works exactly, but I'd think, the only way to transfer his recording to that machine would be converting them to midi. To my knowledge, there are no programs which would do it successfully, or at least, without great deal of errors. To talk about any scientific results here would be at very least very optimistic.

You say:

Please, do not confuse "Dynamics" and "Temperature". Dynamics is about summary, total strength of all voices. The "Temperature" just about the single note at this certain moment.

I say:

No, I don't confuse them. My point is not about "dynamics" or "temperature", but about "musical intensity", which is much closer to what we call "musicality", at least in my understanding.

I invite you to listen to my recently posted "Fur Elise", "My Way" and "Russian-Japanese-Canadian" in Audition Room. Tell me, please, how exactly did you spot immediately  that I am not a real talent. (If you are a mentioned "professional", of course). I will really appreciate this information and use it in the future.

Well, since you are asking my opinion (whatever unqualified it might be), I will write here what I thought about the "Russian song".

It is pretty.
There is a fluidity in playing.
I have however a few reservations with the performance.
The very first, for my taste, there are too many "surges" (tempo and dynamics pushings), which do not seem to me appropriate and break the flow of this rather simple Russian folk song, which becomes way too affectionate.

Very often you start the melody with a strong accent. Yes, I am aware that many Russian melodies start "from the top". I don't know the words of this song so it is hard to say  if the "top start" is justified here. However, the way you do it sounds as an "accent" rather than "top", and often is out of proportion.

The melody itself does not really sing, but you rather "glide on the surface" "passing by" those mourning intonations, so common for Russian music. I'd like to hear the song intonations in much more speaking, pronounced, and simple way, and for me there should be much more internal musical intensity, if you want to make people cry.
 
As an example what I mean, just think of how Rachmaninov plays Tchaikowsky Lullyby, or Gluck-Sgambatti Melody.
In short, in this (particular) piece I'd like to hear much more "truth from heart", rather than some "pretty song". But what do I know?

I will definitely  improve your musicality in one free lesson time "or your money for airticket back". However, it can happen very likely that we will spend this hour for one page, or one line, or even for one bar. It depends on WHO YOU ARE, of course. Your emotional connection with music does not matter - in any case it will be changed or corrected.

I would not be afraid of even three hours of working on one bar, as long as it gives results, but definitely, I'd hate to put your "money for airticket back" under such a risk  .

The mentioned "Disklavier" knows only 3 things: Pitch, Timing and Volume of each note. It does not know anything of above listed by you. However "Disklavier" plays absolutely in the same way  like Gilels played. No one professional can spot any difference.

This part is... well... I am not even sure if you are serious.
Do you really want me to believe the Disklavier's solid state optopair, a few chips tone generator and a processor can reproduce that Gilels Golden Tone taken on a real instrument, where a felt hummer touches steel, and then the string vibration gets augmented by wooden sound-board, and the sound goes straight to your heart?

Best regards, Mark

[PaulNaud]

I invite you to listen to my recently posted "Fur Elise

Dear sir,

I listend to your "für Elise" performance. It's not a very bad one. But I'm sorry to tell you that there is a chord missing around bar 74, and also in some places one beat is missing!!!

[PaulNaud]

To my knowledge, Gilels never left any recordings on Disklavier. I don't really know how the machine works exactly, but I'd think, the only way to transfer his recording to that machine would be converting them to midi.

MARIK, YOU SAID IT!

[PaulNaud]

"errare humanum sum"

Marik, I like your latin quotation. You're a man of culture. You're the right man to get us out of the prevailing ignorance!!!

[m]

Marik, I like your latin quotation. You're a man of culture. You're the right man to get us out of the prevailing ignorance!!!

Dear Paul,

I am very sorry to disappoint you, but I am afraid that was Vladimir's quotation and I believe that he IS a cultural man. We all tend to have our delusions.

Best, Mark

[PaulNaud]

You're right Marik; we all make mistakes!!!
All the best
Paul

[vladimirdounin]

Dear Marik,

Thank you for your serious and interesting answer. I have just a few minutes and can not answer all your points right now. However, I see that you don't know and never tried "Disklavier". Please, come to nearest branch of "Yamaha" and you will say me: "Thank you for this fun!".

"Disklavier" is a real Grand-Piano of best "Yamaha" quality. It does not "generate sounds with some cheap mechanism". This machine plays keys and hammers exactly the same way, like you and all other pianists do.

"Disklavier" has sensors under each key, they send   information about each note that you (or somebody else) played to special computer. This information consists of Timing, Pitch and Volume of each note that you played. After you finished your playing, you can "ask" "Disklavier" to do for you the same. And it will play exactly the same keys with exactly the same strength. It will be perfect copy true to the original (that you played). All the best pianists of the planet recorded on this machine practically whole piano repertoire. It is scientifically proved that the original performance and playing back of "Disklavier" are absolutely identical. Try it, and we can discuss this matter in normal situation. Now the situation is ridiculous - you are arguing against something that you have no idea about.  

QUOTE

I say:

What you are proposing is instead of "speaking the truth" we just "copy the truth"?

No thanks, instead of copying somebody else I'd rather carefully look at the score, try my best (whatever bad it is), but do my own mistakes. At least they will be original.

ANSWER

I just took your game: it was your, not my suggestion to teach you to play "exactly like Gilels".
However, this is not such a bad idea. All great artists started from copying masterpieces of others.
When your "Mona Lisa" will be better: after you copied and sold "for $ 100" 1000s of "immitations" or when you never did anything like this in your life time yet?

However, copying is only one of plenty possible applications of mentioned "method". I am going to post this method in all details in the closest future. Please, read - my answer to you will be in this material.


QUOTE
I say:

Sorry, I did not do that excersises, as I have no idea what they suppose to show, what they suppose to develope, or what their purpose is.


ANSWER

I had here very interesting and highly professional comments from some specialist in computers (if I could print notes on this site and do to them all his different  tricks like he did!)

He insisted that my method is impossible in principle, because there is no way to measure these tiny differences between strengthes (or Intensity that you like more) of the notes.

This objection looks impressive but my "exercises" refute this statement easily. We CAN measure any differences in Intensity, if we will accept One Degree (1') as an measuring unit. I remind that this One Degre is "THE SMALLEST DIFFERENCE IN INTENSITY THAT WE CAN FEEL". After we established One Degree we can measure and 2, and 3, and 4 Degrees. However, only 1', 2', and 3' have practical value (significance) for our purposes. I will tell about this in my coming material.

 



QUOTE

I say:

To my knowledge, Gilels never left any recordings on Disklavier. I don't really know how the machine works exactly, but I'd think, the only way to transfer his recording to that machine would be converting them to midi. To my knowledge, there are no programs which would do it successfully, or at least, without great deal of errors. To talk about any scientific results here would be at very least very optimistic.

This part is... well... I am not even sure if you are serious.
Do you really want me to believe the Disklavier's solid state optopair, a few chips tone generator and a processor can reproduce that Gilels Golden Tone taken on a real instrument, where a felt hummer touches steel, and then the string vibration gets augmented by wooden sound-board, and the sound goes straight to your heart?

ANSWER

I told you already that you are wrong here ("I don't really know how the machine works exactly, but I'd think") I am sure that you will think differently after you will get familiar with this officially "the best in the world system for piano recordings".

QUOTE

 My point is about "musical intensity", which is much closer to what we call "musicality", at least in my understanding.

ANSWER

My "FIORNI" means Fine Indication Of Relative Note INTENSITY. What we are arguing about in this case?

QUOTE

I would not be afraid of even three hours of working on one bar, as long as it gives results, but definitely, I'd hate to put your "money for airticket back" under such a risk  .

ANSWER

I am using this method in average let's say with 100 students of different specialties a year since 1981. It makes 2 500. During these 25 years this method did not work 3 times:

1. In 1982 (Moscow Phylharmonics) one guy shouted that he will not allow "experiments on humans, because this is a musical facism". Fortunately, mush better performers than this one backed me already.

2. In 1995 previous (before me) Chorus Master of the Opera Company in South Africa refused to follow my instructions because "she was a professional conductor and knew for sure: what is right and what is wrong". I settled the matter, pointing that it is in her interest to let me "do everything wrong": because I will be fired for bad perfomances of the choir and her position will be vacant again.  After it became obvious that performances will be excellent she refused to work at all and retired.

3. In 2001 in Canada one of the most beautiful students I had seen in my life time told me that her Mom pays me but does not pay her. In this case, I can teach her as much as I want but she will not learn on principle. And she really did not learn. Now she is a model instead.

If we will deduct these 3 failures out of 2500 positive results, our statistics will not look gloomy.
It makes me optimistic regarding our proposed work on Rachmaninoff's "Vocalise". If you have no political obsessions like mentioned "musical facism", if you not trying to squeeze money from your Mom, if you are open-minded and do not "know for sure: what is right and wrong" apriory - you are more than welcomed !

With all my best wishes,

Vladimir Dounin  

[PaulNaud]

I forgot to offer my apologies to Mr. Vladimirdounin!!!

[vladimirdounin]

Dear sir,

I listend to your "für Elise" performance. It's not a very bad one. But I'm sorry to tell you that there is a chord missing around bar 74, and also in some places one beat is missing!!!

Thank you very much! I will take score, check and fix these mistakes.
                                                              Vladimir Dounin

[PaulNaud]

I'm sorry no beat is missing except the chord as I told you around bar 74. I think my impression for missing beats was made because of a few awkward ritardendos...
All the best!

P.S. Anyway I liked the first part of your performance!

[m]

Dear Marik,

Thank you for your serious and interesting answer. I have just a few minutes and can not answer all your points right now. However, I see that you don't know and never tried "Disklavier". Please, come to nearest branch of "Yamaha" and you will say me: "Thank you for this fun!".

"Disklavier" is a real Grand-Piano of best "Yamaha" quality. It does not "generate sounds with some cheap mechanism". This machine plays keys and hammers exactly the same way, like you and all other pianists do.

"Disklavier" has sensors under each key, they send   information about each note that you (or somebody else) played to special computer. This information consists of Timing, Pitch and Volume of each note that you played. After you finished your playing, you can "ask" "Disklavier" to do for you the same. And it will play exactly the same keys with exactly the same strength. It will be perfect copy true to the original (that you played). All the best pianists of the planet recorded on this machine practically whole piano repertoire. It is scientifically proved that the original performance and playing back of "Disklavier" are absolutely identical. Try it, and we can discuss this matter in normal situation. Now the situation is ridiculous - you are arguing against something that you have no idea about.  

Dear Vladimir,

Clearly, there is some kind of misunderstanding here. I know very well what Disklavier is and played with it quite a few times (also with Samick).
When I say "I don't really know how the machine works exactly", I mean I don't know how the machine works TECHNICALLY and all the details. In other words, I know that it uses sensors, but what kind of sensor?--is it an optopair or inductive one, what kind of key actuators it has?--are they solenoids or something else, are the actuators under the keys or built into hummer mechanism, what kind of software it uses, encoding and decoding algorithms, etc.,etc.,etc.

I realize, on a practical level we can say that recorded performance is identical. However, strictly speaking, on a scientific level "... original performance and playing back of "Disklavier" are absolutely identical." is impossible.
The problem is ANY sensor, ANY transistor, ANY op-amp, ANY electronic part has distortions, non-linearity of transfer characteristics, phase anomalies, and noise. That is just the law of physics.
All those distortions get significantly multiplied by the fact of using thousands of those devices per channel.
The worst distortion figures have mechanical devices (which actuators are, even if they are of electrostatic type) and they get heavily affected by temperature and humidity.
Yes, negative feedback and servo-channels reduce these non-linearities and distortions, but NEVER eliminate them. Besides, those techniques introduce some other types of distortions.

On a scientific level to talk about ABSOLUTELY IDENTICAL performance (i.e. the performance with zero error) is a nonsense, and most likely is a marketing trick. I am yet to see the proof. The only experiment I would believe in is quite simple:

In anechoic room with very strict temperature and humidity control, acoustically record the performer with some high quality instrumental microphone (something like B&K 4133, or at least DPA 4004), using a high quality, low temperature drift preamplifier. Then with the same setup record the playback.
If you time align those two recordings, mix into center and then play them back together with one channel out of phase, then ideally (if they are identical) you will hear NOTHING. If you hear at least anything, it means they are not identical.
To my knowledge, this was not done. At least I never saw. 
 
 
But I would appreciate if you could fill me in as for how one could transfer an acoustical piano recording (Gilels' for example) into the machine and how a timbre recorded on, let's say, Steinway could be reproduced on Yamaha.

However, copying is only one of plenty possible applications of mentioned "method". I am going to post this method in all details in the closest future. Please, read - my answer to you will be in this material.

Please do it! At the present state it is very hard to argue about some bits of information taken out of context and without knowing the whole concept of your "method".

I had here very interesting and highly professional comments from some specialist in computers (if I could print notes on this site and do to them all his different  tricks like he did!)

He insisted that my method is impossible in principle, because there is no way to measure these tiny differences between strengthes (or Intensity that you like more) of the notes.

This objection looks impressive but my "exercises" refute this statement easily. We CAN measure any differences in Intensity, if we will accept One Degree (1') as an measuring unit. I remind that this One Degre is "THE SMALLEST DIFFERENCE IN INTENSITY THAT WE CAN FEEL". After we established One Degree we can measure and 2, and 3, and 4 Degrees. However, only 1', 2', and 3' have practical value (significance) for our purposes. I will tell about this in my coming material.

Once again, I don't know yet what your method is, but I am not sure a computer specialist could help you here. If you are talking about measuring note strength, I'd suggest you to talk rather to acoustician or electronic engineer.

In principal, you can measure ANY sound differences. The only limit is resolution of the equipment you are using. The modern (even cheaper and simpler) devices can measure up to the 3rd decade easily, with 1% error. It is waaaaaay more accurate than our ears could possibly detect.

You can also use modern software. There are many available. For example, I saw some free ones, which include an oscilloscope; phase, distortion, and 1/128 per octave (!)  spectrum analyzer; it can substract two signals and you will see the difference (including phase difference) between them on a grid in both, absolute or relative values; it has hold and delta functions; peak and RMS voltmeter in both, dbu and Volts measurements; sampling frequency up to 192K, and many other goodies.
You can observe a sinusoidal shape of the signal and see its harmonics and their intensity, etc., etc., etc.

Of course, you can use your term "One Degree (1') as a measuring unit". Just FYI, In acoustical science the sound strength is measured in db (decibel), which is a logarithmic function of measured signal strength in volts against some choosen value (this one depends on a standart of measuring). In other words, you can use one note as a standard and measure another note against this standard. Let's say, we play 'Forte' and have measured the first note as 1V, and another one as 2V, then the difference between them would be 6db. The beauty of this method is that if you play 'Piano' and get the first note as, let's say, 0.1V and second as 0.2V, the difference between them will be still the same 6db.

Also, as a "standard" you can chose some other values and then measure all other notes against it. Usually, those values are whether a noise level, or threshold of our hearing. Even then, the difference between two notes for both cases I showed above, will still be 6db.

There is also an "absolute" standard of acoustical pressure, against which all modern microphones and speakers are measured, and it is 94db/Pa. But all those things can be somewhat confusing.

As for "or Intensity that you like more", it seems here there is a misunderstanding, as well.
I used a term "musical intensity",  which has nothing to do with dynamics or note strength. It describes rather emotional involvement of the performer, performer's personal touch (or intonation) and its impact on a listener.

To my knowledge, Gilels never left any recordings on Disklavier. I don't really know how the machine works exactly, but I'd think, the only way to transfer his recording to that machine would be converting them to midi. To my knowledge, there are no programs which would do it successfully, or at least, without great deal of errors. To talk about any scientific results here would be at very least very optimistic.

This part is... well... I am not even sure if you are serious.
Do you really want me to believe the Disklavier's solid state optopair, a few chips tone generator and a processor can reproduce that Gilels Golden Tone taken on a real instrument, where a felt hummer touches steel, and then the string vibration gets augmented by wooden sound-board, and the sound goes straight to your heart?

ANSWER

I told you already that you are wrong here ("I don't really know how the machine works exactly, but I'd think") I am sure that you will think differently after you will get familiar with this officially "the best in the world system for piano recordings".

I have already answered this part above. As for "the best in the world system for piano recordings" I would respectfully disagree. Yes, it makes an exact (or let's say, NEARLY exact) copy of the performance. It however, has no way of capturing acoustics of the hall, dealing with individuality of the performer, or specifics of the repertoire performed.
In short, the machine does not deal with the most important part of piano recording, which is "piano recording as an art".

QUOTE

 My point is about "musical intensity", which is much closer to what we call "musicality", at least in my understanding.

ANSWER

My "FIORNI" means Fine Indication Of Relative Note INTENSITY. What we are arguing about in this case?

I have no idea what is the significance of "FIORNI", so I will wait until you post your "method". Maybe it will put more light on the discussion and then we can resume.

Best, Mark

[ronde_des_sylphes]

QUOTE

How it will happen? Step 1. We will listen to Gilels' recordings and I will make marks in the score.
Step 2. I will play some short section of the score following the marks that I did (copying Gilels' performance) and ask you: if you noticed any differences with the original? If any, and you can say clearly: what exactly was different - I will correct my marks and play the same section again until you will be happy. Step 3. I will teach you to read these marks and you will play exactly like I did (copying Gilels). My routine lessons look like this (except Gilels' recording). I just play a few versions of the same section and ask my students: which variant do they prefer? What exactly was different? This method always results in great progress in musicality and understanding of the nature of music.

I may be missing something here. Let's presuppose that, well, maybe the Disklavier can fake/copy Gilels to the level that the listener can't tell the two apart. But the pupil, or even you???

You really think that we, as mere humans, rather than machines, are capable of not only quantifying Gilels' subtle changes in dynamics, rubati, etc.. AND THEN REPEATING THEM EXACTLY AS GILELS PLAYED THEM? Now I'm prepared to accept that a machine can make a decent attempt at measuring and replicating them, but the performances of great (and even not-so-great) pianists are full of small, almost intangible nuances which, whilst we can certainly perceive them, copying them is another matter altogether. To reproduce Gilels' playing would surely involve an understanding of Gilels' psyche, his attitude to musical form, an acquisition of his technique of sound-generation, etc, etc, etc.

My apologies if I have misinterpreted your position.

[vladimirdounin]

I may be missing something here. Let's presuppose that, well, maybe the Disklavier can fake/copy Gilels to the level that the listener can't tell the two apart. But the pupil, or even you???

You really think that we, as mere humans, rather than machines, are capable of not only quantifying Gilels' subtle changes in dynamics, rubati, etc.. AND THEN REPEATING THEM EXACTLY AS GILELS PLAYED THEM? Now I'm prepared to accept that a machine can make a decent attempt at measuring and replicating them, but the performances of great (and even not-so-great) pianists are full of small, almost intangible nuances which, whilst we can certainly perceive them, copying them is another matter altogether. To reproduce Gilels' playing would surely involve an understanding of Gilels' psyche, his attitude to musical form, an acquisition of his technique of sound-generation, etc, etc, etc.

My apologies if I have misinterpreted your position.

Please note, that I was going (in our imaginary lesson) to correct ONLY the differences between Gilels' original  and my "copy" that YOU ARE ABLE TO NOTICE AND CLEARLY INDICATE. I am not going to reproduce anything like "his intangible nuances and attitude to musical form".

I have a tool (FIORNI) that works as "magnifying glass in musical dynamics". This tool gives me the advantage of "seeing" much smaller details than other pianists usually can hear. Therefore I am going to post a few "pairs" of short popular songs with slightly different patterns of "temperature" - notes strength - FIORNI (all of these words mean the same). I did not meet a single person yet who could say me clearly and precisely: what is the difference between given 2 versions, though one of the versions is quite nice and another is absolutely disgusting. (I know 100% of these differences, of course, because I inserted them on purpose).

I would be really amazed and admired if some of the members will be able to catch these differences in fact instead of usual general talking about emotions and expressions. However, even if this will happen, FIORNI still would be very usefull for any musician for plenty of other purposes.

This is my reason to hope that I am able to satisfy my "hypotetical student": just because my ear have dayly training in "microanalyzing" and my accuracy should be, in my opinion,  higher than his/her ability to hear these "microdifferences".

Thanks for interesting comments,

Vladimir Dounin

[vladimirdounin]

Dear Marik,

I am very glad to see that you have an excellent (at least for a musician) background in Electronics and Physics. On this field I do not want to argue with you just because of all your statements are (in my vision, of course) absolutely right.
 
You say:

"I realize, on a practical level we can say that recorded performance is identical".

I SAY

It is exactly what is most important for me in our situation. If you, blindfolded, can not say: do you hear your beloved Gilels or his "copy" - it is enough, because these sounds will make the same action on your mind and soul.


YOU SAY:

Once again, I don't know yet what your method is, but I am not sure a computer specialist could help you here. If you are talking about measuring note strength, I'd suggest you to talk rather to acoustician or electronic engineer.

In principal, you can measure ANY sound differences.

I SAY

What I need most is: can you, for example, print here exact acoustic values (in db, v etc. -it is entirely  up to you) of first 20 notes in second voice of my recording "Fur Elise"?
 Which method will give you the way to do it?

I am still working on my description of the method trying to reduce volume and potential risk of allergical reactions.

With my best wishes,

Vladimir

[m]

What I need most is: can you, for example, print here exact acoustic values (in db, v etc. -it is entirely  up to you) of first 20 notes in second voice of my recording "Fur Elise"?
 Which method will give you the way to do it?

I'd think spectrum analyzer should do. The most convinient would be one with a hold function. Unfortunately, mine doesn't have "hold". Let me think and see what I can do.

Best, Mark

[m]

OK, here is something that by no means is scientific, but might be somewhat helpful. I used ProTools7.1--professional sound editing program. The screen shows me a graph, which I zoomed on "Y" plane, to have a good and distinct view of every note and their good strength separation. Then a "volume" feature of the program showed me RELATIVE figures for each note.
Please note, should I stretched the graph more, the values would be augmented much more. Of course, if I zoomed the "Y" axis out, then the relative scale would be much smaller (as well as differences in values obtained), but so would be the accuracy. In any case, the values in present form have no correlation to either db or V. They rather reflect a general strength of each note taken from a convinient scale.

If you always use this particular scale, then you will know exactly what it represents. For example, in Russia you were using metric system--meters, centimeters, millimiters, grams, kilograms. I am not sure what you guys use in Canada, but ones you learn imperial system--inches, feet, pounds, ounzes--you will always know what their values refer to. 

Also, this software does not distinct notes in the chord, so when we have two (or more) notes together, it shows the "louder" one (the reason I ommited some values in L.H., where they were covered by louder R.H.). As I said earlier, the way to go here is a spectrum analyzer (it WILL distinguish chord notes), which runs analysis on a sample and spits out cumulative or average figures over a period of time.

Another problem--this is an acoustical recording and accuracy is greatly affected by distance from microphones, microphone miking techniques, hall acoustics and resonances, and non-linearity of the microphones used. In some cases inaccuracies can be as much as plus-minus 10-15 db (!!!) per octave.
Here we have a stereo recording. I measured values only for the right channel, but some of the values were different for the left one. Of course, recording made on Disklavier (with reverb off) would be free of this drawback and invaluable in this case.

Please also note, the first 'E' has such a low value because your engineer caught it into 'fade in', while preparing this recording.
In any case, here we are:

E-   1.3
D# -4.7
E ---5.3
D#--7.3
E----3.8
B----7.3
D----7.8
C----9.8
A----7.6    Abass
               Ebass---3.6
               Abass---3.3
C----5.0
E----8.6
A---11.5
B-----9.4     Ebass
      Ebass---4.8
      G#bass-3.8
E---7.8
G#--6.2
B----8.8
C----7.8


Best regards, Mark
   

[vladimirdounin]

Dear Marik,

You do not know self : what you did for me! I had no hope to see these numbers in my life time:

In any case, here we are:

E-   1.3
D# -4.7
E ---5.3
D#--7.3
E----3.8
B----7.3
D----7.8
C----9.8
A----7.6    Abass
               Ebass---3.6
               Abass---3.3
C----5.0
E----8.6
A---11.5
B-----9.4     Ebass
      Ebass---4.8
      G#bass-3.8
E---7.8
G#--6.2
B----8.8
C----7.8

All the specialists before you (e.g. Head Office of "Yamaha") advised me "just to ask any professional music teacher - they know this matter precisely".

Do you anyone in the world today, who can write down these numbers without your sophisticated technology?

Please, do another favour:

STEP 1. Post here the same numbers of any melody played by your beloved Gilels and the same numbers for the same melody played by some bad pianist. I am sure that we will see a huge difference in "microdynamics pattern" of their melodies.

STEP 2. Post here numbers for the melody of any famous piece (better slow tempo - it will be easier to see the differences)  from 5-10 the best performances that you know. I bet that their patterns will be very alike.

I appreciate your impressive knowledge of recording and performance businesses. However, I am sure that  at least 50% of the differences in "interpretations" of the best and the worst pianists depends on Relative Note Intensity. I am sure that YOU are able to prove this fact, even if you deny it today (see "your numbers" above) .

Now you do not need to know anything else about my FIORNI, you know it already. Only the difference is that I and my students extract the same information in "organoleptical" way (just with our ears, without your electronics). Our accuracy is much lower than yours, we want to use your equipment, of course. However, my way of "spelling" the same information is more "user friendly" and convenient for human's brain.

The bad news from you is :

"Also, this software DOES NOT DISTINCT NOTES IN THE CHORD, so when we have two (or more) notes together, it shows the "louder" one (the reason I ommited some values in L.H., where they were covered by louder R.H.)".

This problem should be solved.

With my best wishes,

Vladimir Dounin

[m]

Dear Marik,

You do not know self : what you did for me! I had no hope to see these numbers in my life time:

Dear Vladimir,

I am glad I was of help. But... in all my honesty, I still have no any idea why would you want those numbers, though.

Best, Mark

[vladimirdounin]

Dear Vladimir,

I am glad I was of help. But... in all my honesty, I still have no any idea why would you want those numbers, though.

Best, Mark

Dear Marik,

Did you attend master- classes of some prominent and non-prominent  pianists? Didn't you notice that on many occasions they give to their "victim" absolutely opposite instruction than they self (masters) play. It is not because they, or me, or their student are idiots or crazy. It is because of our psychology: look at my answer to you in Audition Room.

However a lot of "top" people in our business do not like that fact  to be known. When Scientific Acoustic Laboratory of Moscow Conservatory did research exactly on this topic, they were immediately closed down. I tried to work with them and saw with my own eyes their spectrogramms of our professors' performances with their analyses and comments.

The problem is that a lot of people do not want to know the truth on principle. You look in better light: in my feeling you simply do not suspect it yet. And you seem having the keys to the secrets that nobody opened before.

Thank you for prompting me with this question to my new post. I will think about it.

All the best,

Vladimir.

[vladimirdounin]

Dear Marik,

You are an invaluable opponent because you are trying to refute me in honest, fair way, just with facts, not with emotions, insults and so on.

I do not know on which step but you will see one day that EACH your word confirms my method to analyze, to play and to teach.


You know that I am using unknown to the majority of musicians yet  “micro-dynamics alphabet”. It consists (interesting coincidence) of 7 letters or (notes, if this name is better).
Exactly like 7 notes of our scale and 7 colors of the rainbow.
These letters – notes are : -3’, -2’, -1’, 0’, +1’, +2’, +3’.
I print them: +1’,+2’,+3’ above and -1’, -2’, -3’ below each note that I want to explain to my student (how exactly it should be played).

PLEASE, NOTE: I do it only AFTER my student heard from me a few versions of the same section played by me live, and TOOK HIS/HER (not my) DECISION: which version he/she loves most. Each of them has the full right to modify anything in my performance (and in notation of this version, of course). I only lead them to THEIR IDEAL by the shortest and most reliable way. Do not tell anybody to me, that I am forcing my students to play MY way! I do not want to hear this statement again and again.


These letters are completely enough to describe ANY events of ANY  line of notes (melody, tenor, bass – no matter).

0’ is Normal, Regular Note for given section of music. This means that 0’ in ff, mP or pp section are absolutely different according to indications of dynamics. However, gradations between 0’ and +1’, or 0” and -1’ are still the same, just one degree.
1’ = One Degree of Difference in Notes Intensity is THE SMALLEST DIFFERENCE THAT WE CAN FEEL.

Why only 7 degrees, not 23 or 56 then? The reason is that I never heard from any DECENT pianist bigger difference than these 7 degrees. Beyond these 7 will be the music that is “not for gentlemen” but for wild people.   

With your help (see your postings) I can convert now my degrees into your db. It gives me possibility to make statement: 1’ degree should not be smaller than “ put here your number self” db. Otherwise it can cause confusion from your audience, like it happened in your test to me. This is very understandable from such an example: If you will print letters too small, people will “read” the words that were not supposed to be seen. They will confuse C and O, V and W, R and B and so on.

Now you have to make the next step and find the way to determine the maximum value of 1 degree in db. I bump against this problem on a daily basis. Each day my students are playing these differences in exaggerated way, they make these differences TOO BIG . In this way intentionally good music turns immediately into vulgar cartoon.

Exactly the same I hear always from my opponents, who purposely make these differences x5-x10 times bigger than I asked them, and I have no tool to prove this fact to them. (This is the reason of my joy about “your numbers”, you gave me a powerful weapon against my opponents. Now, (potentially) I can prove immediately their exaggeration).

What next? Don’t you see yet that this is a very powerful tool for teaching as well?!
Forget about your Gilels and Horowitz for a moment. They a great enough without you and me.
Remember instead about the millions around us, who started music lessons and gave up. They dropped music (our money, btw) just because their music was still disgusting or at least did not bring joy to them and their friends and families in spite of huge money spent.


Do you think it is not important to help them?! (And to us self, btw, with a new ocean of business for each of us?) And all that we have to do is: to give them shortest and most reliable way from the beginners to the level, when they could enjoy self and bring joy to the closest ones. I do it already for many years and can not understand: why colleague of mine do not want to support this idea and to do the same?


All the best!

Vladimir

[vladimirdounin]

QUOTE

Could you tell me 2 or 3 "rules" you're talking about please? Because I still don't get where the 2 threads are going to.

Take care,
Gonzalo

Dear Mr. Gonzalo,

Thank you for your interest in my method and your question. I received many messages WITH THE SAME CONTENTS. Allow me, please, to answer ALL OF THEM here addressing just to you as I did it in my post "Fur Elise" in Audition Room as well.

Judging from your name, sir, you are, probably, thinking in Spanish. I am thinking in Russian. We are communicating in English. To reduce the risk of misunderstanding between us let me, please, to repeat your question in “reversed translation” from Russian to Spanish via English. Sorry, if I understood something wrongly.

So, you wrote to me:

“Listen, guy,

I have no time and wish to read your long and boring posts. I am sure that they are just verbal garbage, because my teachers and textbooks never even mentioned anything like this. You are not a right person to discover or represent anything important because I never watched you on TV and did not read about you in newspapers.

However, I want to be fair to you and give you a chance. Because I wish to have a proof that I am right. Then I will stop even looking at your page in the future, of course. Therefore, send to me 2-3 of your rules for my final judgment.”

Did I understand you correctly, Mr. Gonzalo?

Now, a bit of business statistics:

“If your client was very happy with your services, he will spread information about you on (in average) 3 other persons. Only one of this three will believe and remember his words about you, and less than one, maybe, will try your services in the future.

However, if your client was unhappy with your services, he will spread information about your bad service on at least 70 other person (through direct and indirect contacts). 100% (of these 70) will believe it and never come to you.”

I do not want anybody to spread bad information about me and my method. I want good one. However, please, look at such an example, Mr. Gonzales.

Let us imagine that I invite you to try new software. This software can give you direction and distance to everything that you want. Are you interested to try? Of course!

You put your first question: where is my dog? You selected tab “in minutes of way”. And you received immediately the answer: “Direction 235’, 2.5 min of way”. Not so bad. You asked: where is my office? ”Direction  96, 4.7 minutes of way”. Where is my native town Happyville. TX ? “Direction 321,’ 8.9 min. of way”. Where is Tokio? “Direction 271. 37.8 min. of way”.

You throw this obvious garbage away, because the distances to Tokio, your office and to your dog definitely can not be even close in numbers.

However you were WRONG! Because you did not read in manual or “Help” that the distance within 1 mile around you will be printed in minutes of walking, the distance within next 100 miles will be printed in minutes of driving, the distance within next 1000 miles will be printed in minutes of air jet flight, and over 1000 miles in minutes of satellite flight.

O.K., after you knew about this misunderstanding, you selected “in traditional measures of length”. Do you know what did you get after this selection? You got distance in miles to London, distance in kilometers to Berlin, distance in   leus (I am not sure about spelling of French unit that is equal 4 km) to Parys, distance in “versta” for distances to Russia etc.

Do you understand my point? We can not speak,  write and read about any measurements and numbers if we have no agreement on the meaning of these measures and  numbers.


“I am sure that YOU are sure” that you have “complete control over dynamics”. I say – no way. At least, I newer saw and heard any pianist yet, who has this “complete” control. (Maybe, A.B.Michelangeli? But I am not sure).

You can make the same test that I did over available for me professors and prominent performers in different countries of the planet. I called to them and asked to answer my 3 questions: which note in their national anthem (out of two neighboring notes that I gave them for this test) should be played louder and which softer (3 pairs of consecutive notes).

The results were very impressive. No one answered before 1-2 minutes of silence (how do they play their 200 - 400 notes per minute then?) After long pause the majority of “pure performers” gave right, “very musical” answers. The 100% of “pure teachers” gave exactly opposite answers.

The most interesting were answers of very good performers, who had students as well. All of them gave the right answers, however immediately after their “right” words they shouted: “Sorry, sorry! What did I say?! Of course, at the contrary! (Up side down)”.

What does mean “right and wrong answer” in my test? Before this test I gave the same pair of 2 consecutive notes to 20 citizens and former citizens of these countries and all 100% of them pointed on “right answers”. This was the easiest part of my test, because my neighbors in Toronto arrived from practically all the countries of the world.

This problem is much-much deeper and complicated, than many of us think about this. And my dream is to organize world-wide “brain storm” on this topic. However, today I have to read from many members that this problem does not exist at all.

I am not an average person IN THIS PROBLEM, I am working with this focus over decades. However, you could see that I failed to recognize the true values of notes when Marik reduced with his devices the value of differences between notes below human’s threshold of sensitivity.   What can we expect from our students in this case, who never were trained and pointed on this matter.

At the same time, right notes and timing do not make your music beautiful and enjoyable yet. You have to know about each note: which one should be louder or softer?

I do not want you to be disappointed here and “spread about me and my method negative information to other 70 persons” (see my beginning), just because I did not satisfy your request and did not give you 2-3 my rules.

Here they are: 1. If you have any long note and group (not single) of shorter notes after the long note, you always should soften the first note of this group.

2. If you see any slur, you have to soften the first note under this slur and shorten the last one under this slur.

3. All the notes belong or to “Conflict Notes” (you CAN NOT stop on them, you need another note to STOP, do not confuse with the word “END”) or to “Resolution Notes” (you CAN  stop on them).

 Example: “Joy To The World”. C B A G F E D C.

C resolution, B resolution, A conflict, G resolution, F conflict, E resolution, D conflict, C resolution.   

Conflict always should be 1’ degree louder than resolution.

Now, I hope that you will not prevent 70 people from looking at my posts. However, if you have wish to understand what I am talking about, please read my articles and put any questions to me.

Thank you very much, if you read up to this point!

With all my very best wishes,

Vladimir Dounin.