[Dixielandjazz] Sight, Sound and Computer Generated music Scores.

[Steve Barbone]

Follow up on the visual aspects of music and Lincoln Center's attempt to
raise its public profile via sight as well as sound. If classical music is
an art form and has no problems with the visual aspects of presentation,
then perhaps it is something we OKOMers might also consider.

Cheers,
Steve Barbone


Electronic Variations for Mozart at 250 (Excerpted for Brevity)

NY Times - By DANIEL J. WAKIN - August 3, 2006

Heads cock with perplexity at the random trumpet blurtings and double-bass
rumbles. Befuddled-looking eyes gaze at the screens showing a shifting
palette of lines and squares.

Lincoln Center Plaza these days is the stage for a major outdoor public
performance, a multimedia presentation. . .

The work is called ³Enlightenment,² a commission by the Mostly Mozart
Festival for its 40th anniversary and Mozart¹s 250th birthday.

In essence a computer uses artificial intelligence to reconstruct 30 seconds
of the monumental fugue in the last movement of Mozart¹s ³Jupiter² Symphony.
The 25-minute process plays out over 10 loudspeakers and on 10 video screens
mounted in the arcade outside Avery Fisher Hall. The musical and video
sequences are different each time. . .

Some passers-by peeked out into the plaza, thinking the music was coming
from there. Others said they found the sounds and images soothing.
³Enlightenment² is one of two pieces of public art that have appeared at
Lincoln Center this summer. . .

The works, . . .  come on the watch of Reynold Levy, Lincoln Center¹s
president. Mr. Levy has sought to raise the profile of the complex, loosen
it up a bit and make it more open to the public. At the same time the
installation is in keeping with efforts by the Mostly Mozart Festival to
refresh its offerings and remain compelling. . .

Early Monday morning the sound of the fountain in the plaza served as a
backdrop to the instrumental outbursts. Each screen and loudspeaker
represented one instrument. The screens showed vertical parallel lines, like
cello strings, that flowed together and apart. Red strands hung between
them, like connecting tissue. Squares formed. Soon shapes like music stands
appeared, along with horizontal five-line staffs and other forms.
Beguilingly, the musical fragments began coagulating into recognizable
phrases. By the end the fugal section of the symphony came through with a
slight lurching quality and was repeated in full focus. . .

³Teachers should bring their students here,² said an admiring Betty Wishart,
a composer who teaches piano at Campbell University in Buies Creek, N.C. She
said she had come to New York for a Mostly Mozart concert and heard about
the installation.

She and others seemed most drawn by the idea that a viewer could see video
depictions of the sounds being played. . .

The work, he (one of its creators) said, amounted to an act of problem
solving. ³The problem is trying to play a piece of music without having
access to the score,² he said. The computer starts with random notes; those
that do not fit the themes are weeded out through trial and error. Then the
computer tries different intervals until it finds the right ones to fit the
fugue¹s five themes, which are sorted out into Mozart¹s version.

The screens and note-playing depict ³the state of the search,² he said. The
sounds and the pictures are ³decodable,² he said, but they stand on their
own as aesthetic forms. . .