We’ll also talk about some exciting upcoming events, like concert series and recording projects. If you can’t be in Boston, send us your Skype address. We’ll have a live Skype hookup.

The meeting will take place at Bang & Olufsen’s Newbury Street store, where we will be able to audition material on some very fine equipment. Violist Noralee Walker will also join us to play a work by Hindemith accompanied by me and my Wii-controlled “Fauxharmonic Orchestra.”

So, send mail to info@digitalorchestraleague.com if you’d like to participate.

- Paul

“Are Digital Orchestras a Sign of the Times?”

Conference Website

The Wall Street Journal.
Letter to the Editor
May 9, 2007; Page A15

In regard to “Classical Music: Fugue for Man & Machine” by Jacob Hale Russell and John Jurgensen (Pursuits, May 5): This is a nicely researched article that posits “virtual” music as a possible remedy for very real problems experienced by orchestras and performing groups. But I read the story with a feeling of dismay because of what it signifies about the diminished world of classical music.

To be sure, we have all heard about the declining attendance at musical events, and many fine orchestras cite this and the ever-increasing costs associated with running an orchestra as being a critical issue. As technology has advanced, as demonstrated in the article, the ability to capture perfectly the tones played by top musicians and then reuse and remix them to create a virtual program has given sound engineers the ability to create virtual orchestras. Indeed, imagine if your entire cello section were made up of Yo-Yo Ma, Slava, Feuermann, Fournier, Casals and Maisky. What a superstar program you could have, with the ability to capture the various tones of these musicians and even the differences in the timbres of their respective cellos.

The biggest problem would be to ensure that the royalty checks got out in a timely fashion.

I think that as a curiosity and as backup for dance and Broadway programming the virtual orchestra has some interesting applications. But I believe that we’ll find that the “virtual orchestra” will only lead to a faster decline in concert attendance. Patrons are interested in seeing and hearing a performance by live musicians, not a dance recital by a putative conductor prancing about the stage by himself with a baton and a rack of electronic equipment, regardless how good the musicians were who may have recorded the tones. The accomplishments in engineering cannot, sadly, stem the general decline in listenership of classical music.

As such, the only thing that will be accomplished is to make synthesized “uberorchestras” of digitally recorded tones of the superstars of yesteryear and those who are alive today. In a decade, the only performing musicians could be some moderately talented teenage girls strutting about a la Britney Spears holding million-dollar instruments while “air bowing” the Brahms violin concerto to a digitized 1955 recording from Reiner, the Chicago Symphony and Heifetz. We could even one day have the classical music equivalent of lip-synching.

What is needed is a revitalization of the culture of concertgoing and musical appreciation. This is a more difficult task, beyond the capabilities of sound engineers and finance directors of orchestras. Rather, it is something that starts in the homes and schools, with parents who think beyond what will bring a higher SAT score and school administrators who think beyond the next funding crisis or swimming pool project or computer lab to get on with the business of teaching children how to grow up to become truly educated men and women.

The cultural benefit for the concertgoer is an enjoyable performance by talented people who, after rehearsing, come together and make magic for an hour or so to the delight of their patrons. This musical curiosity, I predict, will have a niche, just as the player piano and its modern brethren still do.

David Umlauf
Deerfield, Ill.

Unlike the Nintendo conductor game, this system uses acceleration and orientation data to control the Mac’s selection of string sounds in real time. In other words, for example, when I make large gestures, samples of musicians playing loudly are used. In addition to controlling the volume of the sounds, the timbre of particular sounds is determined by dynamically selecting the sounds the musicians originally played.

Beethoven – Symphony No. 7, Allegretto
The Fauxharmonic Orchestra

Brahms – Symphony No. 3, Poco allegretto
Jay Bacal, conductor

Debussy – La Mer – Jeux de vagues
Andrew Blaney, conductor

Vaughan Williams – Variations on a Theme by Thomas Tallis
Jay Bacal, conductor

Heuser – A Screaming Comes Across the Sky
The Fauxharmonic Orchestra

Tuman – Awakening
The Fauxharmonic Orchestra

Some digital orchestras, like the Princeton Laptop Orchestra, involve groups of musicians on a stage, playing digital instruments.

Others, like The Fauxharmonic Orchestra, produce recorded music in a studio.

And some digital orchestras, like those produced by Immersion Music, live in museum exhibit spaces offering visitors a hands-on conducting experience, complete with a motion-sensing baton and video.

Most people have already heard music played by a digital orchestra, although they probably do not realize it. Almost any orchestral music you hear on television commercials, for example, or on children’s television programming is played on a digital orchestra. And, increasingly common is the presence of a digital orchestra in film soundtracks, often mixed seamlessly with separate recordings of live musicians. Many musical theater productions also augment their pit orchestras with digital orchestral instruments.

The purpose of this site is to bring together various researchers, musicians, composers and conductors to more easily collaborate on projects that advance the art of digital orchestra music.

What’s the difference between “Virtual Orchestra” “Digital Orchestra?”

A virtual orchestra is simply another (older) term for digital orchestra. We prefer “digital orchestra” because not all activities in this realm aim to replicate an orchestra, although that is certainly a major part of the current aesthetic movement in digital musical practice. Virtual orchestra could also be some sort of musical ensemble made entirely of traditional performers using no digital technology. A string quartet plus a few wind players could be considered a “virtual orchestra.” So, to be a bit more precise, we use the term “digital orchestra.”

Some historical context

The replication of the orchestra should be thought of here not as verbatim, unthinking copying, but as something more akin to genetic mutation. We want to start with what is arguably one of humanity’s greatest musical accomplishments (the symphony orchestra) and extend it. Spur it forward with as-yet-untapped opportunities digital instruments offer. For example, the loudest sounds (think stadium rock) and the quietest can all be produced in this medium. This range of possibility is only now beginning to be explored in the orchestral medium.

Thus, when understood in the larger context of musical history, digital orchestras are not a radical departure, but simply a next evolutionary step in a 400-year-old process of expanding the palette of instrumental music.

For nearly sixty years this technology has been embraced in new music circles where the inventiveness and imaginations of composers have already gone beyond what traditional orchestras can offer. Now, almost as a “trickle-down” dividend, the descendants of tools and techniques forged in labs and concert halls since 1948 are now being employed in the performance of any instrumental or orchestral music, no matter in what year it’s composer may have died.

Sound source material is housed on disks (or generated by the computer) and is organized by performance software. Sequencer software is then used to pull in the right sounds for the particular musical elements called for by the score (or by the musical keyboard or other instrument).

Computing power is now great enough that the real-time selection of a single note from among hundreds of Gigabytes of data is performed within a few miliseconds.

Still, a skilled musician is needed to shape and balance the performance. Purchasing a digital orchestra system no more guarantees musical results than buying a Stradivarius violin. Without the talent, training and sensitivity of performing musicians digital orchestra instruments can sound just as clunky and un-musical as any other instruments — maybe even more so!

Live digital orchestral music is performed by incorporating real-time performance control into the above mix. Companies such as Real Time Music Solutions have been developing this capability for the past 15 years. Researchers also have been actively pursuing projects that interpret and interact with the gestures of performing musicians (particularly conducting gestures). The incorporation of promising research in this area with already well-proven digital music production technology is one of the areas the Digital Orchestra League fosters.