[f_minor] Glenn Gould Unhummed

maryellen jensen maryellenjensen28 at hotmail.com
Sun Apr 10 15:26:48 MDT 2016


Speaking of "hummists": A while ago I was at my local small market to buy food and I was quietly talking to myself about what I really needed and what looked best etc etc etc when I realized there was a beautiful woman standing next to me, listening to me, and I said to her "Oh don't mind me, I talk to myself all the time 'cause I'm the only person who understands me" and she answered with a little laugh: "I do it too". 

Mary

From: bobmerk at earthlink.net
To: f_minor at glenngould.org
Date: Sat, 2 Apr 2016 05:35:14 -0400
Subject: Re: [f_minor] Glenn Gould Unhummed








One of the things I love most about the GG 
community are the periodic outbreaks of hostility and ferocity between the 
Hummists and the Antihummists. And this won't be the first time the war was 
re-triggered by just such a re-mastering, or rumor of such a re-mastering, with 
the humming digitally removed or suppressed.
 
The whole kerfuffle says nothing about GG or music. 
It's rather a poll or census of a tiny, trivial aspect of the personality of 
each GG fan.
 
Okay, I'll come out of the closet: I'm a 
Hummist. The Antihummists and Hum Suppressors are jerks.
 
Thomas Stockham is credited with first digitizing 
recorded sound/music. His Soundstream process premiered with a reissue of 
the 1906 (?) Caruso recordings ( Caruso - 
A Legendary Performer, RCA 1976.) Analysis of this new way of storing 
sound showed that most of the unwanted noises weren't from the abuse of 
decades of time on the grooves pressed into Bakelite cylinders. They were 
instead chiefly from the primitive giant sound-collection horn into which Caruso 
and the orchestra had to shout their voices and instruments. These effects 
could be described fairly precisely numerically, and then mathematically 
deleted. Comparing RCA's previous (33 1/3 vinyl) release with the Stockham 
Soundstream vinyl release is startling.
 
So can we hose up the Hum? Sure.

Should we? Can removing something GG intentionally left possibily improve what 
GG left? Is there a quote or citation that suggests GG had wished to have that 
annoying humming suppressed or removed?
 
The kerfuffle raises another issue. Does the legal 
owner of a body of recorded music have the absolute and unlimited right to 
re-shape it as he/she/it wishes? A disco percussion track to GG might be a 
treat. Does anything stronger than hurt fan feelings exist to keep the 
owner from distorting the music from GG's original recorded 
state?
 
Bob
Massachusetts USA
 
P.S. & OT: I just saw and heard a BBC segment 
on UK's Aurora Orchestra. Just one aspect of their philosophy and performance 
grabbed my attention: The instrumentalists and conductor perform without music 
scores. Every note they play is in the memories of the musicians. From what I 
saw and heard, Aurora certainly deserves our attention and a New Thing Under The 
Sun award.
 

 
News, Global 
Warming, Mozart, Sports, Intergalactic Travel, sausages,
VOLCANOS!!! opera, 
PIRATES!!! Filth in Extinct Lingos,
Big Integers & BOINC: 
http://VleeptronZ.blogspot.com/
Remarkable Older Stuph: http://Vleeptron.blogspot.com/
 
 

  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: 
  Tony 
  Cimino 
  To: Discussion of the Canadian pianist Glenn 
  Gould. 
  Sent: Friday, April 01, 2016 10:44 
  PM
  Subject: Re: [f_minor] Glenn Gould 
  Unhummed
  

  First I have heard. 
  I love his humming. T

Sent from my 
  iPhone
  
On Apr 
  1, 2016, at 3:45 PM, Pat <pzumst at bluewin.ch> wrote:


  
    
    
    
    
    
    
    Hey everyone
     
    Did anyone hear about this rumoured project by Sony 
    Classical that they are planning to re-release some GG material without the 
    humming and singing ?
     
    I forgot where the original source is but from memory they 
    are using some nifty software similar to what AutoTune or Melodyne can do – 
    find the singnal of the humming/singing in the mix or master tapes and then 
    reduce or remove these “artifacts” digitally. I reckon some people (not me) 
    would find that rejoycing.....
     
    Can anyone confirm that ?
     
    Pat
   

 		 	   		  
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