[F_minor] Ghostly G'begs on Gould's b-day?

["MJ Watts" <mj.accounts@gmail.com>]

John Q. Walker contacted me to tell me about this. I'm absolutely THRILLED
with the possibilities and dying to hear it for myself.  I think it may even
be worth me sucking up my pride and packing my toothpaste for the checked
luggage.  This folks, could be the beginnings of a true music kit. I think
GG would have found this fascinating and would have totally condoned it. The
performerless performance.  They liken this to the abilty to photshop
audio.  I wonder about the piano sound.  They've got a student of Verne
Edquist's tuning it.  I think it's a Yamaha.  What did GG use on the '55
G'bergs? Steinway, no?

Comments??  Please, people-- what does this all MEAN?


Company's software replicates piano recordings
http://www.newsobserver.com/104/story/486952.html and for more info see:
http://www.zenph.com/sept25.html


Anne Krishnan, Staff Writer
This month, John Q. Walker will channel the ghost of pianist Glenn Gould in
a Toronto recording studio.

It won't be the work of magic, but rather, the result of four years of
software development by Walker and his team at Zenph Studios, a Raleigh
startup.

Zenph has developed computer software that can exactly replicate records on
a sophisticated player piano and preserve them with the latest technology --
without the original crackles, coughs or other recording flaws.

The idea is something Walker has been dreaming about since the mid-1980s.
Now Zenph's software and services are finding a market. In April, the
seven-employee company signed a deal with Sony BMG to bring 18 jazz and
classical albums back to life.

"We're able to take these old recordings, something even in mono, and make a
new recording of the same performance ... in surround-sound so it sounds
great in a home theater," said Walker, Zenph's co-founder and president.
"This has never been done before in history."

Zenph's software grabs musical sounds and figures out how they were made.
The programs go beyond individual notes, into the idiosyncrasies that define
a performance and musician's style.

The Gould album, planned for a February release, is Zenph's first with Sony
BMG. The second is "Piano Starts Here," by jazz pianist Art Tatum. The third
album will have Sergei Rachmaninoff playing his own compositions. Zenph
receives recording fees and royalties for each album.

Zenph and Sony BMG picked Gould, who has a cultlike following around the
world, precisely because he is so popular.

Gould's 1955 performance of Bach's Goldberg Variations is one of the
best-selling classical recordings, Walker said. That means listeners will
know what it's supposed to sound like, and Zenph won't have to prove its
accuracy.

Reproducing the artist's performance also is a bit of a risk. Purists might
object to a high-tech re-recording of his work.

But Walker and Zenph have won over many of Gould's friends, family and
colleagues. They will make the recording on the pianist's birthday, Sept.
25, at Glenn Gould Studios in Toronto. Gould died in 1982. "I think most
people are probably skeptical until they hear it," Walker said. "We've
preserved every single note, every mistake. The improvements are all related
to the sound quality."

Zenph's performance is like hearing the record for the first time, said
Malcolm Lester, managing director of the Glenn Gould Foundation. "It's a bit
eerie because you see the piano keys going up and down as if someone's
playing them," he said.

The piano was the first instrument to be technologically advanced enough to
exactly reproduce earlier performances, and that's where most of Zenph's
attention has focused. On the horizon are trumpet-playing robots, as well as
robotic guitars, saxophones and drum kits, Walker said. The company plans to
work through the available instruments one by one, eventually putting
together an electronic jazz ensemble.
<snip>
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