Re: Humming, DSP & musical reductionism

["Anne M. Marble" <amarble@abs.net>]

From: John Hill <jphill@home.com>


> There were, of course, some attempts made at various times to reduce
>the audible level of Gould's humming.  On one record jacket, I
remember
>reading about the engineers fitting GG with a gas mask and some kind
>of baffling system to try to keep this sound from reaching the
primary mics.
Not surprisingly, what they ended up with on tape was a slightly
quieter, but
>more muffled and bizarre-sounding hum that probably drew more
attention
>to itself.  I wonder if maybe GG hummed even louder at those
sessions...

On some of the recordings, GG sounds as if he is choking or gasping
for breath rather than humming. I wonder if those are the infamous gas
mask hums? Or the results of some other (failed) hum-damping
experiment. Thanks, I'd rather hear the humming.

And yes, he probably did wind up humming louder. Just to bug the
engineers, perhaps?! ("And he didn't even have the decency to send the
gas mask to the dry cleaner when we were done...")