A ROBOT AND TABLET ORCHESTRA

When we think about tablets, I always think about books. One day they will disappear, because tablets are lighter and capable of storing whole libraries which can be further enlarged with few clicks. We think of royalties too, because most people will read for free, and of the lost scent of the paper. While tablets revolution is still up for debate, literature is not the only field involved, as clearly proven by the Brussels Philharmonic Orchestra.

Its musicians have literally thrown away their music sheets proceeding then to play Ravel’s Bolero and Wagner following the score reproduced on 16 GB tablets. Brussels Philharmonic aims to complete the conversion from paper to digital notes in few years, innovating and adapting the century-old workings of an orchestra to modern times. This way, 25 000 Euros worth of paper are saved by the Philharmonic over a year’s time, because every little change in music sheets meant brand new copies to be printed. With tablets, a simple click will be enough to update a whole score.

The performance is revolutionized, then, but this is hardly astonishing compared to a robot capable of playing piano pieces, singing and talking. TeoTronico can reproduce speeches, be dubbed in real time, answer to audience’s questions and interact with them. TeoTronico has been designed, produced and put together by the Italian inventor Matteo Suzzi and it’s the first robot in the world able to play piano and perform with an orchestra. It can play by itself or in a duo with a human pianist. The last will highlight the difference between a mere reproduction and a more free interpretation. TeoTronico can also follow the orchestra conductor’s lead, resulting in a more “human” execution, especially if remote-controlled through a cable by a ghost pianist situated off stage. Hearing is believing!

There are lots of news about music execution, then. Tablets have programmes that simulate simple one-octave pianos, but also apps reproducing drums, or adapters to connect an electric guitar to a Kindle and convert it into a pedal board. There is even the possibility of integrated DJ consoles.

A revolution is on, that’s for sure, and it’s up to debate. It’s up to us understand what to do in order to protect forests and not impoverish music: the tools are in our hands. 

HOW TO LEARN A MUSIC SCORE

By Marco Roncaglia

Learning a music score, whether choral or soloist, can be either easy and enjoyable or difficult and boring. How can we be sure to find ourselves in the first situation and avoid the second?

That reminds me of the first educational challenge we had to face as children: learning how to speak.

Let’s think about what led us to speak our first word: not the ability of writing and reading, of course, but our instinctive curiosity towards the world of sounds; we couldn’t hear words yet, but what we heard in the world around us sounded like pure and magical motifs. Driven by our biology, we let ourselves be attracted by that universe of sounds and their ability to convey so much to us even when we couldn’t comprehend their meaning.

We are not children anymore, but maybe we could go back to that particular condition when learning a voice part.

Imagine we are walking around the streets of our city without a precise destination, just for leisure. While passing by a building, we hear voices singing and we stop to listen, intrigued. We search the best position to hear, where the sounds are clearer and louder, and there we stay. We don’t know the name of the piece, we can’t even get the words, only the melody and harmony; we listen while the hidden choir practise the piece until we are able to sing along with growing confidence and pleasure.

After a while the singing stops, so we take up walking again, but that motif is stuck in our head.

Well, this could be an example of a functional approach to the task of learning a part: instead of reading the notes first, then paying attention to their value and dynamics, then concentrating  on the lyrics and only much later focusing on the piece in its entirety, we could imitate the melody from the beginning, listening to it while sung or played by someone that already knows it well, starting casually and roughly but with curiosity, and becoming more and more precise: we are very far from any demanding duty, and abandoned to playfulness instead.

In other words, we are starting from the sound itself to get to the music, and we are doing this with the natural curiosity and innocence of children who can’t read or write yet, but can still learn with extreme ease.

Finding that “magic” again may not be easy or instant, especially as full-grown adults; but it has long since proved to be the most efficient way to learn a music part without effort and to fix it easily in our memory. We will find it hidden in some drawer, unexpectedly ready to be sung out loud again.