24 Hours Of Beethoven's 9th Symphony 380
Ermintrude the Flying Cow writes "Ever wonder what "Ode to Joy" would sound like if stretched to 24 hours? Now you can find out. 9 Beet Stretch is the result of running Beethoven's 9th Symphony in a digital stretching program, turning the one hour piece into a 24 hour attention span acid test. Thankfully, for those of us who know our limits, it's been cut into 19 parts."
I have only one question... (Score:4, Insightful)
Finally someone who has more time on their hands than I do.
Re:I have only one question... (Score:2, Funny)
Because you're so busy posting such "Why?" questions?
Next up: 4'33" by John Cage. (Score:5, Funny)
In fact... (Score:2)
24 hours of silence has probably been copyrighted by Mike Batt by now.
Re:I have only one question... (Score:3, Interesting)
For those of you who do not follow space-rock, post rock, atmospheric, ambient, organic et al, this is basically a great idea.
There are thousands of artists who release albums which have a similar sound to this one. Take Vir Unis [virunis.com] for example. It's ambient as it gets. Sure, he has more substance in his albums than just prolonged note progressions, but one you hear Vir Unis or other musician in the genre you'll get the general idea.
There are other artists too, like Steve Roach, Michael Brook, etc.
For one, I think this is highly innovative. In the past, to reinvent music, one would have to do a remix, play it with different instruments, etc. And the end result would be very similar. What separates these guys from the rest is how they were able to stretch the music and transform it from one genre to a totally new genre. Beethoven would have approved of this, if he was alive. After centuries, his music is going into a new territory which was not even heard of couple of decades ago. And as an added bonus, this is quite listenable. I've heard arrangements of SETI signals, space noise ambience, etc. And this ranks very high on top of that list.
I could understand how many people feel this is pointless, as did I, until I had a chance to hear it. If you're familiar with ambience, you'll understand the significance of this pioneer effort.
Re:I have only one question... (Score:2, Interesting)
Case in point: Robert Rich's Somnium, a DVD (a video disc no less, but with no video, how zen) filled with 7 hours (count 'em!) of ambient music.
Totally listenable, and not at all boring.
The name comes from the idea of a record 'tuned' for sleeping, but it's nice background (and sometimes foreground music) as well.
Comes highly recommended, and i'd imagine, judging from this story, that there's more releases like this coming up...
Re:I have only one question... (Score:3, Informative)
Brian Eno (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Brian Eno (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Brian Eno (Score:2)
Using tape loops and various analog "sampling" technologies he created 3 alternate versions of the Canon on side 2 played, for lack of better word, "sideways", each progressively more dissonant. Side 1 is the same idea, but uses, I believe different music.
Re:Brian Eno (Score:2)
Re:Brian Eno (Score:3, Informative)
As I look on the back cover it says nothing regarding the 16/33 issue or even anything to do with the speed the record was played at. It was however played at a very low level, with only one of the stereo channels functioning. The end of the paragraph that describes the experience is more than worth the cost of the record in my opinion.
This is the original release (that I was very excited to find in my local record shop, Last Chance Records). A copy of the text can be found on probably the best Eno site on the web here [hyperreal.org].
One interesting thing about this album is that it is well documented. He explains the purpose and the method involved in creating the album and provides a operational diagram for the setup he used to create (or more accurately direct) it. I guess this appeals to the Computer Scientist in me as well as the music appreciator.
Re:I have only one question... (Score:2)
Actually, I'm pretty sure he was referring to Steve Roach [steveroach.com], who does ambient soundscapes and such. I was lucky enough to see him perform at a Cloudwatch event in Baltimore several years back. Brilliant shit.
This could be as much fun (Score:5, Funny)
Re:This could be as much fun (Score:2)
Or that lawnmower game (or more like screensaver) that came out for the Spectrum years ago...
Ever wonder ? (Score:5, Funny)
Uhh, no ?
Re:Ever wonder ? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Ever wonder ? (Score:2)
suicide scherzo (Score:5, Funny)
Unreal (Score:3, Insightful)
Why do content producers insist on using RealAudio? Give me a real player and I'll listen to to the stream. I'm not installing spyware on my machine.
Err, Isn't That What You Don't Want? (Score:2, Funny)
Isn't the Real Player precisely what you are trying to avoid? :)
Re:Err, Isn't That What You Don't Want? (Score:2)
Hehe, good one.
Of course what I meant is a player based on open standards. No spyware, no bloatware. No hidden agendas! Just play the damn music/audio/what have you and leave me alone.
Re:quicktime??? (Score:2)
Quit whining. (Score:2)
libreal [sourceforge.net]
No need for real player.
Re:Quit whining. (Score:2)
This could also be ported to windows. The real media spec is basically uniform to be backwards compatible, so the date doesn't really matter. The foundation is there. Just some tweaks in the source and it will be complete.
Lets hope someone is interested enough to give it a spin and make it better.
Re:Unreal (Score:2)
You could quite quickly write a device that dumps its input to a file. Call it
Re:Unreal (Score:2)
RealOne == RealPlayer (Score:2)
It offers the following wonderful functions, regardless of OS: hijacking your system to automatically play every format it can... regardless of whether you want it to or not, bringing you wonderful ads for miscellaneous garbage that nobody actually wants, and helps lead online content publishers into using proprietary formats that can only be accessed through Real Media's wonderful proprietary software. (and yes, I know they publish part of their protocols and formats... but not enough to actually build a competing client or server using their designs)
For my money, I refuse to install Real-anything. I view it as a viral infection of my system... and nobody in their right mind purposefully infects themselves. If it ain't MP3/OGG, I can't watch it. Oh well. Cei la vie.
Re:Ogg/MP3 Version? (Score:3, Informative)
Its the 9th symphony stretched out to 24 hours. Think about it.
And yet, it still plays in the background.
Re:Ogg/MP3 Version? (Score:2)
Re:Ogg/MP3 Version? (Score:2)
19? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:19? (Score:5, Insightful)
In other words, whoever broke it up into sections was more worried about musical value and meaning, than file size and numerical sense. Think of your favorite piece of music from any genre, you wouldnt want it to, take a break, RIGHT in the middle of your favorite stanza, verse, etc.
Re:19? (Score:5, Funny)
24 seconds. (Score:5, Funny)
It would be better compressed to 24 seconds - the neighbourhood dogs would go apeshit.
strange people (Score:4, Interesting)
for those that don't know - Empire is a film where he (Andy Warhol) put a camera aiming at the empire state building in the morning, started the film, and let it ran EIGHT HOURS.
right up there with watching corn grow and whatever.
silly people that do silly things in the name of art.
Re:strange people (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:strange people (Score:5, Informative)
So, what the piece was was more of a painting or a photograph with some dynamic content.
Re:strange people (Score:3, Interesting)
And Leif Inge says this about the immediate future of 9beetstretch: (source: Sonoloco record reviews [swipnet.se])
"I actually will use the sound in an installation in a bedrom in a gallery in Oslo in September (2002), making the symphony into bedchambermusic. People can lay down and listen (and maybe drift)"
Perhaps this music would accompany Empire very well.
Re: strange people (Score:2)
I just thought: Funny thing, people still do this. It's called a webcam.
So I guess people don't think it's that strange, no matter if they know Warhol did something similar.
(And for all those anonymous "live video cam" p0rn fans out there: You don't think all of them are live, do you?)
Re:strange people (Score:4, Informative)
Now, I am probabbly getting a lot of this wrong and my professor will smack me for getting them wrong, but as far as I remembered, one of the mojor reasons why it was so "genius" is because it explored the medium of film and contrasted it to the ideas of stillness.
The idea is that on a static medium (painting / photography), you obviously cannot show movement, as even the best painting is only the capture of a moment (lets not get into Van Gough and the funny square stuff for a second);
Similarly, a moving medium like film can capture motion, but in turn, it REALLY captures something static in a much more "complete" sense than, say, a painting can - case in point, you can see the empire state building, unmoving amongst the birds (there is this famous scene when a seagull flew by), clouds, etc. This contrast of moving (the environment) and the still (the building) is only captureable, and experssed, on film. In turn, the stillness of the building is understood in a way that is unexpressable on a photograph, a painting, or whatever.
Of course, maybe there are some obscure purpose to this stretching of the symphony too? I really don't know - one thing the class taught me was that art is wayyyy over my head.
It's okay..... (Score:5, Funny)
homer the conceptial[sp] artist. (Score:2)
24 hours? Talk about a long download. (Score:2)
Digital Stretching? (Score:2, Insightful)
I'm kind of confused, why people would do something like this. I mean, I'm an avid fan of classical music, but . . . digitally stretching it to a specific length?
In my opinion, the best way to experience any classical masterpiece is in the key and tempo in which the composer intended. Granted, there is a large degree of interpretation in any musical performance, but perhaps stretching music digitally is going a bit too far.
Re:Digital Stretching? (Score:2)
** I just had this weird vision of a musical score being stretched on a rack, then punctured in an iron maiden.
What next ? (Score:2)
Acid Test? (Score:2, Funny)
Isn't that how they came up with the idea?
Re:Acid Test? (Score:2)
Re:Acid Test? (Score:2, Funny)
Great. (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Great. (Score:3, Funny)
The only thing worse would be if that Nokia ring was stretched for 24 hours and played from beginning to end...
Sounds a lot like space music! (Score:2)
Acid test (Score:2)
On a more interesting note... (Score:4, Interesting)
Someone here did a project last year to "derive" a new symphony by a composer. The idea was to analyse various pieces written by the chosen composer, find the common themes, and then use them to produce new pieces which would have the same "feel" as the originals.
That way you end up with more music you like without making you think you've overdosed...
Phil, just me
Re:On a more interesting note... (Score:2)
PDQ Bach? (Score:5, Interesting)
Funny stuff, yet very scholarly, in a weird way.
Anyway, he has a website at pdqbach.com.
His peices always have great names too, like Music for an Awful Lot of Winds and Percussion and The Short-Tempered Clavier and Other Dysfunctional Works for Keyboard. Worth a listen.
Cheers,
Jim
Re:On a more interesting note... (Score:2)
It wasn't bad.
Re: On a more interesting note... (Score:2)
> Someone here did a project last year to "derive" a new symphony by a composer. The idea was to analyse various pieces written by the chosen composer, find the common themes, and then use them to produce new pieces which would have the same "feel" as the originals.
Here [nec.com] is a link to a paper a guy(?) wrote about using neural networks to create fake Bartok melodies. Follow the links for more along the same lines.
Of course, Bartok always sounded like sequences of random keystrokes to my Philistine tastes, so I can't judge how well the imitation worked.
And now the lyrics (Score:2)
Tochter aus Elysium.
How many lines to go?
Re:And now the lyrics (Score:2)
I'll bet that a large choir would also timestretch very well. But timestretching a single voice might result in some problems.
Oh, and here are the lyrics that you were thinking of:
O Freunde, nicht diese Töne!
Sondern lasßt uns angenehmere anstimmen
Und freudenvollere!
Freude schöner Götterfunken,
Tochter aus Elysium,
Wir betreten feuertrunken,
Himmliche dein Heiligtum!
Deine Zauber binden wieder,
Was die Mode streng geteilt;
Alle Menschen werden Brüder,
Wo dein sanfter Flugel weilt
Wem der große Wurf gelungen,
Eines Freundes Freund zu sein,
Wer ein holdes Weib errungen,
Mische seinen Jubel ein!
Ja, wer auch nur eine Seele
Sein nennt auf dem Erdenrund!
Und wer's nie gekonnt, der stehle
Weinend sich aus diesem Bund
Freude trinken alle Wesen
An den Brüsten der Natur;
Alle Guten, alle Bösen
Folgen ihrer Rosenspur.
Küsse gab sie uns und Reben,
Einen Freund, geprüft im Tod;
Wollust ward dem Wurm gegeben,
Und der Cherub steht vor Gott!
Froh, wie seine Sonnen fliegen
Durch des Himmels prächt'gen Plan,
Laufet, Brüder, eure Bahn,
Freudig, wie ein Held zum Siegen
Seid umschlungen, Millionen
Diesen Kuß der ganzen Welt!
Brüder! Über'm Sternenzelt
Muß ein lieber Vater wohnen.
Ihr stürzt nieder, Millionen?
Ahnest du den Schöpfer, Welt?
Such' ihn über'm Sternenzelt!
Über Sternen muß er wohnen
Change the freakin name! (Score:5, Funny)
Then again, isn't an ode a song or poem in remembrance to something lost? In that case it may be all too fitting.
timestretching and electronic music (Score:5, Insightful)
Timestretching has been featured exclusively on electronic music tracks for quite a while now... Just think those drum'n'bass records with the words 'selekta' etc.
Apparently Aphex Twin once was supposed to remix a track, so he timestretched it to a couple of milliseconds and used it as a snare drum, and when the bloke came back to get the ready remix, he just grabbed a random DAT-tape and gave it back to him...
One Nine inch nails strack features the words ' erase your head' stretched to the duration of the track (ummh, 5 minutes or so), so you can hear the words if you fast forward the track.
And this is not even mentioning Autechre (and many others) which these days just live on the digital artifacts caused by timestretching.
But, still, it's cool to find use for this sort of thing... i wonder what they used to create the 24-h stretch
Just a sec... (Score:2)
Ah ha! It took a while, but I finally found one [slashdot.org].
Re:Just a sec... (Score:2)
So it's obviously a political statement too, since it is a completely unoriginal work (it's only one long sample), although musically very different from the original. This should touch upon the old
Re:Just a sec... (Score:2)
***ActiveSX grabs a copy of snd and some James Brown mp3s
how's the stretch come out? (Score:4, Interesting)
How did the stretch turn out in this thing? Is it relatively smooth, or is it just like listening to a rotor slowly changing pitch to form something similar to beethoven's 9th? No, of course i'm not going to listen to it myself, especially not when there are X number of slashdotters pounding on their poor realaudio server. Though i may check out this "Herb Levys Mappings" page they link to, if i ever find the correct link. (Theirs is busted. Actually, pretty much everything linked from that first page seems to be slashdotted at this point. Ah well.)
And if it did turn out smoothly, will someone please tell me what software they used for the time expansion, because i want a copy
Re:how's the stretch come out? (Score:2, Funny)
Re:how's the stretch come out? (Score:5, Informative)
Black Friday (Score:2)
I feel a day of absolute sloth coming on....
-Chris
639 year John Cage performance begins 2003 (Score:2, Interesting)
The following story is no joke.
After building a decicated organ (US$ 700000) the first notes will begin to be played on January 5th, 2003 in St. Burchardi Church in Halberstadt, Germany. The first accord (gis', h' and gis'') will continue for three years, the first additional note will be heard on Juli 5th, 2004. The whole piece will take 639 years to be finished.
The first large church organ in history was built 639 years ago in Halberstadt - this is why the piece is stretched to 639 years. The original John Cage composition (the music was not composed for this occasion) contains an instruction to play as slowly as possible, and now a dedicated team of artists and sponsors is taking this seriously.
The organ was built with redundant air compressors, UPS and diesel generator buffering, hot-swappable organ parts, and everything else required to allow uninterrupted playing for 639 years.
More info at http://www.welt.de/daten/2000/09/13/0913ku190585.
So this is how Kubrik did it !?! (Score:4, Funny)
Spielberg too (Score:3, Insightful)
Oddly enough, 24 hrs of B's 9th seems to go by much quicker than Steven's attempt...
I actually like it (Score:2)
I wish the entire thing were available in a non-streaming format.
this is nothing (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:this is nothing (Score:2)
I dont really know what the mechanics behind it are, but it claims to "use[s] an artificial neural network for time series prediction in the scale space domain to achieve high end time and pitch scaling."
The scaling range in which you really cant tell the difference is in the order of 1/3 of the original length either way. So a 120bpm track becomes 90 or 160bpm without any major noticeable artifacts or distortion. I personally use it to repitch samples rather than using Recycle because I think the resultant sample just 'sounds better' than the artificial slice stretching of Recycle.
Whether or not they used this to strecth this particular piece of music I counldnt say, but I'm thinking of downloading one of the 19 parts and recompressing it back to the original length to see how accurately it returns to the original. Be interesting to see anyway.
sssssoooouuuunnndddsss iiiinnnnttteeerreeessstting (Score:5, Funny)
SSSSSooooouuuuunnnnndddddsssss iiiiinnnnnttttteeeeerrrrreeeeessssstttttiiiiinnnnn ggggg.....
LLLLLiiiiikkkkkeeeee ttttthhhhheeeee ooooottttthhhhheeeeerrrrr pppppooooosssssttttteeeeerrrrr hhhhheeeeerrrrreeeee,,,,, IIIII wwwwwooooonnnnndddddeeeeerrrrr wwwwwhhhhhaaaaattttt sssssoooooffffftttttwwwwwaaaaarrrrreeeee hhhhheeeee uuuuussssseeeeeddddd..... PPPPPrrrrrooooobbbbbaaaaabbbbblllllyyyyy sssssooooommmmmeeeee sssssooooorrrrrttttt ooooofffff gggggrrrrraaaaannnnnuuuuulllllaaaaarrrrr sssssyyyyynnnnnttttthhhhheeeeesssssiiiiisssss.....
TTTTThhhhheeeeerrrrreeeee'''''sssss aaaaa cccccoooooooooolllll GGGGGSSSSS ppppprrrrrooooogggggrrrrraaaaammmmm IIIII'''''vvvvveeeee ppppplllllaaaaayyyyyeeeeeddddd wwwwwiiiiittttthhhhh bbbbbeeeeefffffooooorrrrreeeee cccccaaaaalllllllllleeeeeddddd """""ttttthhhhhOOOOOnnnnnkkkkk""""" [audioease.com] .......... yyyyyooooouuuuu
fffffeeeeeeeeeeddddd iiiiittttt sssssooooommmmmeeeee
sssssooooouuuuunnnnndddddsssss,,,,, wwwwwaaaaaiiiiittttt
ooooovvvvveeeeerrrrrnnnnniiiiiggggghhhhhttttt,,,,, aaaaannnnnddddd
ttttthhhhheeeeennnnn hhhhhaaaaavvvvveeeee sssssooooommmmmeeeee
wwwwwiiiiiccccckkkkkeeeeeddddd dddddrrrrrooooonnnnneeeeesssss
iiiiinnnnn ttttthhhhheeeee mmmmmooooorrrrrnnnnniiiiinnnnnggggg.....
TTTTThhhhhooooossssseeeee ooooofffff yyyyyooooouuuuu
iiiiinnnnnttttteeeeerrrrreeeeesssssttttteeeeeddddd iiiiinnnnn
eeeeellllleeeeeccccctttttrrrrrooooonnnnniiiiiccccc
sssssooooouuuuunnnnndddddsssss ooooouuuuuggggghhhhhttttt
tttttooooo ccccchhhhheeeeeccccckkkkk iiiiittttt
ooooouuuuuttttt!!!!!
(Before you mod down, remember, this is ART.)
Re:sssssoooouuuunnndddsss iiiinnnnttteeerreeessstt (Score:3, Funny)
What would be more usefull ... (Score:2)
i'm thinking no (Score:2, Funny)
I did this with a Natalie Portman jpeg (Score:3, Funny)
Re:I did this with a Natalie Portman jpeg (Score:2)
That makes Mr. Goatse look tame.
And on the other side of this... (Score:2)
Just a nitpick (Score:5, Informative)
"Ode to Joy" is a poem written by Schiller. Beethoven used the poem as the lyrics for the fourth movement of the symphony, which is the choral section and most famous part of the symphony. The symphony also has three other movements, so it's not really accurate to refer to the whole symphony no. 9 as "Ode to Joy."
</pedantry>
Phew. Now that's off my chest, you can continue about your business.Re:Just a nitpick (Score:2)
The post didn't refer to the entire symphony as Ode to Joy. All it said was "Ever wonder what 'Ode to Joy' would sound like if stretched to 24 hours?". You could say the same thing about Mars if somebody did this with the larger work, The Planets. They never suggested that Ode to Joy and the Symphony were one in the same.
Ah, that's better. Now I feel so much geekier.
That's nothing! (Score:2)
and now imagine if you were the conductor and had to keep the beat...
Obligatory Clockwork Orange quote... (Score:2)
I'm surprised nobody caught on to this yet.... fer shame
why not just use phonemail? (Score:2)
Or, I could press "9" furiously and make songs faster. Reggae becomes ska! w00t!
Watashi Tomagoyaki (Score:2)
Real??? (Score:2)
Maybe I'm one of the few that would burn the 19 or so CDs required and throw them in may changer + repeat for a few days. Of course I'd probably have to end up opening up soundforge and fixing the files so there would be 1 per CD, but I'd even do that.
Unfortunatly I don't have real player, nor the software to work with these files and I am not willing to install it. This has to do with my unwillingness to support Real and their practices and is an issue that will not be changed by whether or not music is available only in that format. Call me principled.
If the creator happens to read this please allow your audience to actually appreciate your work, and if someone else has somehow done the conversion already and managed to maintain a somewhat clear copy of the audio please either post here or let me know.
Section 5.2 (Score:3, Informative)
How Interesting (Score:2)
(Apologies to George Carlin, who first used that simile to refer to watching golf on TV)
Re:What? (Score:2, Funny)
Checking The Source... (Score:2)
Besides disco, classical music was the worst and most embarassing music in history. Thank God for black people or we'd still be listening to that Nazi shit.
I don't know... maybe it's a personal bias, but somehow I have a hard time taking a critique of classical music - or dress fashion - seriously from someone who appears to be a pro wrestler [geocities.com]. I think the pink button picture at the bottom speaks volumes.
Just killing ... (Score:2, Funny)
Re:I wonder.... (Score:2)
Re:Hah (Score:2)
Nothing like this.
Curse Real... (Score:2)
Re:Curse Real... (Score:2)
I thought the same thing too, but then I listened to part 1.2 and there was sound... There isn't much sound for the first five minutes of part 1.1 and it builds up very, very slowly - I guess that's how things happen when a song lasts twenty-four hours.
Re:phase vocoder (Score:2)
per se as about conceptual art, I think.