Closure report
- Report Date
- July 2019
Project Summary
The Sound Library Project had three main goals. The project was a pilot programme to test the capabilities of making sound samples of historic brass instruments in the collections of The University of Edinburgh; inspire collaborations with students from the Reid School of Music; and create an open-source library in which the sampled sounds would be available for musicians from around the world to use these sounds in composition, thus reaching out to a world-wide audience.
Brass instruments are difficult to sample. Capturing the sound of these types of instruments require expert players who understand the nuances of performing on these old instruments. The sampling process requires the player to perform each possible note on the instrument upwards to one hundred times so that levels of volume, style of articulation and musical interpretation can be captured for any potential compositional desire. As many of these instruments are no longer played in common practice, I also needed to find expert performers who would be willing to carry out these taxing yet repetitive recording sessions. Luckily, St Cecilia's Hall has close ties to a number of performers who were able and willing to help in this project.
The recording process took place at Alison House and was completed by two students enrolled in Dr Martin Parker's Sound Design MSc. The students gained valuable experience in sampling instruments and in particular working with historic musical instruments. The recorded sounds were then manipulated by students in original compositions. These compositions were performed, in a concert at St Cecilia's Hall on 19 February. The concert featured the works created by Reid School of Music students, as well as demonstrations of the historic instruments and was attended by over 90 people. In addition to the brass instruments recorded, we were able to sample a 16th-century violin, which was the focus of another project for two students enrolled in Dr Kirsten Lloyd's MSc by Research Collections and Curating Practices. These students programmed the recorded sounds into a Skoog, an accessible musical interface, which visitors of St Cecilia's Hall can now 'play' the violin during their visit to our museum.
The launch of the Sound Library itself has been delayed. I am still working with Martin Parker in the organisation of the website and hopefully it will be available soon.
Outcome
- Seven musical instruments sampled:
- Trompe Dauphine by Le Brun, made in Paris in 1721
- Orchestral horns by Kersten, 1830
- Orchestral hand horn, Charles Kretzachmann, Strasbourg, France, c.1830.
- Bass horn by Sandbach, London, c.1830.
- Ophicleide bu Gautrot, Paris, c.1840.
- Contrabass serpent, nicknamed the ‘anaconda’ James and Richard Wood, Huddersfield, 1844.
- ‘Violin without sides’, probably England, c.1550.
- Three musical compositions written by Reid School of Music students
- Concert performed at St Cecilia's Hall which was well attended.
- Interactive 'Music Box' created by students that features interactives for visitors to use and explore of the sound of the violin at St Cecilia's Hall
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Budget
This project was budgeted £3,000. The total spend was £2,251.00. The under spend can be attributed to musicians kindly charging minimal fees for their time. Additionally, I had budgeted for website set-up and hosting fees, which have not yet been needed.
Thanks
Special thanks to Jeremy Upton for sponsoring this Innovation Fund project. To Dr Martin Parker and Dr Kirsten Lloyd for collaborating in the project. To our musicians, Tony George, Andy Saunders, and Dr Jenny Nex for their expertise, help and patience. To all the students who got involved but most importantly Gavin McCabe, Leo Butt, Saskia Keller, Veronica Wilson and Gaia Duberti. Finally to Dr Jonathan Santa Maria Bouquet for preparing the instruments for performance and always being willing to help out.
Outstanding
The final part of the project is to launch the online library. This will be done with the continued collaboration of Dr Martin Parker in the new school year.
I would like to look into greatly expanding this project, not only to collect additional samples of the brass instruments in our collection, but to look to creating sound samples of many of the instruments at St Cecilia's Hall and the Musical Instrument Collection. Sampling instruments is an excellent way to digitally capture an otherwise ephemeral aspect of a musical instrument and having a robust library of freely usable sound sample would be a truly innovative step in digitising our collection.
