Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The sound of the Hagia Sophia, more than 500 years ago

npr.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 91 posts

Re: The sound of the Hagia Sophia, more than 500 years ago

#31

Post by muraiki »

You can find some recordings of a live concert done using this technique on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bHpOiX2sO-s

I've been learning and singing Byzantine chant for over a decade now. In fact, I ended up learning programming because I wanted to create software for Byzantine notation, which is very different from western notation. Here's an example of (modern) Byzantine notation with renditions in western notation: https://cappellaromana.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/Cherub...

The top line of western notation shows a fairly straightforward version, while the bottom line shows one fully-ornamented interpretation. Note that microtones are used. As far as I can understand, ornamentation/interpretation can vary by teacher, and I once found a paper that analyzed the microtones used by various famous chanters to see the differences between them.

I never did end up creating any useful open source software for Byzantine chant. I did learn Racket, then Django, then became a programmer and now I'm a data scientist. So I partially ended up where I am because I was sick of typing out Byzantine chant using special fonts in Microsoft Word! There are now actually a lot of symbols in unicode for Byzantine music, but I don't think there's any way to handle the typesetting necessary for combining neumes in the various possible ways yet (think of how Korean works)... but I haven't looked into this for a few years.

I love this music, not only for the beauty of its sound but also the incredible richness of the hymns. There are teachers in the United States working on developing good methods for teaching all of this to people without such a cultural background, and critically, singing it in English so that the meaning can be understood by those who don't know Greek or Arabic. Chanting with my choir is one of my greatest joys in life. Glory to God for all things.

Re: The sound of the Hagia Sophia, more than 500 years ago

#34

Post by peapicker »

Convolution reverbs are pretty cool. For Ableton Live Suite users, Ableton has made available a MaxForLive device that lets you make your own impulse response files for use with their convolution reverb, I've used it.

Howto: https://www.ableton.com/en/blog/make-your-own-impulse-respon...

Re: The sound of the Hagia Sophia, more than 500 years ago

#35

Post by peapicker »

shrubble wrote: post #29
beloch wrote: post #19

The next step (that will probably never happen) would be to refurnish the Hagia Sophia, as it would have been before it was plundered in the fourth crusade, and seat an audience in it, as if for a mass. Then pop another balloon. All those extra furnishings and bodies would have had a significant impact on how the space sounded. The plastered over mosaics might also create a noticeable effect that would need to be com…

The last Orthodox church services were in 1453. So I doubt that there will be many critics who remember back that far :)

Some Greek chanters got permission to go into the Hagia Sophia and record a TV special (for Greek TV) of chant music several years ago. While not a service, it is the music that would have been used at a service. (Either that, or this is another case of convolution reverb and some clever video editing. I'm not sure. But it sounds pretty cool.)

Part of it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e1aUZcHaJb4

Another: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-eCZyvczZaM&t=98

Re: The sound of the Hagia Sophia, more than 500 years ago

#36

Post by onetimemanytime »

I find chants very relaxing. And, it has nothing to do with a specific religion.

P.S. Its weird, but the Orthodox, generally speaking, "hate" Catholics more than they hate Muslims. In fact, a Muslim was /is the referee to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre https://www.reuters.com/article/us-religion-jerusalem-church... Might have to do with the split and a tiny thing like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sack_of_Constantinople

Re: The sound of the Hagia Sophia, more than 500 years ago

#37

Post by arriu »

Truly beautiful, thanks for sharing.

Kind of reminds me of the following bit where deadmau5 talks about reverb and compression to create a sound that goes beyond what the oscillators generate. He plays a tune without, it illustrates a similar effect. (warning: lots of cussing)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vYr6nlqV3oA&feature=youtu.be...

Re: The sound of the Hagia Sophia, more than 500 years ago

#38

Post by sb057 »

shrubble wrote: post #29
beloch wrote: post #19

The next step (that will probably never happen) would be to refurnish the Hagia Sophia, as it would have been before it was plundered in the fourth crusade, and seat an audience in it, as if for a mass. Then pop another balloon. All those extra furnishings and bodies would have had a significant impact on how the space sounded. The plastered over mosaics might also create a noticeable effect that would need to be com…

The last Orthodox church services were in 1453. So I doubt that there will be many critics who remember back that far :)

Actually, there was an (incredibly unauthorized) service held in 1919 during the Allied occupation of the city:

https://greece.greekreporter.com/2019/09/26/the-brave-greek-...

Re: The sound of the Hagia Sophia, more than 500 years ago

#39

Post by sb057 »

onetimemanytime wrote: post #36

I find chants very relaxing. And, it has nothing to do with a specific religion. P.S. Its weird, but the Orthodox, generally speaking, "hate" Catholics more than they hate Muslims. In fact, a Muslim was /is the referee to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre https://www.reuters.com/article/us-religion-jerusalem-church... Might have to do with the split and a tiny thing like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sack_of_Constanti…

>In fact, a Muslim was /is the referee to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre

The Catholic Church has partial jurisdiction and would also be subject to any referee-ing.

Re: The sound of the Hagia Sophia, more than 500 years ago

#40

Post by mycoborea »

muraiki wrote: post #31

You can find some recordings of a live concert done using this technique on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bHpOiX2sO-s I've been learning and singing Byzantine chant for over a decade now. In fact, I ended up learning programming because I wanted to create software for Byzantine notation, which is very different from western notation. Here's an example of (modern) Byzantine notation with renditions in weste…

I appreciate the links and your story sounds interesting. I’m an Orthodox catechumen myself and am very interested in learning to sing the Liturgy as well as other chants. Might you have any tips or resources on how one might start really learning (besides just practicing)?
Post reply on HN