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

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

#51

Post by red-indian »

"Only possible in the last 10 years" is not correct.

Computer musicians have used the IRCAM ISPW board as far back as 1989 to implement live real time convolution. Single purpose realtime convolution reverb hardware has been commercially available since Sony's 1999 DRE S777. Non-real time convolution has been done for decades as well, including by myself in 1991 and likely hundreds of others during that time period. Real time convolution on an off the shelf affordable consumer platform has been available for a long time as well, including eMagic's Space Designer plugin which was released in 2003. It's still part of Apple Logic.

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

#52

Post by beloch »

sb057 wrote: post #38
shrubble wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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-...

That could have turned out so much worse for all involved, but I suspect those involved had different perceptions of the risks than we do now. Though there was still some risk of dying, this must have seemed like a cakewalk compared to jumping out of a WWI trench!

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

#54

Post by DylanDmitri »

mycoborea wrote: post #40
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)?

Just show up to liturgy early and practice with the choir! They'll be happy you're there, and you don't have to sing during service if you aren't comfortable.

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

#55

Post by cat199 »

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…

> Might have to do with the split

Probably has more to do with holy lands having being british territory prior to the creation of modern israel and the uk/jordanian relationship - similar arrangments exist for other disputed holy sites in the area

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

#56

Post by cat199 »

prgmatic wrote: post #32

This practice continues in the Armenian church in their liturgical music: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JmQcQ4M8ROg&t=740s Not coincidentally, Armenian church and its rituals are some of the oldest in the world.

Not to 'akshually', but this specific practice more directly continues in the greek orthodox church - greek & armenian churches began to split in 500s before hagia sophia was completed and split was 'complete' shortly afterwords, which is not to say there are not many similarities.

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

#57

Post by dzidol »

peapicker wrote: post #34

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...

Yeah... And some still remember recording the sound of popped baloons in different environments (or checked the response of analog filters to a single spike) to use it with first version of SIR VST. Awesome experience, at least as for that forgotten times.

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

#58

Post by neverartful »

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…

"All those extra furnishings"

I don't know that there would be extra furnishings. It's not unheard of for Orthodox churches to only have seating around the perimeter for the sick and elderly. It's common for worshipers to stand during an Orthodox mass.

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

#59

Post by longspeaker »

This was really cool. It kind of clashes as I suspect the kind of people that like to hear cathedral music might not be into the lack of authenticity a filter added to a studio performance might give off. It would be cool to hear an actual performance side by side and see how close they got but that seems even less likely given the current politics.

Talked about in the bit, the Hagia was a church, then a mosque and is now a museum which is apt considering how many cultures touched this thing. This was mainly due to Ataturk's forward-thinking secular reforms in the 1930s. The current Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan has signaled his intention, multiple times, to change it's status back to that of a mosque[0] which I think rather unfortunate. Muslim prayers have been allowed at the site for a few years and I suspect it isn't long before Erdogan makes good on his promise.

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hagia_Sophia#cite_ref-67

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

#60

Post by muraiki »

mycoborea wrote: post #40
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)?

For Byzantine chant, I strongly recommend immersing yourself in the music by listening to it as much as possible. Try to focus on music in your native language--if it's English, then there are more and more recordings coming out. Become familiar with the scales that are used and learn what tone each song is going with. Memorize and sing back the simpler melodies that you can manage, such as the troparia commonly sung every week.

If your parish does chant, express your interest to the lead chanter and see what they have to say about learning. While we of course want everyone to be able to participate, if somebody is really off (especially with ison, which are the held "bass notes"), it can confuse people and cause a lot of chaos in the middle of a service. :)

If your parish doesn't chant (meaning they only sing perhaps Russian-style four-part harmony), then you have a more difficult road ahead. It's hard to develop this skill without a mentor and without often practicing it in the real life context of the services. And it's of course nice when you don't have to lead a service while also being a beginner!

I encourage you to check out https://www.byzantinebeginnings.com/ It's a unique teaching method for chant using games and exercises, rather than just reading sheet music. Although I had chanted for many years, after I took the first course I really improved a lot. A good friend of mine is involved in creating it and has used her professional teaching experience to shape its pedagogy, although it's still being refined between sessions.

Finally, I strongly recommend learning Byzantine notation over using western notation, even if you are familiar with the latter. Byzantine notation is a DSL optimized for conveying the subtle rhythm and ornamentation that is often lost in translations to the western staff. The loss of this can make renditions sound stale and lifeless. As you can see in my original comment, fully translating such nuances results in way too much boilerplate! An experienced chanter can read a series of neumes like words in a sentence and know all of the musical richness to impart to it.

May you have a blessed start to your Lenten journey.

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