Possibly basic question

[Interested]

Hi Newbie here with a query that I think someone here will know answer to.

I seem to remember several years ago seeing a tv show about a musician or about music in general. In it they showed an orchastra with the first violins playing their part alone. Then the second violins played their piece alone. You heard two distinct melodies. Then they both played their parts together and the final melody was a different thing again. Am I imagining this or is this part of music theory?

It seems logical in that music data compression algorithms work on principle that certain sounds mask others and so they can be removed to allow lossy compression. Anyway, I'm looking for as much info or direction in to areas where I can read about this and what composers use it the best effect.....also whether quartets or small groups of instruments would function same way.

Thanks for all and any help on this.

G

[Thorolf]

Hi, Interrested, and welcome to Music-Web!

Originally Posted by Interested

I seem to remember several years ago seeing a tv show about a musician or about music in general. In it they showed an orchastra with the first violins playing their part alone. Then the second violins played their piece alone. You heard two distinct melodies. Then they both played their parts together and the final melody was a different thing again. Am I imagining this or is this part of music theory?

I don’t really understand what you are asking here, but I’ll try to guess what you’re after: Interplay between melodic lines is the basis of most music, and the theoretical study of this is called counterpoint.

Originally Posted by Interested

It seems logical in that music data compression algorithms work on principle that certain sounds mask others and so they can be removed to allow lossy compression.

Not certain sounds: Certain frequencies below a certain db threshold close to “peak” frequencies can in many cases be removed without a perceived quality loss.

Originally Posted by Interested

Anyway, I'm looking for as much info or direction in to areas where I can read about this and what composers use it the best effect.....also whether quartets or small groups of instruments would function same way.

It seems to me that a constructive approach would be studying instrumentation. All the important aspects of sonic depth and masking must be learnt the hard way by studying e. g. “Principles of Orchestration” by Nicolay Rimsky-Korsakov.



Hope this helps.

Regards

[stevel]

Originally Posted by Interested

Hi Newbie here with a query that I think someone here will know answer to.

I seem to remember several years ago seeing a tv show about a musician or about music in general. In it they showed an orchastra with the first violins playing their part alone. Then the second violins played their piece alone. You heard two distinct melodies. Then they both played their parts together and the final melody was a different thing again. Am I imagining this or is this part of music theory?

It seems logical in that music data compression algorithms work on principle that certain sounds mask others and so they can be removed to allow lossy compression. Anyway, I'm looking for as much info or direction in to areas where I can read about this and what composers use it the best effect.....also whether quartets or small groups of instruments would function same way.

Thanks for all and any help on this.

G

You probably heard a coulple of things:
The first violins' melody.
The second violins' melody
A Comibination of the two parts which had thre components: 1. Each melody as a separate and identifiable stream playing simultameously. 2. The combination of the two parts that produce harmony when notes sound simultaneously, and 3. The compound of the two parts in both these aspects - that is, 1 and 2 acting as a unit, 3.

We call 1. Counterpoint.
2 Harmony.
3 Simply music, but some people call it things like melodic-harmonic complex, or horizontal-vertical complex, etc.

Basically, music has three components - the vertical - what happens simultaneously at a given point in time, and horizontal - what happens in succession. These two combine to from a complex or compound "thing" in which both are usually still identifiable, but they create a third thing. It's like Bread, Peanut Butter, and Jelly all make a PBJ, and you can taste each, but there's also a taste the thing as a whole has as well.

Best,
Steve

[chckn8r]

Originally Posted by Interested

I seem to remember several years ago seeing a tv show about a musician or about music in general. In it they showed an orchastra with the first violins playing their part alone. Then the second violins played their piece alone. You heard two distinct melodies. Then they both played their parts together and the final melody was a different thing again. Am I imagining this or is this part of music theory?

Yes, as Thorolf stated, it most likely was a counterpoint piece that they were playing and the interplay between the two melodies gave the perception that a third melody was the result - intended or not, I don't know.

Counterpoint is the relationship between two or more voices that are independent in contour and rhythm, but also interdependent in harmony. So, as the melody lines of the two groups cross each other, you're most likely hearing (perceiving) the highest note being played as the melody and the lower notes being played as the accompaniment. In essence, the composer possibly wrote the piece you heard in a way that the violin sections lines crossed each other through the section of the piece - trading being the highest note.

Originally Posted by Interested

It seems logical in that music data compression algorithms work on principle that certain sounds mask others and so they can be removed to allow lossy compression. Anyway, I'm looking for as much info or direction in to areas where I can read about this and what composers use it the best effect.....also whether quartets or small groups of instruments would function same way.

I think that connecting what you heard and lossy data compression is probably a bit of a stretch Typically, there is a low-pass filter applied to lossy compression algorithms - somewhere around 18kHz (CD quality effectively goes up to 20kHz - that's where the low-pass filter is applied and everything up to 22.05kHz is attenuated on a severe slope). The algorithms applied to the various lossy compression schemes jump through different hoops to analyze the wave form and determine which other portions of the file can be discarded as well (the principle of "masking" that you eluded to). I'm sure that there's a lot of more detailed and technical stuff out on the web if you're interested, but in short, the theory behind those algorithms don't really come into play for composers.

Thorolf did mention a great text to learn more about voicings in orchestras - now that's something that composers, arrangers and orchestrators pay attention to! What groups of instruments sound good with others, in which range, at what tempo, yadda, yadda, yadda.

A great site to get started on that is the Garritan Interactive Principles of Orchestration - based on the RK text:

http://www.northernsounds.com/forum/...splay.php?f=77

Hope that helps!

[nyc_jay]

The only help I can provide is that I actually remember the example - they separately played the first violin & second violin parts to a Tchaikovsky symphony, and then played them together. I believe the show was Fundamentals of Music or something to that effect on PBS. The other posts get more into the technical aspects, but I remember thinking how interesting the interplay between the 2 parts made what the show inferred as a 3rd melody.

[jonesmusiclife]

hey! i think i know what you're talking about... i think i've heard that somewhere, someday, somehow... ok ok, that was my little pun, but seriously, i don't think you're imagining it. If i remember correctly, there was something unique about how the parts cancelled each other out... it was very distinct. anyways... who knows.