[2060] Of note recognition technology for an ensemble of orchestra

Spending an evening at the Opera House to Hadyn and Bruckner’s is a priceless experience. I admit, the music was slow that at multiple points of time, I found that I wanted the clock to run faster but at other times, it was exciting listening to fast-paced classical evoking a sense of joy, danger or urgency. While enjoying the violinists, the cellists and other players of delightful instruments filling the air with notes, I realized that one aspect of the symphony orchestra has yet to evolve after centuries in practice.

Members of the ensemble do not appear to memorize the notes by heart and they constantly consult their score which printed or written in form of booklets. The issue comes when these musicians need to turn that page as their performance progresses. The act of turning a page to me seems problematic although judging from how it was done yesterday, the instrumentalists obviously had little problem doing so. Indeed, each time they need to turn the page, they stopped playing temporarily. The orchestra was designed to give a certain group of players a short rest at different points of time during performance. They turned their pages during their rest time.

Yet, it looked messy in a sense that there were movements other than striking the strings, blowing the horns or the overexcited conductor swinging his hands and seemingly dancing to shape the sound that filled the hall.

These days, computers are advanced enough that I think that a flat screen can replace the booklet easily.

Secondly, and more importantly, good voice recognition technology is already widely available in the market. Surely, extending it to recognize notes would not be a terribly revolutionary endeavor to make and adopt. In fact, the karaoke technology where the words are highlighted — or rather, ”downlighted” — to indicate progress as each word is sang could do the trick.

In that way, members of the orchestra, especially those whom play large instruments, like a double bass for instance, do not need to bend forward to read the next page.

Now, imagine if no members of the ensemble need to rest at all to turn the page as the computer with note recognition and flat screen technology do that for them.

I do not have training in music but I think that would allow a whole new way of playing and conducting a concert. Played by humans of course.