Issue 60

Cairo-born Kamel Boutros is a modern New York City Renaissance Man. As an internationally acclaimed opera baritone, he has performed baritone roles in multiple seasons at the Metropolitan Opera in New York under the baton of James Levine, Gergiev and others, as well as in the UK, Japan, India, Italy, France, and in other countries. He has shared stages at the Louvre in Paris, Bepu-Japan, and Verbier with his close friend, piano virtuoso Martha Argerich , the late Luciano Pavarotti, Tony Award winner Ruthie Ann Miles, and many others. As an actor, he has appeared on the New York Off Broadway stage in Babette’s Feast and in award winning independent films and television shows, including major roles as 9/11 terrorist leader Mohammed Atta in The Hamburg Cell and as Mahmoud in The Death of Klinghoffer. He has also arranged music for film and television shows, such as Damages.

A superb classical pianist, he currently is the Music Director of Calvary – St. George’s Church parish in Gramercy Park, New York City, where he programs, conducts, writes and performs an extraordinarily broad range of sacred music from multiple nations and genres composed over the last five centuries. Calvary – St. George’s Church has had the benefit of Kamel’s reputation over the years to bring an incredible array of guest musicians and singers from many cities and countries into its parish for exciting renditions of anything from a Bach oratorio to a Haydn symphony to a Bahamian Christmas carol to Middle Eastern music featuring the oud, to Americana and gospel hymns to contemporary electric worship music.

Kamel also supervises all of the audio and co-manages video production at both churches, which are historic landmarks in New York City. (St. George’s Church was founded in 1749; Calvary in 1832.) With pipe organ repairs and maintenance slowly going the way of the buggy whip, Kamel innovated a number of custom digital modifications to Calvary’s ancient pipe organ in order to stave off its obsolescence and incorporate it into his MIDI keyboard and pedals setup along with his Yamaha Concert Grand piano.

Kamel took some time from his busy schedule to discuss his childhood growing up in Egypt, his musical journeys and his work both on the international stage as well as in the church with John Seetoo of Copper.

J.S.: You are known in many musical circles for your humility and eclecticism, as well as a love for improvisation – all traits not immediately associated with classical music, at least from this rock musician’s experience. Where does this wide open music sensibility come from? Did your experiences growing up in Cairo help to shape your current attitudes towards music?

K.B.: I actually had no prior idea about improvisation. There isn’t any word in Arabic for “improvising.” The closest thing is the word “Taalif”, which mean “composing”, but also has some negative connotations since it can also mean “lying”. (laughs)

My mother, Nelly Boutros, was a trained classical pianist. As a matter of fact, when she was 8 months’ pregnant with me, she played Beethoven’s Third Piano Concerto – not an easy piece – for her graduation exam at the Cairo Conservatory. However, I never heard her play at home except when was giving a few lessons, or playing hymns. Her main job was accompanying dancers at the Ballet Conservatory.

(Kamel explained that both conservatories are part of the Higher Institute of Music Learning in Cairo.The Conservatory is where she would take Kamel every day as an infant, so he was hearing so much music from the windows of the Conservatory of students practicing. It was one of Nelly’s colleagues who was tossing Kamel up into the air and once not catching him where Kamel fell head first on the floor. Kamel jokingly believes that that is when music came into his system – head trauma and hearing all these different instruments practicing – along with the guy shouting advertisements for his cold sugar-cane juice.)

My first exposure to non-Arabic music and to harmony was the movie, The Sound of Music. Since Arab music is diatonic, the harmony voices and the soundtrack blew me away as a kid. That was the turning point. The first song I ever played on the piano was “Do, Re, Mi” when I was 3 years old. There was a stain on the Middle C key and that’s what I looked for as my starting note.

Growing up attending a Presbyterian Church in Egypt, I would watch the organist in the chancellery and I was mesmerized! It was like watching a film – seeing the hands at the keys and the knobs, feet on the pedals – it was my dream to play the organ.

J.S.: What musical training did you have to undergo in Egypt to gain admission to the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia? What was that experience like?

K.B.: I never had much training in Egypt. Learning basics at the church, I wasn’t aware of it but I guess I progressed very quickly. When I was 11, the church asked me to play a John Peterson Cantata because they needed someone with the skills. At home in Cairo, we had a horrific upright piano, which is still there, and hardly ever tuned, and could not be played in the evening without disturbing the neighbors. I looked at this piece and I realized that I had to practice it, and I needed a keyboard where I could plug in headphones for silent practice.

There was a Yamaha keyboard at a music store that compared to now, wouldn’t even be a decent toy, but at the time, I needed it, but my parents absolutely refused to spend the money. The only time in my life I ever stole – I snuck into my parents’ room and stole 500 Egyptian Pounds to get that Yamaha so I could practice. I was beaten after they found out, but it was worth it, and of course, I eventually paid them back. I now own a Yamaha 6’4” grand that I use at Calvary and I have a 7’4” Yamaha at a friend’s place where I get to play it.

My formal music education started when I was 13. An Egyptian family in Boston that was connected to the church brought me to the Lexington Christian Academy on a scholarship. Even there, the choral teacher would ask me, a foreign student, suggestions on exercises for the class. I felt like I had to play along, but I think that whatever improvising talent I had made the teachers assume that I knew more than I actually did, so I went through school with what I feel are gaping holes in my knowledge to this day.

At Curtis, I really looked up to Edward Aldwell. One day, I had a chance to play the Steinway B alone and after about 20 minutes, I saw a face in the door window, and it was Mr. Aldwell. I stopped playing, and he asks me what composition I was playing. I told him I was just making it up. He looks at me shocked and then gives me a hug, saying, “We have to do something about this.” The keyboard harmony teacher tells me to not bother coming to class. At the end of the semester, he gave me a F. I asked him why and he replied because I didn’t show up. I reminded him that he told me not to, and then he remembers and changes it to an A, telling me “Don’t slow up!” In retrospect, I think I have chunks of musical vocabulary missing since I can’t explain much of what I do, and it’s a struggle for me when conducting at times.

Improvisation, what I call playing “unbrained” – is not a conscious thing. The piano can be wonderful and evil at the same time – it’s a very needy wife. If you don’t touch it at least once a week, your fingers and brain don’t quite connect. Because I played in church, nothing else was needed. But later on, the gaps of knowledge still come back to bother me.

J.S.: You have performed Carmen, La Boheme, Romeo and Juliet, Madame Butterfly, and many other opera standards at the Metropolitan Opera, as well as solo pieces with orchestra, such as Bach’s St. Matthew’s Passion. What inspired your love of opera and what do you look for in a musical piece to motivate you to devote the time to add it to your repertoire?

K.B.: For me I look for when a composer can cry a melody that matches with the words. It has to grab you emotionally first, then intellectually, like Rachmaninoff! Not small breaths, but big breaths. Good music will make you scream and cry. I don’t have to talk about good music; bad music – you have to talk about it. (Because the emotional connection was lacking.)

J.S.: Your close friendship with Martha Argerich is probably best exemplified by one of her visits to New York for a Carnegie Hall performance, where she stayed with you as a houseguest and willingly prepared for her concert on a plastic Casio keyboard and insisted that you use your Yamaha Concert Grand to rehearse the Calvary Church choir. How did you two meet, and what is it like when you play together?

K.B.: Actually, that was before I was at Calvary. I was singing at the Met and I was living in a small apartment in Inwood at the time. The head of the opera department at Curtis named Mikael Eliasen took me to Carnegie Hall to listen to Martha Argerich play at Carnegie Hall. I had never heard her live She played Prokofiev’s Third Piano Concerto and it literally changed my life! She was musically on fire! I instantly became a huge fan and followed every bit of news about her. I couldn’t believe that her phone number was listed in the Musician’s International Directory. I called it and her voice mail message in French said to leave a message or a fax. I had read a news article that she was ill, so I sent her a fax telling her to take care of her health. We eventually met in Switzerland and now we are all like an extended family.

(One of her daughters, Annie Dutoit,has now become an actress. She and Kamel are planning a few film/music projects that will involve Martha at some point!)

She’s so down to earth. When Martha was coming to New York, I jokingly suggested she should stay with me. She said yes, and right away I said “I’m poor!” She didn’t change her mind. She was impressed that I could drive – I had a seriously beat up Toyota that was donated to me from a church I was helping in NJ, but she didn’t care. When we got to my building she asked which button to press on the elevator, I told her 2nd floor. She said, “Normal.” I laughed like mad. She was used to 50th floor fancy hotel suites but actually wanted something real. She actually gets upset when people applause before she even plays. “Are they applauding for me? They don’t know me; I haven’t even played yet! Why are they applauding?”

J.S.: Keeping it real?

K.B.: Keeping it real. And she’s so…unpretentious, it’s wonderful. Another time, she showed up to surprise me at Calvary during a service and wound up playing. I was at the organ and starting the second hymn, and I smelled her perfume – it’s Shiseido. I turned and she was waving at me. I was in shock! She got up and started turning my pages for me, of all things! People in the congregation who recognized her started texting their friends: “Martha Argerich is at Calvary!” She later played an impromptu set with me. One of the choir members who is Argentinian burst into tears and couldn’t sing; ten feet away from her was one of the most famous Argentinian musicians in the world acting like a normal person! Through the years I have become friends with some well known people in music, film and the arts. And I’m just blown away by the ones that knew that fame is not real, comes and goes. Nimet Habachy, Rachel Ticotin, Tony Hale, Peter Strauss, Sandy Faison, Todd Sussman, Fred Rogers (Mr. Rogers), Rev. Timothy Keller (whose preaching changed my life!).

J.S.: What prompted you to step into the theater and film worlds in addition to your many musical accomplishments? What are your favorite moments from being an actor and a film and video producer so far? Is film and music scoring a field you plan to pursue further?

K.B.: I had never thought about acting in films. John Adams’ Death of Klinghoffer was the first film I was in; it was a film version of the opera. I was asked to come to the UK for the audition and couldn’t make it, so I sent a video instead of me speaking into the camera. For some reason, it impressed them enough to send a plane for me to meet with them and they wanted me to play the terrorist. Klinghoffer’s choruses was what attracted me – there are two: one with Palestinians and one with Jews – that are just glorious! And he even used synths! Who is this man?

Klinghoffer was also my first time working with a living composer. There was one part where I was holding a Kalashnikov and I decided to change a part slightly and add “Sika” which is an 8th tone aspect of Arabic music that “adds the crying” to the melody. Adams came up to me and I thought he was going to be furious for changing his music, but instead he hugged me and insisted that whatever I was doing to keep doing it! For other film parts, the casting agents came to me; I didn’t pursue them. I’m not as interested in acting as I am in music.

My Requiem, which debuted in Paris at La Madeleine in Paris, was my first large scale orchestral composition, and almost was cancelled because the Brussels bombing occurred earlier that day and it wasn’t until 3pm that we knew whether or not the French police would let the show go on. It had an all men’s chorus of Christian, Jewish and Muslim singers with a soprano, Tami Schuch-Yaegashi, who sang in English, Arabic and French. They wouldn’t let me use the big Bonaparte organ that Gabriel Faure used to play. La Madeleine is huge and has like a 3-4 second echo. Thinking back, I should have redone some of the parts because of that echo on the syncopated parts. The Requiem ends with the line, “That is how much God loved the world (you and me) that he ‘discarded’ his only son so that those who believe in him will not suffer, but have absolute eternal life”

But yes, I’d like to do more scoring and my dream is to write song stories. My next composition will be an opera of a fictional dialogue between God and a suicidal man.

J.S.: Basically, opera.

K.B.: (laughs) – Yes! Opera!

J.S.: As you work in a variety of musical genres, do you have a different approach and system for your methodology in handling and conducting a classical symphonic piece for an orchestra vs. a jazz, rock, or world beat ethnic instrument music arrangement? I know that when I have had the fortunate opportunity to play with you, you gave me fairly wide berth with my guitar, bass, lap steel and dobro parts when doing Americana and contemporary worship music.

K.B.: Conducting is very overrated. An amazing conductor discovers what people in the orchestra have already, not just a bucket of his own ideas, and not 80 slaves with instruments. A good conductor finds where the weaknesses are and works with them. He or she should be like a psychiatrist or a record producer. Once the homework is done, all the glory can shine through. Certain musicians can inspire the rest. A violinist was playing a part with Martha. Instead of responding with the piano part softly as written, she attacked the part and changed the tempo, which fired up the violinist to respond. Creating a chance to capture those moments is what should be the goal. 30% will love it, 50% will hate it, but it can be magic.

J.S.: As Musical Director for a centuries’ old Episcopal Church, how did you become involved with Calvary – St.George’s parish, and what are some of the challenges that you faced? Were there any cultural clashes between your secular music and art background, your Middle Eastern upbringing, and the Anglo based western Christian traditions?

I was actually asked by the then Rector of Calvary to take that job while I was still singing at the Met. I decided to take the job since I needed to show (employment) stability because it would give me the ability to bring my mother and brother to the States. Musically, it was a new culture: the church calendar, the liturgy…in Egypt, hymns were chosen to reflect on current events, which could involve war, or food shortages…at Calvary, it’s forbidden to sing “Alleluia” during Lent, so it’s a whole different thing. At first, I saw them as limitations, but now, I find it freeing. A nice picket fence, rather than a prison. That difference can make Episcopal prayers seem disconnected to the world, but in another view, it keeps the focus on God. Bad stuff will always happen but Christ’s love is constant. Music helps to keep that connection. Tim Keller (of Redeemer Church) changed my life with his explanation of the Prodigal Son. That (revelation) started my new Christian life.

J.S.: Calvary St.- George’s Church’s reputation for eclectic music programs has been cemented by the various secular singer songwriter, jazz and classical concerts produced at both church locations in conjunction with jazz trumpeter Alex Nguyen, whom you have handling music services at St. George’s when you handle duties at Calvary. What has motivated you to expand musically in all of these directions through the church, and do you see it as a kind of music ministry, such as with Mockingbird? (Mockingbird Ministries was founded by David Zahl in 2007 while in NY and as a regular attendee of Calvary Church.)

K.B.: I’m somewhat conflicted with music programs tailored to bring people into the church. Admiring music in concert spaces is ok, but for a church, it can be dangerous. The focus should be on the worship, and that has to start pastorally. Luckily, Jake (Rev. Jacob Smith, current Rector of Calvary – St. George’s parish) is very good at bringing us all to a worship place so the music can make that connection.

Alex has done an extraordinary job; there’s not a jazz musician in New York that doesn’t know about the Jazz Vespers services at St. George’s. But music alone won’t bring people to faith.

J.S.: Looking back on your career and musical journey so far, what would you say were the highlights and the most regrettable moments?

K.B.: Highlights? Singing at the Met with James Levine, Pavarotti, at the Louvre and elsewhere with Martha, of course…and my long friendship with Fred Rogers. He was a relative of my roommate at Curtis, Alan Morrison, who is a wonderful organist. Fred Rogers became an admirer of my playing and had tapes of my improvisations. We kept up a written correspondence. I didn’t even know he was a TV star or what the Mister Rogers show was!

Regrets: Being admired to the point where teachers I sought thought there was not much to teach me. I have ADD, which gets worse with age. I have a fantasy about starting my musical studies all over from scratch. I have degrees from institutions that I really feel I don’t deserve.

J.S.: Looking forward, what projects are you working on and what are you looking to accomplish in the next five years or so?

K.B.: I want to learn and master computer music software of all types to get to the point where I can produce and compose as quickly as I can improvise ideas in my brain. I love listening to all music – I can always find something. Even rap – the production and engineering on some of those records are out of this world!

J.S.: Out of all of your various activities, which would you say have been the most fun and the most satisfying?

K.B.: I think the most fun and fulfilling was seeing people touched by my music. I set “Come Ye Sinners” to original music I wrote and tried to do it justice. When I was in Paris, a French and Arabic version was performed and I saw people crying. It was one of my most elevated musical moments from the outside in. I started crying myself and said to God at that moment: “OK, so I’m not a useless piece of ***t, just annoying creation by being here!”

(A separate article on the digital innovations created by Kamel Boutros to customize Calvary Church’s ancient Aeolian-Skinner pipe organ will follow in issue #61 of Copper.)

The first 60 issues of Copper have featured 6 Audio Cynic columns headed “RIP”. One in ten is far too many for my taste; sadly, given the demographics of our industry, I’m afraid that the number will only increase as we go forward.

The first three—Richard Beers in issue #7, Wes Phillips in issue #15, Ken Furst in issue #23-–were writers or promoters. The next three—Arnie Nudell in issue #47, Charley Hansen in issue #48, and now Dave Wilson in issue #60—were among the greatest designers and technical talents the audio industry has known. The first three certainly left a void upon their passing, but the latter three will be very, very difficult to replace. Even if designers arise who match their abilities—and that’s a big if— it’s unlikely that the new designers could ever influence the course of the industry as Arnie, Charley, and Dave did.

Dave originally came to my attention, and that of most folks, as a contributor to The Absolute Sound  a million or so years ago (around 1980). A designer of medical equipment turned amateur recordist—in the best sense of the word amateur—Dave became acquainted with TAS Editor Harry Pearson and joined the magazine as Technical Contributor (his title on the magazine’s masthead) “…to construct a testing program that will allow us to determine if some of the peculiarities and anomalies we hear in evaluating equipment can indeed be numerically measured.”

Ultimately, such technical rigor was a lost cause at the magazine, though Dave made an impression with articles such as a lengthy, meticulous phono cartridge survey. Wilson the recordist made a splash at the 1982 CES with a massive, extraordinarily-expensive speaker he designed as faithful monitor for his own recordings: the WAMM, Wilson Audio Modular Monitor, was an ungainly  construct of boxes and panels offered at the then-astonishing price of $32,000 per pair, out-pricing its contemporary competitors, the Infinity IRS and Levinson HQD. (By the end of their run, the WAMM sold for $88,000.)

WAMM was followed by a smaller-scale monitoring speaker, the WATT (the Wilson Audio Tiny Tot), which  broke new ground for smallish speakers, both in terms of price ($4400/pair in the mid-’80s) and in their acceptance as an industry standard for mobile or near-field monitoring. Paired with the matching Puppy woofer unit, the WATT/Puppy combo supposedly became the best-selling over $10k loudspeaker in history. Dave’s recordings also became accepted as standards of excellence; originally released as LPs, many are still available as downloads.

Over the last 35 years, Wilson Audio grew to become one of the few high-end audio brands whose name was familiar to non-audiophiles. Dave Wilson’s thorough development of  his designs led to long model runs, strong support for products in the field, and a recognizable house style of product design that was imitated worldwide. Even if you weren’t wild about the sound of Wilson speakers—and prior to Sophia, I was not a fan—one had to admire the care of finish and precision of assembly, the skill in demonstration, and the thoroughly professional approach of the company.

Another thing everyone agrees upon: Dave Wilson himself was one of the nicest, most genuine human beings who ever lived. I only knew him for a decade or so, and couldn’t claim to have known him well, unlike many in the biz—but every time I saw him he was friendly, warm, and always asked about my well-being and that of my children. I never knew him to say an unkind word about anyone, and yet—important, for this cynic—never found him to be saccharin or insincere. His far-ranging intelligence and puckish humor always made him a pleasure to talk to.

Whenever I  left Dave’s presence I felt  that I was fortunate to know him, and wished I were able to spend more time with him.

I can offer no higher praise.

RIP, Dave.

Our friend and contributor to Copper, Ken Kessler, wrote about his longtime friend Dave here.
Stereophile contributor/friend/Copper contributor Jason Victor Serinus wrote about Dave here;
Stereophile contributor/Analog Planet Editor/friend Michael Fremer posted an uncommonly wistful reminiscence of Dave here.

High-end audio is not rocket science … but don’t you ever wonder what would happen if a proper rocket scientist were to apply his expertise to the field? I know I do. So I looked one up, and asked him.

Professor Edgar Choueiri is Director of Princeton University’s Program in Engineering Physics, and Director of Princeton’s Electric Propulsion and Plasma Dynamics Laboratory (EPPDyL). He is tenured Full Professor in the Applied Physics Group at the Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Department, and associated faculty at the Astrophysical Sciences Department/Program in Plasma Physics at Princeton University. He is also Director of Princeton’s 3D Audio and Applied Acoustics (3D3A) Laboratory and has been interested in audio, acoustics and classical music recording for many years. He has invented a new technique for producing tonally pure three-dimensional sound from two loudspeakers. The technique allows a listener to hear sounds located in 3D space, as they would be heard in real life.

RM. So you really are a rocket scientist?

EC. Yes I am! Actually, I run two laboratories at Princeton University, a plasma space propulsion laboratory, and also an applied acoustics laboratory where we specialize in the reproduction of three-dimensional audio sound fields.

RM. Good. So you’d be the right person to explain to me how it is that we perceive sound in three dimensions, and what it would take to be able to properly reproduce that full three-dimensionality using a high-end audio system. This something that is close to the heart of most audiophiles. Perhaps you could start by explaining how we hear in 3D.

EC. We locate the source of a sound based on differences between how an individual sound is presented to our right and left ears, and in particular we rely on three types of cues. Because our two ears are located at different points in space, there will be a delay between when a given sound arrives at one ear and when it arrives at the other. We call this the Inter-aural Time Difference (ITD) and we can detect differences as short as 10μs. This lets us determine where a sound is coming from, from the left to the right. The same thing happens when we consider the Inter-aural Level Difference (ILD) where the sound reaches the first ear, and then decays somewhat before it reaches the second ear. The brain can detect ILD differences of 1dB or less.

RM. I can see how that helps us determine if something is to the left or to the right, but how about up and down? I’m pretty sure I am able to at least sense where things are located in the vertical dimension.

EC. If a sound source is directly in front of a person, the ITD and ILD will both be zero, so the ear/brain system clearly places the source as being straight in front of us. Yet the ear/brain system can also tell whether the source is at ear level, or if it is higher or lower, and neither ITD nor ILD can account for this, so clearly there is something else going on.

It turns out that we make use of spectral cues. As the sound makes its way to your ear canal, it interacts with your facial features, and in particular the pinnae of your ears. These effects serve to apply a tonal coloration to the sound. The tonal coloration applied in this way will be different depending on where in relation to your head the sound source is. This is why our pinnae [the flappy bits of our ears!] have evolved to be asymmetric – the tops are not the same as the bottoms – which helps us to locate sounds in the vertical plane.

RM. OK, that covers width and height, but what about depth?

EC. There is one other cue that we make use of to assess the distance of a sound source and that is the ratio of direct to reflected or reverberant sound. This is because the direct sound falls off in intensity at a consistent rate, whereas the reverberant sound tends not to drop nearly as quickly. So the ratio tends to change quite markedly with distance. These are things we interpret very strongly as depth cues.

RM. Can we measure any of these effects?

EC. We can easily measure all of these things with a small microphone inserted into our ear canals. And the result we get from your ears will be quite different from mine. It is like a fingerprint – we all seem to have a unique set of ears. If we measure the impulse response inside our ears using impulses located at all points in space – from points on a sphere around your head if you like – the result of that measurement is called the Head-Related Transfer Function (HRTF). There are a lot of very promising technologies in the fields of Virtual and Augmented Reality that rely heavily on HRTFs.

Measuring a person’s HRTF is time consuming and expensive as it requires specialized equipment and software. One of the key technological challenges today is to be able to do this as quickly and as cheaply as possible. Essentially, you sit the subject in an anechoic chamber, put microphones in their ears, and surround them with, effectively, a sphere of loudspeakers. It typically takes about two hours. But once we have a person’s HRTF it remains pretty much constant, and won’t change over time unless something happens to their pinnae. We can store an HRTF in a file using a format called SOFA [Spatially Oriented Format for Acoustics], and you can carry it around with you on a USB stick. Here at Princeton, we can now measure an HRTF in about ten minutes, and if you call in on our laboratory we’d be happy to measure yours for you! We would like to obtain a large library of HRTFs, as we believe we can use that data to further reduce the process time.

RM. That’s pretty advanced stuff, then.

EC. Actually, all of the above is pretty much text-book stuff. You will find no Acoustician or Spatial Audio Scientist who will want to disagree with any of it.

RM. So where do the real challenges lie?

EC. How can we record a sound field correctly, and play it back spatially correctly so the listener perceives it as true 3D? Well, to do so we first have to capture all of those cues. And we should only need two channels, because we only have two ears. So a binaural recording, made with two microphones inside your two ears, or inside the ears of a dummy head, should be an excellent way to accomplish that, with the caveat that if we record it with your head we will be recording the spectral cues that are correct for you, but not for me. And if we record with my head, it will be correct for me but not for you. Even so, a binaural recording made on a well-designed dummy head will capture enough of these cues that it can be interpreted by most listeners as a 3D image, provided those cues are delivered correctly to the listener during playback. So your ear/brain may make some errors in where specific sounds are localized – you may perceive that violin to be located at an angle of 60 degrees off to the right instead 50 degrees – but the result will still be in 3D.

We can talk about these errors, and about the fact that it is not an absolute necessity to record binaurally, but it is definitely the best way to definitively capture all these cues. But regardless of how we capture these cues, once we have done so we have all the information we need to be able to recreate the original 3D image for the listener. All we have to do is recreate those original sound pressure waves in the ear canals of the listener. If we can do that, the listener should in principle perceive the original 3D image … so long as these cues are transmitted correctly during playback.

RM. Is that a problem? Do we usually transmit the cues incorrectly?

EC. The idea is that we should recreate the original sound pressure field as close as we can to the ear canals, and the listener should then perceive a 3D image. And to an extent that actually happens. The most obvious way to transmit these cues correctly is using headphones. But if you take an ordinary binaural recording and play it back through headphones, what you find is that only about 30% of people will perceive an external 3D sound field, and 70% will not. Why is that? It is because there is a mismatch between the HRTF of the dummy head used to make the binaural recording, and the individual listener’s HRTF, and it turns out that only about 30% of people are tolerant of such a mismatch.

But a much bigger problem is that in the real world if you rotate your head, the sound field remains stationary, whereas when you listen on headphones the entire 3D soundstage rotates with you. The ear/brain system gets badly confused by this, and as a result the perceived 3D sound field collapses completely, and it can stay collapsed even if you then hold your head still. In fact the brain tends to respond by placing the 3D sound field inside your head, and this is a well-known problem for the majority of headphone users.

RM. Yes indeed. This “inside-the-head” problem is something that many headphone enthusiasts would dearly love to be able to eliminate.

EC. One of the goals for headphone users is to be able to be able to localize a sound field outside of your head, and keep it there even as the head rotates. So-called ‘Crossfeed’ techniques attempt to address this, but they don’t do it very well, and they can’t compensate for the problems associated with rotating your head.

RM. What happens when you play a binaural recording through loudspeakers? They at least stay put when you rotate your head.

EC. With loudspeakers you tend to get a slightly diffuse sound field which is locked in the middle between the two speakers, with only a very slight extent forwards and backwards. And moreover, what you hear is totally dependent on the position of the speakers. That itself should tell you that you have a fundamental problem with playback. If stereo is correct, the positions of the speakers should actually have nothing to do with the stereo image. If a violin was recorded 10 feet away from you, and off to the left, why should the position of the speaker determine where it appears to be located during playback? It tells you that something is wrong with stereo … and actually, that is very well understood. Unfortunately, it is not very well understood within the community of high-end manufacturers!

In fact we can formulate a test that will apply if we truly have a methodology to recreate the original 3D sound field – we should be able to position the speakers wherever we want, and it shouldn’t change the sound field to any significant degree. The speaker positioning should become completely immaterial. So long as the necessary cues are transmitted to the ear/brain system – through the speakers somehow – then the listener will perceive the violin to be located exactly where it was during the recording, regardless of where the speakers are placed. Do you agree with me that this would be a good test if we had such a technique?

RM. Yes, that does make sense I suppose. Although I’ll have to think about it some more …

… which I’ll do before the next issue of Copper, when we’ll continue our conversation with Edgar Choueiri. And things will get very interesting indeed.

It’s been almost 40 years since a brainy, clear-voiced multi-instrumentalist from Michigan released her first collection of folksy yet idiosyncratic songs. Claudia Schmidt’s 14^th solo studio album – that number doesn’t include a spoken-word effort and three duo albums with songwriter Sally Rogers — came out in February of 2018; I’m betting she’s got a bunch more in her.

Schmidt radiates that Midwestern folk-scene vibe: social, friendly, chilled-out, meditative, funny, in tune with nature – all of which flies out the window in the face of anything she considers to be injustice toward her fellow humans. Her lyrics reflect every one of these aspects of her personality, while her music shows influence from bluegrass, country, Irish traditional, American indigenous music, and jazz. Plus, she plays a distinctive instrument called a pianolin. Yes, it’s a cross between a piano and a violin, a bowed keyboard instrument!

The album Claudia Schmidt (1979) is an ideal introduction to her work. It’s a wild array of material, including, of all things, a cover of “If I Only Had a Brain” from The Wizard of Oz. As for Schmidt’s songwriting, there’s no mistaking her solid folk chops in the jig-time “Drinking Buddy.” This song deals with what would become a recurrent theme in her songwriting career, an appreciation of what other people offer of themselves. In other words, friendship.

The musical arrangement features another of Schmidt’s signature instruments, the distinctly American four-stringed mountain dulcimer (held in the lap and strummed; not to be confused with the hammered dulcimer, which has 15 or more strings and is played by tapping the strings with wooden mallets).

This first album also offers proof of Schmidt’s social conscience as well as her ability to write songs with complex rhythmic and melodic ideas. “Old Woman Lament” describes the painful issue of poverty and isolation among America’s senior population. The unusual percussion-only accompaniment and the leaping intervals in the melody help convey the stress and fear that the song’s main character feels in her daily life:

In 1981, Schmidt released Midwestern Heart, which showed that the quality of her first work was no fluke. “The Man Who Visits Me,” featuring the pianolin, finds her in storyteller mode, viewing the scene from a unique perspective. Basically, it’s about a peeping Tom through the compassionate eyes of the lonely woman he’s stalking. This sort of thing has gotten Schmidt into hot water–not everyone appreciates it when a poet who’s empathetic with but not experienced in their situation takes over their voice. I find the forced perspective fascinating, if creepy.

The toe-tapping refrain of “Broken Glass,” a wistful reminiscence about an ex-lover, puts Schmidt in that class of folk songwriters trained in the glow of Peter, Paul & Mary, John Denver, and their ilk.

Another major influence on her is Pete Seeger (her cover of Seeger’s song “Old Devil Time” is well worth a listen). She channels that hero of American-grown music in the song “Tired of Going,” on the 1991 album Essential Tension. Seeger’s influence can be felt in the simplicity of expression and the repetition—think of his famed singalong numbers – but the jazz modulation in bridge makes it decidedly Schmidt’s:

After a stint as a bed-and-breakfast proprietor and restaurateur, not to mention putting out a jazz album and an audio collection of her poetry, Schmidt returned to her day-job, so to speak. Promising Sky, a rediscovery of her folk roots, came out in 2010.  Although most of the songs are accompanied by a string, jazz flute, and drum ensemble calling themselves the Funtet, “Wisconsin Country” uses Nancy Stagnitta’s flute in a whole-tone scale for a Native American sound:

Every good midwestern folk singer-songwriter has some witty songs in her bag, usually made with a teaspoon of sarcasm, a cup of self-deprecation, and a pint of left-leaning feminist perspective. On the unfortunately-titled New Whirled Order (2014), there’s a perfect example of this genre, “The Strong Woman Has a Bad Day Polka.” As they say, it’s funny because it’s true:

The work continues. Hark the Dark: Reflections on Winter (2018) is Schmidt’s latest release. Her lifetime of living in Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota has taught her a thing or two about long, cold seasons. Typical of her, she approaches the topic from a range of angles. On the one hand, there’s a cover of Irving Berlin’s standard, “I’ve Got My Love to Keep Me Warm”; at the other extreme is a quasi-traditional “Solstice Chant.”

“The Darkening” is a pianolin meditation with vocalise. Some songwriters only mellow to the meditation stage later in life, but this is a continuation of normal for the thoughtful Schmidt. And I admire the way she’s clung to this odd instrument as a calling card for her whole career.

Besides keeping a busy schedule of writing, touring, and recording, Schmidt always has her hands in other projects. She wrote award-winning incidental music for Brecht’s The Good Woman of Szechuan for the famed Goodman Theater in Chicago. A couple of seasons ago at a theater festival in New York I saw an early version of Final Approach, the short musical about Amelia Earhart that she’s developing with playwright Laurie McLaughlin.

A bit far from the folk scene? Not at all. Think of it as seed and fertilizer for all the songs to come.

You read a lot of brouhaha within the audio community about how musicians are not making any money out of streaming services.  There are so many streaming services available these days – with some now even offering high-resolution lossless content – and much like Netflix in the video domain, we as consumers can now access a lot of content for a nominal (i.e. affordable) outlay.  How, people ask, can the musicians who create the music in the first place be making any money out of it?

About three years ago, a study was published which analyzed the French revenues of the streaming service Spotify, and broke down how that revenue was divvied up among the Streaming Service itself, the Record Labels, the Writers/Composers, and the Artists.  The report was prepared by the accounting firm Ernst & Young, so it has at least a minimum acceptable level of credibility, and is still available on the web site of Music Business Worldwide.  It would not be unreasonable to extrapolate these figures across all of Spotify’s operations.

Ask yourself this – according to the report, for every dollar you spend on Spotify, just how much of it ends up in the pocket of the artist whose music you are listening to?  Before you go on to read the answer, I want you to ponder the issue for a moment and ask yourself how much you think OUGHT to go to the artist?  Also, stop for a moment to consider the rationale behind your calculation, so that it is a little bit more than a number you pulled out of thin air.  On what basis do you think the artist ought to receive whatever it was that you thought was appropriate?  Include, if you like, any and all of the streaming services you may subscribe to (TIDAL, Qobuz, Apple Music, etc.).

So what figure did you come up with?  50 cents?  20 cents?  10 cents?  The actual answer according to Ernst & Young turned out to be less than 7 cents.  Not seven cents every time you listen to a track, but 7 cents out of every dollar you spend.  If you subscribe to Spotify’s premium service that’s about $10 a month, which works out to 70 cents a month to be shared among all of the artists that you listen to.  Let’s imagine that you are a serious listener and stream 20-25 tracks a day.  And let’s assume for the sake of the argument that this money gets split evenly among the artists you listened to on a per-play basis.  In that scenario you’d be playing about 700 tracks a month.  So each time you played a track, the artist you were listening to would earn something like one tenth of one cent.

In some circles, this arouses the anger of musicians who feel that the Spotifys of this world are screwing them out of their rightful earnings.  But there are two problems with that.  The first is that, as best as anyone can tell, none of these streaming services are actually making any money … Spotify’s $26 Billion IPO notwithstanding!  It is one thing to argue a case against someone who is making off with truck loads of cash, earned off the backs of others’ minimum-wage labor, but another thing entirely to vent your spleen at someone who isn’t even profitable – unless your complaint is about the lack of adequate profit margins, which would be an entirely different discussion.

Which brings me to the second problem.  Can it really cost that much money to run Spotify?  What happens to all the money they rake in, which in 2017 amounted to a whopping €3.7 Billion?  The answer is that Spotify pays the majority of it to the Record Labels.  Spotify France pays about 17 cents on the dollar in taxes, and uses 21 cents to run its own operations … so any profit they made would have to come out of that 21 cent share.  The rest – amounting to nearly two-thirds of their revenues – is paid directly to the Record Labels.  In other words, Spotify doesn’t have any say in how much of their take goes to the Artists.  That is entirely within the purview of the Record Labels.  And according to Ernst & Young, only about €0.26 Billion of that €3.7 Billion would have ended up distributed among the artists.

Let’s take a look at the money that the Labels receive – how do they distribute that?  According to the Music Business Worldwide report, only 11% of what the Labels receive goes to the Artists.  Another 16% goes to the Songwriters and Publishers, which means that the Labels grab a whopping 73% of Spotify’s pie.  That’s a lot of pie.  But also take great care to note that the Songwriters and Publishers net more than the Artists do – those songwriting credits turn out to be seriously important.

It is therefore wrong-headed for Angry Artists to get their panties in a bunch over Spotify eating their lunch.  It is the Labels who are doing all the munching … which is how it’s been for as long as there has been a music industry.  But, the argument goes, it is a different world in 2018.  Labels used to have to pay for record stamping plants, or even CD stamping plants.  They had to maintain a sales force to get their product stocked by the music stores, and a promotional force to get their customers into the stores.  Plus the costs of transporting the product internationally.  Today this doesn’t happen any more.  All of the above is theoretically replaced by an “Upload” button that someone has to click on.

But even taking all of that into account, it still misses the point entirely for the Artists to be taking pot shots at the Labels.  If the Artist feels that the Label is charging too much for what they provide, then their solution ought to be simple – they don’t have to sign with a Label.  Like just about any transaction, if you don’t like the price, you don’t have to make the purchase.  Unfortunately though, the majority of Artists don’t actually have the option to hold out for a better deal.  There are many more emerging Artists out there than there are Labels with available deal space.  The idea that Joe And The Nobodies can shop around and choose the Label that offers them the best deal is a pipe dream.

For the Artist then, what are the alternatives?  The obvious one is that they can start their own Label.  Sure they can … there’s nothing to stop them.  Is there?

The view from the other side of the fence is not all roses either (although I’m anything but a Labels fanboy).  As a Label, you are hopefully making money from your roster of Artists.  But they come and go, as do their sales.  You always need to be replenishing your portfolio.  For every new Artist that you have a budget to sign, there are a hundred who are convinced that they are The One.  So for starters, you’ll need to be really smart about which ones you sign and which ones you pass on.  But that’s not a problem, is it?  After all, you’re not as dumb as the Decca executive who said no to The Beatles because ‘guitar music was going out of style’ … are you?

Once you’ve signed a new Artist you are going to need to pay for some studio time to record their new album.  Maybe pay some studio musicians.  You’ll need to pay people to design the cover work and take publicity shots.  You’ll need legal work to get all the contracts and copyrights in place.  You’ll probably need professional video work doing.  You’ll need to schedule radio and TV spots if you’re sufficiently gung-ho about their prospects.  And you’ll need to cut those deals with Spotify et al.  All those expenses must be incurred without any guarantee that you’ll ever generate a penny in sales.  And for every Artist who generates a handy revenue stream for you, there will be four or five who fail to make any sort of impact at all.

For these reasons, most Labels are very hands-on when it comes to their stable of Artists.  They will want to control a large part of the product, how it sounds, whose arrangements are used – they’ll even kick members of the band they don’t like out of the studio and bring in better session musicians.  If they don’t like your songs they’ll use their own songwriters.  The Labels are in the business of knowing what will sell and what won’t.  They won’t always get it right, but like a professional stock trader, they’ll get it right more often than you will.  After all, even the poor sod at Decca who turned down The Beatles (his name was Dick Rowe) went on to sign The Rolling Stones.  Consequently, Artists very soon find out exactly where on the totem pole a place has been reserved for them, even as their backs are being patted and their egos stroked.

So, as musicians, if you have the wherewithal to do all of that yourselves, you don’t need the services of a Label.  You can form your own Label and make ten times as much money as you might otherwise have done … although if you’re not as smart as you thought you were, you’ll lose ten times as much.  Failing that, you have little choice but to work within the established Label system, always assuming you can get one sufficiently interested.  Otherwise, as one certain Norman Tebbitt might have put it, you’re going to have to get ‘on yer bike’ and find a proper job … 🙂

Here’s the thing about musicians in particular, but Artists generally.  And it’s the nub of this whole piece.  You are only an Artist while you are creating art for your own personal satisfaction.  As soon as you aim to sell it for even a modest profit you become a businessperson, no different from a restaurant owner or a plumber.  Like it or not, doing business is a dog-eat-dog world, and regardless of whether you’re selling art or amplifiers you need to have a minimum of business savvy if you are going to make a living at it.  You’ll need to be able to identify the smart things you should be doing, as well as the dumb things you should be avoiding.  The world has very little sympathy for poor businesspeople … it generally won’t pay $10 for something if there is something else it thinks might be just as good available at $9.95.  Don’t take my word for it.  Spend some time in Walmart.  [Of course, you should also spend some quality time scratching your head in an Apple store!]

My advice, for what it’s worth, to aspiring professional musicians is this.  Think of yourselves as businesspeople first and foremost.  Would you open a paint store that only sold blue paint because you felt a desire to pay homage to Picasso’s Blue Period?  I know I wouldn’t.  On the other hand, I might if I were smart enough to accurately identify a genuine unmet need in blue paint that everybody else had somehow missed.  The thing about business is that more often than not the best thing to do is not the same as the thing you really wanted to do.  If you can’t – or won’t – see that, and are not prepared to adapt accordingly, then your prospects for success will have a lot in common with buying a lottery ticket.  Bear in mind that most of us do not make particularly good businesspeople … just as we rarely win the lottery.  In which case you can still be an Artist, and create art entirely for your own satisfaction – but in your spare time, since you’ll have a ‘proper’ job to do as well.