the b-sidel

4B - Thursday, March 22, 2007

The science behind perfect sound

From page 1B
digital filter and a loudspeaker
designed to radiate sound in the
particular way that violins do -
and Gabi happens to be an expert
on this."
For an electric violin ever to
come close to a wood-body vio-
lin, it must have more of a jagged
frequency response, or "radiate
sound" from multiple directions.
The sound of a real violin doesn't
come from a single source.
"The source of a violin's sound
is bigger than a violin," Weinreich
said. "A violin and some other
instruments have (directional
tone color) but typically, most of
all a violin ... Not only does it have
a highly directional sound, if you
change frequency just slightly,
that pattern changes quite radi-
cally - like beacons of sound."
The human ear takes in a com-
posite of sound from various direc-
tions to actualize the resulting
sound of a violin.
Weinreich and Curtin fashioned
a device to measure the impulse
response, or the response of a
violin to an impulse force on its
bridge. "(The impulse force) lasts
for zero time - a very large force
for a very short time," Weinreich
said. A little hammer-like device
hits the dampened strings, coming
at the bridge sideways, replicating
the direction a bow would move.
When the hammer hits, the vio-
lin makes a sound. Afterward, the
CARGO
From page 1B
the music industry and the film
industry (Kodak, not MGM) is a
great one - 35mm cameras have
become a niche industry and film
sales plummeted as digital cam-
era sales soared. But now these
companies have found other ways
to make photography profitable,
and best of all, people take more
pictures. If downloading music
means people hear more music,
surely that's a good thing.
Mote ekposure is always better,
and with Clear Channel killing
radio with its bland drivel, the
easiest way to discover new music
is downloading it. I know that I'm
not your typical music consumer
(in that I buya couple CDs a week
and countless more records), but
I don't feel so bad about down-
loading leaks of the new Battles,
Wilco and Feist albums before
they come out when I know I'm
going to buy a copy of each the
day they're released. Countless
times I've downloaded something
on someone else's recommenda-
tion, discovered a band I never
knew I loved and went out and
bought their albums. So while
that might not be typical behav-
ior, I know I'm not the only one
who does that.
And if you just can't bring
yourself to spend money on a CD,
there are other ways to support
a musician, like concerts and
merchandise, that are actually a
bit more profitable for the artists
themselves. That shouldn't totally
absolve downloaders of guilt, but
it should lessen the shame a bit.
- Write to Cargo at
lhcargo@umich.edu.

SOUND AND VISION
Behold: the basic parts of a
wood-body violin
* Scroll
2 Tuning pegs
x*
3 Fingerboard
4Strings
5* F-holes
* Bridge
Of course, there's
still work to be done
- "it's the nature of
a research project
- there will always
be questions arising,"
Weinreich said - but
the more the pair works
the more the project evolves.
As soon as you ask why a
good instrument sounds
good, "the question splin-
ters into individual
questions and each
one takes a chunk
of your life to
answer," Curtin
said.
S"We find out
14 how to do it bet-
ter and better,"
ing sound is louder than the neigh- ing, electric violins did have some Weinreich said.
boring notes, but you don't hear it character of a real violin - you "We know more
as louder, Weinreich said, but as could hearhowsomewhere around than we used to
violin-like. middle C or C# on the G-string, the know, but less than
"We found that, after filter- sound blooms," Weinreich said. we will know."

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ALEX DZIADOSZ/Daily
ABOVE: Curtin sets up for a test.
RIGHT: Weinreich in Curtin's studio, or
as he says, "It's a shop for a violinmaker;
it's a lab for a physicist."
recorded responses from the real
violin are loaded into an electric
violin.
Thus, Weinreich and Curtin
want to "interpose something elec-
tronic between the electric violin
and amplifier to make it sound like
a real violin" - this is the filter,
and they are accumulating proof of
progress.
When you blow across the f-
holes of a real violin, much like
you would a flute, you hear a cer-
tain resonance frequency of air
enclosed in the violin. The result-

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 _- home for artistic statements that
AAFF are truly less subversive than
From page 1B explorative. The festival combed
through more than 2,000 submis-
But why sever connection with sions to compile this year's array
one of the most respectable names and, if Tuesday night's opening is
in avant-garde cinema at all? The any indication, it's a set of works
AAFF, now 45 years old, is one of with as much humor and innova-
the world's oldest experimental tion as political commentary.
film festivals, the proving ground one of the night's most satis-
for now-big names (Gus Van Sant, fying entries was Frederic Mof-
Michael Moore) and longtime fet's "Jean Genet in Chicago," an

inventive 25-minute short billed
as an "experimental documen-
tary" which uses the experience
of French writer Jean Genet as an
angle for approaching the politi-
cal agitation of late '60s Chicago.
Wearing cut-out faces of famous
Genet-contemporaries such as
William S. Burroughs and Allen
Ginsberg, stand-in bodies reenact
history in front the bustling back-
ground of the modern day city.
The following piece, Matthew
Lessner's "By Modern Measure,"
makes a more poignant comment
aboutthe decided lack of such polit-
ical agitation in our own genera-
tion. As a pair of young lovers bond
over their mutual love of Taco Bell,
Mountain Dew and Doritos, the
short film's French narrator calmly
mentions the falling of bombs over
Iraq half the world away. Whenthe
two profess to love Che Guevara,
they tellingly can't articulate why.
William Noland's meditative

"Occulted," meanwhile, turns its
scrutiny from the people to The
Man. Its contemplative study of
London's heavy-duty'government
surveillance zeroes in on various
unknowing passerby, watching in
long, slow-motion takes as they
patiently stand on curbs and metro
platforms, doing absolutely noth-
ing to merit concern.
Such watching characterized a
good deal of the night's offerings,
which is perhaps predictable, con-
sidering the voyeuristic nature of
film itself. That hyper self-aware-
ness was prominent in such pieces-
as Francois Miron's "Hymn to
Pan," a dreamy if unrevelatory
scene of a dancer being filmed, and
a German entry titled "Kristall,"
which cut together old Hollywood
bedroom scenes to examine the
forced intimacy of people before
mirrors. Its focus on old film clips
is equally representative of a par-
ticularly popular.independent film

technique - the use of innovative
editing and a fresh soundtrack to
cull new meaning from old images.
As film inherent plays with per-
spective, it's a perfect medium to
find meaning through juxtaposi-
tion.
Of course, not every piece
works, but that's natural of any
art form with "experimental" in
the title. One 15-minute collage
of various pop-culture images
in particular went about 14 min-
utes too long, pairing its repeti-
tive mix of Hulk figures and baby
dolls with tinny, pinball-like '80s
pop riffs in a kinetic explosion of
color that could only be palatable
as a screensaver. The messages
of media inundation and gender
stereotypes may be there, but
are doomed to little impact when
all you can think after several
moments is how much you wantto
shoot the messenger.
. At least you're thinking. The
festival's commitment to intellec-
tual exploration is palpable and
has only increased in the face of the
government's censorship efforts.
Even in the midst of its legalbattle,
however, the AAFF is keeping its
characteristic sense of humor. The
lobby's merchandise table features
a new addition this year, courtesy
of the innovative folks over at local
candy-maker Schakolad - a slab of
fine chocolate imprinted with the
word "Censored." The AAFF has
created its very own censor bar,
and it's indicative of the festival
spirit: whether you like what you
see, whether you even " get" all of
it, at the end of the day you're guar-
anteed plenty to chew on.

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