Author Topic: Possible future blind tests (Read 7689 times)

Ken B · « **Reply #40 on:** November 24, 2014, 08:17:21 AM »

Quote from: Brian on November 24, 2014, 05:44:56 AM

Ken, I mean for an arts student I was unusually good at math(s), and didn't know anybody else like that.

Ah. As a math student I was unusually interested in the arts, and didn't know anybody else like that.

When I audited a graduate Shakespeare course for instance, I had read more literature than any of the English majors.

I did have a friend who did a music major with math minor, and another math major who liked classical. So cross-over is better in that direction. (Insert obligatory remarks about mathematicians as ubermenschen here).

Mirror Image · « **Reply #41 on:** November 24, 2014, 08:26:14 AM »

Quote from: North Star on November 24, 2014, 01:12:48 AM

Solo piano, piano duo, orchestral suite or the extended ballet version?

Complete ballet.

Why listen to just the suite? It's like listening to Bartok's Miraculous Mandarin in it's suite form.

North Star · « **Reply #42 on:** November 24, 2014, 08:49:59 AM »

Quote from: Mirror Image on November 24, 2014, 08:26:14 AM

Complete ballet. Why listen to just the suite? It's like listening to Bartok's Miraculous Mandarin in it's suite form.

Well yes, if Mandarin had been originally the suite, written for two pianos..

Cosi bel do · « **Reply #43 on:** November 25, 2014, 09:13:21 AM »

I haven't entirely lost interest in organizing blind comparisons, but there are many of them now (and I remain quite proud to have imported this fabulous exercise here

).

But the (ridiculous and organized...) failure of my blind comparison on Mahler's 2nd Symphony is still a great frustration. I am still wondering if it would be interesting to start it again, but for such a work we'd need to be around 15 participants at least, if we want to take it seriously.

Other works I think interesting for such comparisons are :

- Bach: cantata BWV 82
- Beethoven: Overture Egmont (or Coriolan?)
- Beethoven: Kreutzer Sonata
- Brahms: Alt-Rhapsodie
- Brahms: Quintet op. 34
- Chausson: Poème
- Debussy: Préludes (short comparison on 2-3 of them)
- Franck: Symphony
- Haydn: one symphony (49? 50? 59? 88? 94?)
- Haydn: a piano sonata
- Hindemith: a symphonic work (Symphony Mathis de Maler? Metamorphoses? ...)
- Messiaen: Quatuor pour la fin du temps
- Mozart: a piano sonata (K.475/457? or just the Fantasy K.475?)
- Prokofiev: piano concerto no. 3 (or 2?)
- Schubert: an Impromptu (op. 90/3?)
- Scriabin: Poem of Ecstasy
- Shostakovich: Symphony 10

If anyone is interested to launch one of these quickly we can co-organize some

Cosi bel do · « **Reply #44 on:** November 25, 2014, 09:20:00 AM »

Also, I think there should be a topic listing all past comparisons and their results (with winners and final ranking). That would be a very useful thing.

amw · « **Reply #45 on:** November 25, 2014, 09:52:36 AM »

Quote from: Discobolus on November 25, 2014, 09:13:21 AM

- Brahms: Quintet op. 34
- Debussy: Préludes (short comparison on 2-3 of them)
- Haydn: one symphony (49? 50? 59? 88? 94?)

Interested in all of these. Can't contribute a lot of recordings of any of them though

aukhawk · « **Reply #46 on:** November 29, 2014, 03:05:32 AM »

Quote from: Discobolus on November 25, 2014, 09:20:00 AM

Also, I think there should be a topic listing all past comparisons and their results (with winners and final ranking). That would be a very useful thing.

Ken B · « **Reply #47 on:** November 29, 2014, 12:58:05 PM »

Thanks for this.

Most interesting bit: how Sarge managed vote against the Cleveland Symphony, even in the string quintet contest ...

Brian · « **Reply #48 on:** December 08, 2014, 07:56:25 PM »

An unexpected opportunity has arisen for me to do a blind test "speed round" on Liszt's "Funerailles". I am thinking one round only, and I have 5-6 recordings to consider, for a total of about 60-70 minutes of listening. A mixture of old and new recordings, from a newly reissued live-from-Moscow rarity to a 2013 recording.

Would there be any interest in this?

mc ukrneal · « **Reply #49 on:** December 08, 2014, 08:24:40 PM »

Quote from: Brian on December 08, 2014, 07:56:25 PM

An unexpected opportunity has arisen for me to do a blind test "speed round" on Liszt's "Funerailles". I am thinking one round only, and I have 5-6 recordings to consider, for a total of about 60-70 minutes of listening. A mixture of old and new recordings, from a newly reissued live-from-Moscow rarity to a 2013 recording.

Would there be any interest in this?

Sure. It's a piece I barely know, which makes it perfect for this sort of thing. But then you knew I'd agree!!

Ken B · « **Reply #50 on:** December 09, 2014, 12:57:21 PM »

Quote from: Brian on December 08, 2014, 07:56:25 PM

An unexpected opportunity has arisen for me to do a blind test "speed round" on Liszt's "Funerailles". I am thinking one round only, and I have 5-6 recordings to consider, for a total of about 60-70 minutes of listening. A mixture of old and new recordings, from a newly reissued live-from-Moscow rarity to a 2013 recording.

Would there be any interest in this?

Sure. Like Neal says, terra incognita.

Jo498 · « **Reply #51 on:** December 09, 2014, 01:09:23 PM »

Go ahead. At least it is rather short. (I do not know it well, but it is probably one out of a handful of Liszt's piano pieces I'd recognize)
Schubert's quintet is definitely too long fo this kind of thing, heck, the first movement alone is too long for extended comparisons.

aukhawk · « **Reply #52 on:** December 10, 2014, 06:20:21 AM »

But not as long as 2 Mahler symphonies, 1 Bruckner, and 1 Berlioz, that have so far been enjoyably blind-tested.

Jo498 · « **Reply #53 on:** December 10, 2014, 07:28:49 AM »

yeah, you guys are obviously much tougher than I am.

And the quintet is longer than the SF and about as long as Mahler's 1

Ken B · « **Reply #54 on:** December 10, 2014, 04:13:28 PM »

Quote from: aukhawk on December 10, 2014, 06:20:21 AM

But not as long as 2 Mahler symphonies, 1 Bruckner, and 1 Berlioz, that have so far been enjoyably blind-tested.

Yeah, mostly by those of us who just watched!

Scherzian · « **Reply #55 on:** December 11, 2014, 02:22:46 PM »

Quote from: Brian on December 08, 2014, 07:56:25 PM

An unexpected opportunity has arisen for me to do a blind test "speed round" on Liszt's "Funerailles". I am thinking one round only, and I have 5-6 recordings to consider, for a total of about 60-70 minutes of listening. A mixture of old and new recordings, from a newly reissued live-from-Moscow rarity to a 2013 recording.

Would there be any interest in this?

My fault, I failed to mention I'd be interested in participating in your blind test.

I hope it's not too late to register?

(Already listened twice to No.3 and No.5.)

Brian · « **Reply #56 on:** December 11, 2014, 02:30:38 PM »

Quote from: Scherzian on December 11, 2014, 02:22:46 PM

My fault, I failed to mention I'd be interested in participating in your blind test. I hope it's not too late to register?

(Already listened twice to No.3 and No.5.)

No registration is necessary.

Anybody can listen and post comments!

Scherzian · « **Reply #57 on:** December 11, 2014, 02:33:44 PM »

Thanks Brian!

Brian · « **Reply #58 on:** May 21, 2020, 11:13:51 AM »

BUMP

What better way to spend quarantine time than playing a blind listening game? We all have lots of time to listen to music, probably, and without even sport to distract us (except Bundesliga), we could all use a game to play.

I feel like we ought to start off with a Big Piece. Going through my FLAC collection yesterday, and comparing to discs I could rip for the purpose of gameplay, it looks like I could easily pull together 12 recordings each of Dvorak's 9th or Tchaikovsky's 5th Symphonies. I'd lean towards the Tchaikovsky personally. Also feel like a Prokofiev or Shostakovich symphony could be fun. amw notes above (and 6+ years ago) that Haydn symphonies would be good too, which is very true...maybe 103?

If there are others interested in "hosting" games for different works, maybe we could do one a month or something like that.

aukhawk · « **Reply #59 on:** May 22, 2020, 08:56:35 AM »

On the face of it, it seems like a good suggestion.
However we haven't had a really meaty and successful comparison since amw's Schubert Quintet July-December 2014.
Since then various midi- or mini- blinds have been somewhat or less successful, the Bach Violin S&P for example was painful starting in November 2015 and not finishing untiul January 2017 despite only surveying extracts from the music - but a fairly definite conclusion was reached although the number of listeners was too small really.
A lightning mini-round of Chopin (amw again) went very well in Feb 2017, but subsequent to that my two Sibelius and Shostakovich mini-blinds were barely credible due to the small number of listeners, and my Mendelssohn and Scarlatti mini-blinds fared worse, just inconclusive.

It's difficult to conclude what format would best catch the imagination.
Also, I have found that hosting the anonymised files has become increasingly difficult, with many cloud solutions identifying and tagging the music. Even a 2-minute 'bleeding chunk' from the middle of a 10-minute movement say, with all tags and images completely removed, gets correctly identified and tagged and the cover pic replaced, on, for example, Google Drive. This forced me to providing zipped files, which of course is a big obstacle to getting a successful blind going with lots of participants.

I do have partially-prepared projects, awaiting their moment - Tchaikovsky 6, Mahler 7, Bach Orchestral Suite 12, Glass Piano Etude - all in mini-blind format.

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Author Topic: Possible future blind tests (Read 7689 times)

Ken B

Cosi bel do

Cosi bel do

Ken B

Ken B

Ken B