general interest/planning thread for a Schubert String Quintet blind comparison

[amw]

I'll just put this out here.

Having recently paid for a download of this piece, and downloaded another version from a YouTube video, I think I may officially be in the obsession zone. I am not even sure how the idea to do a blind comparison came about in my mind, but in such a comparison I could easily see any of the versions I had winning—and I haven't even heard some of the Big Names (several of which I'm picking up on Monday)—so decided to see if anyone else was interested. A few people have already said so.

For those who are interested:
First of all, if anyone would like to contribute a recording/s, contact me. There are a few I'm looking for.

I'm looking to collect 24-25 recordings (that are worth comparing) as that seems to be standard. (Right now I have 5, plus ~12 I'm looking to acquire, so quite a ways to go (and some of them will undoubtedly be left on the cutting room floor)—so don't expect this to start for some time.) However I'm not sure whether to go 24 -> 12 -> 6 starting with four groups of six, or 25 -> 15 -> 6 starting with five groups of five.

As for format, I'm not really sure what to do. My initial idea was for round 1 to be the third movement, round 2 the second and the final round the first, since this starts with the movement that arguably lies at the core of the piece and presents the excerpts in order of increasing length. However this doesn't cover the 4th movement at all and people also may have strong feelings about whether the 1st movement repeat is taken which affect the final score more than the quality of performance. Another option might be to start with excerpts from the 1st and 4th movements, continue with excerpts from the 2nd and 3rd movements (or just the 2nd and 3rd movements complete), and finish with the entire performance, but I don't know that people would necessarily want to listen to six complete D956s in a row. For starters that would take about five hours.

Finally... scoring. Numbers confuse my tiny liberal-arts brain and I don't know how people usually figure out the scores for these things. I was thinking just 1st place (out of 6) = 100%, 2nd place = 83%, 3rd place = 67% etc, or 2nd place (out of 5) = 80%, 3rd place = 60%, etc. Then add the percentage points up and take an average. Excel can do that for me if I mess up But then I don't know what to do about the "Group of Death" problem.

[Ken B]

Everyone seems to use rankings for these things, and then converts an ordinal into a cardinal ( apologies to that liberal arts brain  ). Indefensible logically. Why not try something different and simple: a black-ball. Each listener votes a single kill in each round. Any recording receiving a kill is out. Alternatively a white ball. Any recording receiving a white ball survives, but any without is killed.

Combining white and black balls has risks. Better to choose one scheme.

[Brian]

Everyone seems to use rankings for these things, and then converts an ordinal into a cardinal ( apologies to that liberal arts brain  ). Indefensible logically.

I have done two routes:
- what you mention with rankings. First place = 1 point, twelfth = 12 points, and then use a cut-off to get the desired # of recordings in the next round.
- "on a scale of 1 to 10" ratings

Also, amw, I can PM you a list of the recordings I have on CD and could rip at high quality to contribute.

Finally, as far as format, I think the third movement in the first round is a really good idea. Especially because the contrasts are so powerful - this covers the entire range of the piece (and I'd argue as a D956 junkie, the entire range of human emotion?). I do think that listening to the entire work in the final round is a good idea; people seem to be okay with listening to all of a Mahler symphony for Daniel's listening games, even five Mahler Sixths in a row!

[Jay F]

people seem to be okay with listening to all of a Mahler symphony for Daniel's listening games, even five Mahler Sixths in a row!

My idea of heaven.

[akiralx]

I'm in to participate.  I also have a few fairly standard recordings I can share - via dropbox?

[amw]

Everyone seems to use rankings for these things, and then converts an ordinal into a cardinal ( apologies to that liberal arts brain  ). Indefensible logically. Why not try something different and simple: a black-ball. Each listener votes a single kill in each round. Any recording receiving a kill is out. Alternatively a white ball. Any recording receiving a white ball survives, but any without is killed.

Combining white and black balls has risks. Better to choose one scheme.

A scheme that popped into my head today was something more like the old "GMG's Favourite X" games. Everyone has a +3, +2, +1, -1, -2; can use only one of each per group, and has to use at least one per group. The standard group of six could then have +3 +2 +1 0 -1 -2 to replace the standard "1st through 6th place" order, or +3 0 0 0 0 -1 if you only really liked one of them, were neutral about the rest and found one disagreeable, etc. Then I add up the scores and determine the cutoff to move on to the next round.

An alternative way would be to give people a certain number of positive and negative points to allot per group, which they could divide up how they wished.

The downside is of course strategic voting, but we have that already.

Finally, as far as format, I think the third movement in the first round is a really good idea. Especially because the contrasts are so powerful - this covers the entire range of the piece (and I'd argue as a D956 junkie, the entire range of human emotion?).

I agree with you for the most part, but it's not quite the entire range; there is a little bit more emotion covered in the middle section of the slow movement. >.>

Alternate alternate idea: Round 1 could be the exposition of the first movement + the scherzo, Round 2 the slow movement + the first half of the finale, Round 3 the whole piece.

I do think that listening to the entire work in the final round is a good idea; people seem to be okay with listening to all of a Mahler symphony for Daniel's listening games, even five Mahler Sixths in a row!

That's true, I didn't take that into account. God knows how many Bruckner Sixths in a row Greg Moeller is listening to right now and he still manages to be a relatively well-adjusted person.

PM replied to incidentally.

I'm in to participate.  I also have a few fairly standard recordings I can share - via dropbox?

Dropbox should work, though I think I may have found most of the standard recordings already—send me a PM.

[mc ukrneal]

I'm in.

[Moonfish]

Hard to resist this project. I would be happy to participate! 

[trung224]

  It's great to take part in.

[amw]

Hmm. My points idea doesn't seem to be going over very well.

Alternate idea:
Vote each clip as Yea, Nay or Meh, then choose one (or more, depending on the bracket size) as your top pick to advance.

[snyprrr]

planning threads can be tricky

[amw]

Right, so... another thing.

Counting two I'm trying to get from Brian, one I'm waiting for from the library and one I should probably just give up trying to get a clean copy of and rip from youtube, I now have 32 recordings of this piece. And another 7 or so that didn't make the cut for various reasons. And another ~3 I've found for free, but haven't even listened to yet because I don't want them to turn out to be really good forcing me to include them as well.

What is a reasonable number of recordings to include, and in groups of how many? 32 seems like too many, though I'm having a hard time determining which to eliminate because almost every one of them has been rated as a personal favourite by someone.

[mc ukrneal]

I would try not to use youtube. In general, you want the sound quality to be similar regardless of source.

You could have more clips of shorter length, but 4 groups sounds like a lot unless you have good participation.

[amw]

The YT clip is from a 256kbps MP3 file, which I've traced to its source, an uploader long vanished from the internet. I found a different transfer of the same recording in 320kbps, but a significantly worse one in terms of distortion/surface noise. Of course it's a performance that was never released on CD. :< Probably a lost cause, but I'll keep trying.

I completely forgot about actually recruiting participants, lol. Just assumed I'd start the game and they'd all magically show up. I might try to drum up some additional interest from the Radio 3 forum, they seem to follow the weekly Building a Library programme (which these threads vaguely resemble) with some alacrity.

[mc ukrneal]

The YT clip is from a 256kbps MP3 file, which I've traced to its source, an uploader long vanished from the internet. I found a different transfer of the same recording in 320kbps, but a significantly worse one in terms of distortion/surface noise. Of course it's a performance that was never released on CD. :< Probably a lost cause, but I'll keep trying.

I completely forgot about actually recruiting participants, lol. Just assumed I'd start the game and they'd all magically show up. I might try to drum up some additional interest from the Radio 3 forum, they seem to follow the weekly Building a Library programme (which these threads vaguely resemble) with some alacrity.

I guess the key is 'if possible'. If there is no other source, than it doesn't seem unreasonable if the sound quality is decent. Just keep in mind you may want to cut it IF the sound is too obviously worse than the others (because of bit rates).

Getting people can be a challenge as some will try to do it, but then for various reasons will not. If you have three groups, you would ideally have 15-18 people at least. Or you could do 4-5 groups of 3-4 people. Whatever you decide, just need to keep that in mind.

[Brian]

I guess the key is 'if possible'. If there is no other source, than it doesn't seem unreasonable if the sound quality is decent.

A low-quality YouTube rip of Claudio Arrau made it to the final round of my Ravel game. (EDIT: Link)

Counting two I'm trying to get from Brian,

Eek! I'm sorry if it's becoming a chore for you. I had to lot to catch up on after getting home - but with nothing to do for a few days, should finally have time to get that stuff to you.

The simple yay/nay system sounds good, by the way.

[Gurn Blanston]

The YT clip is from a 256kbps MP3 file, which I've traced to its source, an uploader long vanished from the internet. I found a different transfer of the same recording in 320kbps, but a significantly worse one in terms of distortion/surface noise. Of course it's a performance that was never released on CD. :< Probably a lost cause, but I'll keep trying.

I completely forgot about actually recruiting participants, lol. Just assumed I'd start the game and they'd all magically show up. I might try to drum up some additional interest from the Radio 3 forum, they seem to follow the weekly Building a Library programme (which these threads vaguely resemble) with some alacrity.

As a criterion for inclusion, though, wouldn't you want a candidate to be a recording which can actually be acquired by people who want to buy the 'winner'? I like the heck out of this work and would probably buy the winner if I could....

[amw]

Eek! I'm sorry if it's becoming a chore for you. I had to lot to catch up on after getting home - but with nothing to do for a few days, should finally have time to get that stuff to you.

Don't worry about it—I was able to get hold of one of them (Raphael) from someone else, and for the others, whenever you have the opportunity is fine. I could use a break anyway, my family members have been talking about staging an intervention. "You've got to stop listening to that piece!"

As a criterion for inclusion, though, wouldn't you want a candidate to be a recording which can actually be acquired by people who want to buy the 'winner'? I like the heck out of this work and would probably buy the winner if I could....

All of the other recordings I've picked for this competition are available on CD (though some are harder to find than others); this particular recording was supposed to be remastered for CD release a few years back and maybe if it "wins" we can get a petition going for [recording label] to resume that project. Hey, I can dream... >.>

I can get this down to 28 recordings without too much heartache, but after that it becomes a game of "which well loved recording to eliminate"...

[kishnevi]

Speaking of participants, I volunteer.

[aukhawk]

I like the heck out of this work and would probably buy the winner if I could....

A recording I contributed to the project was selling on Amazon.com for $195.84 at the time ...

Is that a bargain?  Only time will tell ...