“(Re)constructing Early Recordings: a guide for historically-informed performance” is a Leverhulme-funded research project that concerns the production of early recordings (focussing on wax cylinders and discs). Through a (re)construction of mechanical recording methods, musical performances are captured, analysed, and made available to the international community of musical researchers. All recordings are simultaneously recorded using contemporary digital technologies, allowing for direct comparisons between the acoustic and digital recordings. Results, which integrate creative practice and theoretical research, illuminate both performance and recording practices of the past, and elaborate a method for future research into early recordings.
The field of the historically informed performance practice is continually blossoming, and in the last years there is a hight rise of interest in early recordings and using them as research evidence in context of performing styles of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. However, as everybody who ever recorded their playing will know – we modify our performance in order to record successfully. Every performance is context based, and we would not play in the same manner in a massive concert hall or a small church. I’ve started to be interested in the path which leads to the end sonic result many admire through early recordings. How do you need to play to record successfully, how does it feel to have the dynamic restrictions when you play, do you need to sit or hold your instrument differently, or – especially from the twenty first century perspective – how does it feel to record in a single take, and then not be able to hear the payback for days?
My research project is investigating exactly this – what do we as performers have to do, or negotiate in order to record mechanically. This project would not exist without generous help of Duncan Miller, acoustic engineer and also owner of all the equipment we are using, whose company produces all the wax blanks needed. The sessions are simultaneously recorded digitally by my husband, Dr. Adam Stanović from the University of Sheffield, who also does a very important aftermath of comparing and analysing the digital recordings with the acoustic recording transfers.
Essentially practice-led, involving both performance and recording, the central research method in this project is autoethnography. Rather than fixating upon the product of the recording sessions, I focus on the process of performing and recording. By doing so, I am able to understand some of the various problems recording musicians faced around the end of the century, assess the many ways in which musicians might have navigated such recording processes, and identify ways in which such recordings might reveal and display aspects of musical practices that are otherwise beyond our reach.
(Re)constructing Early Recordings: a guide for historically-informed performance
(November 2017 – February 2021)
Session 1: Phonograph Recordings
Cylinder type: 2 minute
Piano: Inja Stanović
Instruments: Bechstein (1882), Streicher (1881)
Phonographs: Edison Gem – model B, Edison Standard – model A, Edison Fireside – model B, Edison Triumph – model B
Recording horns: copper horn string wound (660mm by 190mm); small steel horn (480mm by 130mm); narrow zinc horn (130mm by 890mm); large zinc horn (280mm by 1100mm); large steel flared horn (1450mm by 580mm); brass flared horn (762mm by 355mm)
Reproducing horn: steel (290mm by 485mm)
Recorders: Edison New Model recorder (c.1902) – glass diagram; Edison Automatic recorder (c.1899)
Digital equipment: pair of AKG414 microphones; pair od Neuman 184 microphones; Steinberg UR22 soundcard; DAW (Cubase); wave-editor (various: Sound Forge and Audition)
Session 2: Phonograph Recordings – Temperature Study
Cylinder type: 2 minute
Piano: Inja Stanović
Instrument: Broadwood (1910)
Room temperature: c.20°C
Temperatures tested: 30°C, 20°C and 10°C
Mechanical equipment: Edison Fireside – model B; Edison New recorder (1901) – glass diagram; brass flared horn (762mm by 355mm)
Digital equipment: pair of AKG414 microphones; pair of Neuman 184 microphones; Steinberg UR22 soundcard; DAW; wave-editor
Other equipment: thermochromic strips; USB microscope; portable incubator; fridge
Session 3: Six pianists – same piece – same equipment:
Piano: Sebastian Bausch, Peter Hill, Laura Granero, Inja Stanović, Phillip Thomas (TBA) and Jonathan Fisher (TBA)
Instrument: Broadwood (1910)
Mechanical equipment: Edison Fireside – model B; Edison New recorder (1901) – glass diagram; narrow zinc horn, 130 mm by 890 mm
Digital equipment: pair of AKG414 microphones; pair of Neuman 184 microphones; Steinberg UR22 soundcard; DAW
Session 4: Disc Recordings Violin
Violin: David Milsom
Mechanical equipment: traversing turn table disc recorder (2013); steel recording horn (660mm by 203mm); large zinc horn (280mm by 1100mm); sliding trunnion recorder (50mm diameter glass diaphragm)
Digital equipment: pair of Neuman 184 microphones; Steinberg UR22 soundcard; DAW
Session 5: Disc Recordings Violin and Piano
Violin: David Milsom
Piano: Inja Stanović
Mechanical equipment: traversing turn table disc recorder (2013); steel recording horn (660mm by 203mm); large zinc horn (280mm by 1100mm); sliding trunnion recorder (50mm diameter glass diaphragm)
Digital equipment: pair of AKG414 microphones; pair of Neuman 184 microphones; Steinberg UR22 soundcard; DAW
Session 6: Disc Recordings Horn and Piano
Natural horn: Jeroen Billiet
Piano: Inja Stanović
Mechanical equipment: traversing turn table disc recorder (2013); steel recording horn (660mm by 203mm); large zinc horn (280mm by 1100mm); sliding trunnion recorder (50mm diameter glass diaphragm)
Digital equipment: pair of AKG414 microphones; pair of DPA microphones; Steinberg UR22 soundcard; DAW
Session 7: TBA – Phonograph Recordings – Piano Trio
Session 8: TBA – Phonograph Recordings – Violin and Piano
Session 9: TBA – Phonograph Recordings – Cello and Piano
Session 10: TBA – Phonograph Recordings – Clarinet and Piano
Inja Stanović 