The Personal Orchestra, or Audio Data Compression by 10, 000: 1

Virtually all of western classical music could be recorded and stored on a singls computer disk and rendered on a music system costing as much as a good piano. To demonstrate and explore this, I built a system for audio and musical research which permits a workstation to control 64 synthesizers and a computerized Bösendorfer Imperial concert grand piano. It is easy to assemble and play complex scores on the piano accompanied by a synthetic orchestra. Examples here include a fully orchestrated ultravirtuoso arrangement of FranzLiszt's "third" piano concerto, the Totentanz. Therc are also families of analytical programs that parse musical data to identify key, melodies, and other interesting features. Since a performer generates about 3 kilobytes per mínute of gestural data, the volume of recorded information is small: Moby Díckuses more space than all of Scott Joplin's piano music; Bach's is 6 megab¡es. Consequently, even elementary processing provides great leverage over such concentrated information. This will open ne\il avenues for entertainment media, while retaining a grand orchestral, yet personal, perspective. @ Computing Systems, Yol. 3 . No. 2 . Spring 1990 289 It would be quite possible to arrange to control a distant computer by means of a telephone line. Alan M. Turing, foreseeing terminal-modem hookup, in his lecture to the London Mathematical Society, 1947. Extraordinary how potent cheap music ís. Noel Coward, 1932.