Musical Coherence Limitations...

[Ricky]

I was just watching the Tabernacle Choir and realized they had some 360 people singing in unison adequate to preserve the quality of the words being sung. It occurred that there may be a limit to how many people can sing in unison and still be understood.

This seems to me to be similar to coherence in physics, such as in lasers, but at the level of the phonemes, rather than the carrier wave. But then, frequency coherence may also be important.

--

Rick C.

- Get 1,000 miles of free Supercharging
- Tesla referral code - https://ts.la/richard11209

 

[Lasse Langwadt Christensen]

søndag den 7. maj 2023 kl. 16.41.11 UTC+2 skrev Ricky:

I was just watching the Tabernacle Choir and realized they had some 360 people singing in unison adequate to preserve the quality of the words being sung. It occurred that there may be a limit to how many people can sing in unison and still be understood.

This seems to me to be similar to coherence in physics, such as in lasers, but at the level of the phonemes, rather than the carrier wave. But then, frequency coherence may also be important.

here\'s close to 40000, https://youtu.be/xvnqmkkdyEo

 

[bitrex]

On 5/7/2023 10:41 AM, Ricky wrote:
> I was just watching the Tabernacle Choir and realized they had some 360 people singing in unison adequate to preserve the quality of the words being sung. It occurred that there may be a limit to how many people can sing in unison and still be understood.

Probably helps that the Tabernacle is designed for great acoustics and
its characteristics deeply analyzed:

<https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1708&context=etd;Acoustics>

therefore they can get away with just ambient micing, the claim is they
just have four Royer SF-2s on overhead duty for the whole choir:

<https://www.prosoundweb.com/royer-ribbon-microphones-for-the-tabernacle-choir-and-orchestra-at-temple-square/>

I\'m guessing when they\'re on tour in some random space that doesn\'t work
as well and they may have to close mic

This seems to me to be similar to coherence in physics, such as in lasers, but at the level of the phonemes, rather than the carrier wave. But then, frequency coherence may also be important.

\"How many can be sung in unison and still understood\" seems kind of an
under-defined question...understood where? At what position in what
space? Like if you\'re five feet away from a great singer you\'ll probably
understand just fine regardless of how many backup singers there are.
Are electronics allowed?

Once you start using mics and mixers and speakers/recording devices
there\'s a lot you can do, you can just close mic your dozen best singers
and have 500 more people that you mix proportionally lower in the mix
like Britney Spears.

 

[Joe Gwinn]

On Sun, 7 May 2023 07:41:07 -0700 (PDT), Ricky
<gnuarm.deletethisbit@gmail.com> wrote:

I was just watching the Tabernacle Choir and realized they had some 360 people singing in unison adequate to preserve the quality of the words being sung. It occurred that there may be a limit to how many people can sing in unison and still be understood.

This seems to me to be similar to coherence in physics, such as in lasers, but at the level of the phonemes, rather than the carrier wave. But then, frequency coherence may also be important.

The phasing of the singers is not random - each is actively trying to
match some kind of average of what\'s around them, so the model is a
flock of PLLs trying to match the average of that flock.

In the time domain, unison requires that time sync error not exceed
about twenty milliseconds.

For more data, dig into the computer music literature.

Joe Gwinn

 

[John May]

On Sunday, May 7, 2023 at 4:20:19 PM UTC+1, Lasse Langwadt Christensen wrote:

søndag den 7. maj 2023 kl. 16.41.11 UTC+2 skrev Ricky:
I was just watching the Tabernacle Choir and realized they had some 360 people singing in unison adequate to preserve the quality of the words being sung. It occurred that there may be a limit to how many people can sing in unison and still be understood.

This seems to me to be similar to coherence in physics, such as in lasers, but at the level of the phonemes, rather than the carrier wave. But then, frequency coherence may also be important.

here\'s close to 40000, https://youtu.be/xvnqmkkdyEo

I\'ll see your 60K and raise you 20K https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-k_uKIMSwgU

 

[John Larkin]

On Sun, 07 May 2023 12:30:06 -0400, Joe Gwinn <joegwinn@comcast.net>
wrote:

On Sun, 7 May 2023 07:41:07 -0700 (PDT), Ricky
gnuarm.deletethisbit@gmail.com> wrote:

I was just watching the Tabernacle Choir and realized they had some 360 people singing in unison adequate to preserve the quality of the words being sung. It occurred that there may be a limit to how many people can sing in unison and still be understood.

This seems to me to be similar to coherence in physics, such as in lasers, but at the level of the phonemes, rather than the carrier wave. But then, frequency coherence may also be important.

The phasing of the singers is not random - each is actively trying to
match some kind of average of what\'s around them, so the model is a
flock of PLLs trying to match the average of that flock.

In the time domain, unison requires that time sync error not exceed
about twenty milliseconds.

And sound propagates about 20 feet in that time. Round trip, 10 feet.

 

[Ricky]

On Sunday, May 7, 2023 at 11:20:19 AM UTC-4, Lasse Langwadt Christensen wrote:

søndag den 7. maj 2023 kl. 16.41.11 UTC+2 skrev Ricky:
I was just watching the Tabernacle Choir and realized they had some 360 people singing in unison adequate to preserve the quality of the words being sung. It occurred that there may be a limit to how many people can sing in unison and still be understood.

This seems to me to be similar to coherence in physics, such as in lasers, but at the level of the phonemes, rather than the carrier wave. But then, frequency coherence may also be important.

here\'s close to 40000, https://youtu.be/xvnqmkkdyEo

I wonder how much they would improve with training and a leader? Choirs and bands are not unlike military organizations, where you obey orders unquestioningly (or at least quietly, lol).

--

Rick C.

+ Get 1,000 miles of free Supercharging
+ Tesla referral code - https://ts.la/richard11209

 

[Ricky]

On Sunday, May 7, 2023 at 12:30:24 PM UTC-4, Joe Gwinn wrote:

On Sun, 7 May 2023 07:41:07 -0700 (PDT), Ricky
gnuarm.del...@gmail.com> wrote:

I was just watching the Tabernacle Choir and realized they had some 360 people singing in unison adequate to preserve the quality of the words being sung. It occurred that there may be a limit to how many people can sing in unison and still be understood.

This seems to me to be similar to coherence in physics, such as in lasers, but at the level of the phonemes, rather than the carrier wave. But then, frequency coherence may also be important.
The phasing of the singers is not random - each is actively trying to
match some kind of average of what\'s around them, so the model is a
flock of PLLs trying to match the average of that flock.

In the time domain, unison requires that time sync error not exceed
about twenty milliseconds.

Not sure what you mean by \"phasing\". If the best they can do is 20 ms, that\'s the wavelength of 50 Hz, so meaningless over the entire audible range. I assume you are referring to synching the other aspects of vocal music, other than phase?

--

Rick C.

-- Get 1,000 miles of free Supercharging
-- Tesla referral code - https://ts.la/richard11209

 

[bitrex]

On 5/7/2023 1:10 PM, Ricky wrote:

On Sunday, May 7, 2023 at 12:30:24 PM UTC-4, Joe Gwinn wrote:
On Sun, 7 May 2023 07:41:07 -0700 (PDT), Ricky
gnuarm.del...@gmail.com> wrote:

I was just watching the Tabernacle Choir and realized they had some 360 people singing in unison adequate to preserve the quality of the words being sung. It occurred that there may be a limit to how many people can sing in unison and still be understood.

This seems to me to be similar to coherence in physics, such as in lasers, but at the level of the phonemes, rather than the carrier wave. But then, frequency coherence may also be important.
The phasing of the singers is not random - each is actively trying to
match some kind of average of what\'s around them, so the model is a
flock of PLLs trying to match the average of that flock.

In the time domain, unison requires that time sync error not exceed
about twenty milliseconds.

Not sure what you mean by \"phasing\". If the best they can do is 20 ms, that\'s the wavelength of 50 Hz, so meaningless over the entire audible range. I assume you are referring to synching the other aspects of vocal music, other than phase?

I think any choir of appreciable size is going to have a conductor so
each individual ideally isn\'t relying just on all their neighbors for
timing.

Wrt phase:

\"Mathematically, the phase synchronization is defined by the
property that the phase difference is bounded within a finite range for
an infinite duration of time [2]. Such strict definition, however, may
not be applied to the choir singing, because chorus is inherently a
transient process with occasional occurrence of switching among
different notes. Even within a single note, the frequency ratio
fluctuates to some extent. In a long span of time, the phase difference
may eventually diverge to a large value. Hence, to apply the idea of
phase synchronization to chorus, we need to relax the definition to
adapt to a practical situation that the phase difference is bounded
within a small enough range in a finite and stationary duration of
musical note in a choir singing\"

from:

<file:///C:/Users/Fujitsu%20Owner/Downloads/Synchronization_analysis_of_choir_singing.pdf>

The take away seems to be that with experienced choir singers phase
difference between the singers tends to be bounded over some suitably
short time interval.

 

[bitrex]

On 5/7/2023 12:59 PM, John Larkin wrote:

On Sun, 07 May 2023 12:30:06 -0400, Joe Gwinn <joegwinn@comcast.net
wrote:

On Sun, 7 May 2023 07:41:07 -0700 (PDT), Ricky
gnuarm.deletethisbit@gmail.com> wrote:

I was just watching the Tabernacle Choir and realized they had some 360 people singing in unison adequate to preserve the quality of the words being sung. It occurred that there may be a limit to how many people can sing in unison and still be understood.

This seems to me to be similar to coherence in physics, such as in lasers, but at the level of the phonemes, rather than the carrier wave. But then, frequency coherence may also be important.

The phasing of the singers is not random - each is actively trying to
match some kind of average of what\'s around them, so the model is a
flock of PLLs trying to match the average of that flock.

In the time domain, unison requires that time sync error not exceed
about twenty milliseconds.

And sound propagates about 20 feet in that time. Round trip, 10 feet.

I think whether some \"idealized choir\" of synchronized oscillators
sounds musically pleasing, which is an issue of all the oscillators
being largely on-time and on-pitch, is a somewhat different issue than
preserving the \"quality of the words being sung\" which I think also
requires preservation and alignment of the transients.

 

[Don Y]

On 5/7/2023 9:33 AM, John May wrote:

On Sunday, May 7, 2023 at 4:20:19 PM UTC+1, Lasse Langwadt Christensen wrote:

here\'s close to 40000, https://youtu.be/xvnqmkkdyEo

I\'ll see your 60K and raise you 20K https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-k_uKIMSwgU

Double or nothing?

<https://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/world-records/largest-choir>

 

[Don Y]

On 5/7/2023 8:53 AM, bitrex wrote:

\"How many can be sung in unison and still understood\"  seems kind of an
under-defined question...understood where? At what position in what space? Like
if you\'re five feet away from a great singer you\'ll probably understand just
fine regardless of how many backup singers there are. Are electronics allowed?

Once you start using mics and mixers and speakers/recording devices there\'s a
lot you can do, you can just close mic your dozen best singers and have 500
more people that you mix proportionally lower in the mix like Britney Spears.

And, what content? Singing a tibetan chant in (aparent) unison
is probably a lot easier to claim as \"understandable\" than,
for example /La Bamba/.

 

[Don Y]

On 5/7/2023 10:36 AM, bitrex wrote:

I think any choir of appreciable size is going to have a conductor so each
individual ideally isn\'t relying just on all their neighbors for timing.

Light (i.e., image of conductor) travels much faster than the sound
from the center of the crowd to its periphery (if you\'ve ever been to a
large performance with \"audience participation\")

 

[Lasse Langwadt Christensen]

søndag den 7. maj 2023 kl. 19.06.37 UTC+2 skrev Ricky:

On Sunday, May 7, 2023 at 11:20:19 AM UTC-4, Lasse Langwadt Christensen wrote:
søndag den 7. maj 2023 kl. 16.41.11 UTC+2 skrev Ricky:
I was just watching the Tabernacle Choir and realized they had some 360 people singing in unison adequate to preserve the quality of the words being sung. It occurred that there may be a limit to how many people can sing in unison and still be understood.

This seems to me to be similar to coherence in physics, such as in lasers, but at the level of the phonemes, rather than the carrier wave. But then, frequency coherence may also be important.

here\'s close to 40000, https://youtu.be/xvnqmkkdyEo
I wonder how much they would improve with training and a leader? Choirs and bands are not unlike military organizations, where you obey orders unquestioningly (or at least quietly, lol).

considering few of them are singers and many of them had more than a few pints, probably quite alot

 

[Joe Gwinn]

On Sun, 7 May 2023 10:10:15 -0700 (PDT), Ricky
<gnuarm.deletethisbit@gmail.com> wrote:

On Sunday, May 7, 2023 at 12:30:24?PM UTC-4, Joe Gwinn wrote:
On Sun, 7 May 2023 07:41:07 -0700 (PDT), Ricky
gnuarm.del...@gmail.com> wrote:

I was just watching the Tabernacle Choir and realized they had some 360 people singing in unison adequate to preserve the quality of the words being sung. It occurred that there may be a limit to how many people can sing in unison and still be understood.

This seems to me to be similar to coherence in physics, such as in lasers, but at the level of the phonemes, rather than the carrier wave. But then, frequency coherence may also be important.
The phasing of the singers is not random - each is actively trying to
match some kind of average of what\'s around them, so the model is a
flock of PLLs trying to match the average of that flock.

In the time domain, unison requires that time sync error not exceed
about twenty milliseconds.

Not sure what you mean by \"phasing\". If the best they can do is 20 ms, that\'s the wavelength of 50 Hz, so meaningless over the entire audible range. I assume you are referring to synching the other aspects of vocal music, other than phase?

Nothing so mathematical as that. The twenty milliseconds is
experimentally determined, and is the typical limit that if exceeded,
unison is lost, which is quite audible.

Joe Gwinn

 

[Ricky]

On Sunday, May 7, 2023 at 2:56:24 PM UTC-4, Joe Gwinn wrote:

On Sun, 7 May 2023 10:10:15 -0700 (PDT), Ricky
gnuarm.del...@gmail.com> wrote:
On Sunday, May 7, 2023 at 12:30:24?PM UTC-4, Joe Gwinn wrote:
On Sun, 7 May 2023 07:41:07 -0700 (PDT), Ricky
gnuarm.del...@gmail.com> wrote:

I was just watching the Tabernacle Choir and realized they had some 360 people singing in unison adequate to preserve the quality of the words being sung. It occurred that there may be a limit to how many people can sing in unison and still be understood.

This seems to me to be similar to coherence in physics, such as in lasers, but at the level of the phonemes, rather than the carrier wave. But then, frequency coherence may also be important.
The phasing of the singers is not random - each is actively trying to
match some kind of average of what\'s around them, so the model is a
flock of PLLs trying to match the average of that flock.

In the time domain, unison requires that time sync error not exceed
about twenty milliseconds.

Not sure what you mean by \"phasing\". If the best they can do is 20 ms, that\'s the wavelength of 50 Hz, so meaningless over the entire audible range.. I assume you are referring to synching the other aspects of vocal music, other than phase?
Nothing so mathematical as that. The twenty milliseconds is
experimentally determined, and is the typical limit that if exceeded,
unison is lost, which is quite audible.

Sorry, I have no idea what you are talking about. You clearly have no idea what question I am asking. I give up.

--

Rick C.

-+ Get 1,000 miles of free Supercharging
-+ Tesla referral code - https://ts.la/richard11209

 

[John S]

On 5/7/2023 10:20 AM, Lasse Langwadt Christensen wrote:

søndag den 7. maj 2023 kl. 16.41.11 UTC+2 skrev Ricky:
I was just watching the Tabernacle Choir and realized they had some 360 people singing in unison adequate to preserve the quality of the words being sung. It occurred that there may be a limit to how many people can sing in unison and still be understood.

This seems to me to be similar to coherence in physics, such as in lasers, but at the level of the phonemes, rather than the carrier wave. But then, frequency coherence may also be important.


here\'s close to 40000, https://youtu.be/xvnqmkkdyEo

Sounds the way scrambled eggs look.

 

[Martin Brown]

On 07/05/2023 15:41, Ricky wrote:

I was just watching the Tabernacle Choir and realized they had some
360 people singing in unison adequate to preserve the quality of the
words being sung. It occurred that there may be a limit to how many
people can sing in unison and still be understood.

Provided that they have the music in front of them and a conductor you
can have very large choirs that sound fine from in front of them. Speed
of light allows them to be well synchronised to each other.

Things fall apart when echoes from the walls or path differences become
comparable with the length of a phoneme. Some big UK cathedrals are very
difficult for readers because the first echo comes back at them strongly
and with the right timing to trigger stuttering in anyone susceptible.

This seems to me to be similar to coherence in physics, such as in
lasers, but at the level of the phonemes, rather than the carrier
wave. But then, frequency coherence may also be important.

It is a general rule that apart from in stimulated emission an object
cannot change brightness faster than the light travel time across it.

--
Martin Brown