Do you know where the front of the piano is? It apparently turns out that too many engineers don’t. And it turns out that I was one of them.
The other day, I opened up an email I got from Stumble Upon to peruse some new links, and came across this gem on Daniel Farris’s blog: Piano Recording: The Dumbest Popular Wisdom in Modern Record Making
Now I have not actually done any research on the piano to fact check Daniel’s post, so take all this with a grain of salt (I have some questions, too. Like what about the upright piano? Where’s the front of this instrument?).
The reason I felt inspired to share this idea with you, is because reading Daniel’s post caused me to have some epiphanies about the general understanding of capturing recordings in stereo, which I hope to further dissect and discuss. Whether or not Daniel’s post originates from knowledge that actually does reside in the history books, the ideas shared in his post are still valid in the field of creative recording, and illuminates a technique worth significant study, practice, and use. Not to mention that whenever you attend a piano recital, the instrument is positioned as Daniel has described.
For now I simply wanted to share this learning experience. Here’s the link to Daniel’s blog post: [http://danielfarris.wordpress.com/2009/02/23/piano-recording-the-dumbest-popular-wisdom-in-modern-record-making/]
Photo by woodleywonderworks. Licensed under a Creative Commons License.
Comments
You know, as a piano player myself, this doesn’t surprise me really. I’ve always considered being perpendicular to the grand piano as the most optimal spot to listen, and it seems silly to record it so up close and personal. I wonder if this partly caught on for isolation reasons – if you’re recording a bunch of instruments in one room, it would be disadvantageous to stick a couple mics out in the room to capture the piano because of all the bleed from other instruments.
Front of an upright – that would be what you would consider the back, when looking at the keyboard. That’s why the mesh covering over the backs of most – it’s covering the soundboard, like a speaker. Sadly though, most uprights get stuffed up against some wall for space reasons.
But I don’t claim to know anything… I’m not an engineer.
Hey Burns-
Yeah, that’s a good thought. I didn’t consider how our current technique of capturing piano may have caught on. Your thought about engineers looking for a way to minimize bleed may, in fact, have something to do with it all.
Thanks for keying me in on the orientation of the upright. I had a suspicion it was as you said, but as you also mentioned, I’ve never seen an upright that was not shoved against a wall.
You may not call yourself an engineer, but I know you’ve clued me in on a few things which will serve as the basis for experimentation the next time I set out to record a piano-upright or otherwise. Thanks, buddy.
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