Soung-Bum’s 20th Century Cello Pieces

From the middle Ages to Baroque to Classical Romantic, Western music has changed the look of musical instruments as well as musical technique. In the early days, the music played in the church and the court became popular to public and as a result, instruments have been changed to sound bigger and farther. It is both interesting to play the music of the past with modern instruments and to play the modern music with the past instruments.

The 20th century composers, who are close to us, comprehend the characteristics of each instrument and know how to deliver their musical composition with instruments. In the 20th century music, many different parts of musical notes can be converted into “sound”. On this album, you can listen to a variety of music and sounds like Marin Marais’s two viola da gamba, instrumental music to movie soundtracks, but it’s as natural as if it has just one theme.

This 20th century music played by Jeehyung Moon is recorded in almost the same sound as the real ear listening in the studio. In music production processing, people often boost the high frequency of the instrument by equalizer, reduce the dynamics of music by compressor, or add resonance through the digital reverb to make it sound better. Since these methods are not used at all on this album, the sound of the high frequency may be calm and perhaps sounds at rather than the ordinary cello recorded sound. In many recordings of the cello, the sound of cello is becoming more like violas and violins. However, the cello can be defined as midrange musical instrument close to the human voice which is not too low like a contrabass, nor too high like a violin.

That’s why the music we play on cellos is more sensitive to our ears and has a big impact on our emotions. If we make the high-end bright with the equalizer in the production of this record, you might hear the sound of the cello more colorful when playing with computer speakers.

However, in large volumes above a certain level, such as real instrument sound, the high frequency becomes too strong. It could be the reason why the instrument sounds unnatural. Because the tone and length of the sound are different in between playing the instrument quietly and loudly, the natural sound of the space can be varied. On the other hand, using digital reverb can make the music flatten regardless of whether you play loudly or not, because the length and tone of the sound are the same. The reverberation of the space that moves like dancing along with the cello is also a part of the music of this record, so please listen to the beginning and end of the sound and also the fading sound of reverb.

Bin Lee, Translation

Post photo by Jon Tyson on Unsplash