The CMR Spotlight
Reinhold Behringer
Reinhold Behringer was born in 1963 in the little town of Iphofen in the Franconian Wineland, Southern Germany. His first musical exposure came from his grandmother, who gave private piano lessons to students in the town, and also taught him to read and play his first notes. At the age of 5 he began playing the melodium, (a kind of a flute with a piano-style keyboard), followed by 'cello lessons at age 9 and piano at age 10. The piano lessons continued for another eight years. Reinhold describes his teacher's unique approach: "She always was teaching me four pieces at a time: a piece from Bach's time, a Viennese classical, a romantic, and a 20th century one. This gave me the opportunity throughout my lessons to compare the music of these major epochs. I could observe that my musical preference actually changed very chronologically."
Another formative experience was hearing Tomita's electronic version of Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition at age 14. "I was fascinated by the seemingly endless possibilities of this medium and the freedom this technology gives to a single person in order to create the appropriate sound. I also envisioned that the upcoming advent of the computer age could finally take away the burden from the player to exercise endlessly in order to overcome the technical difficulties of the music pieces." In the 1980's, Reinhold attended the University of Würzburg, where he studied physics, and specifically, semiconductors. During this period he maintained an interest in music, especially 20th century masters such as Janácek, Kodaly, Bartok, Stravinsky, Prokofiev, and Shostakovich. He also spent countless hours improvising at the piano, and took his first plunge into electronic music with the aid of an Atari XL600 computer. While spending a year as an exchange student in Buffalo, New York, he became intrigued with personal computers.
After completing a Master's degree in physics in 1990, he chose to pursue a doctorate degree in the new area of computer vision and robotics. He moved to Munich, where he conducted research on visual road recognition systems in automatic cars. The rich wealth of culture in Munich further stimulated Reinhold's interest in classical music. Upon hearing a recording of Wendy Carlos' Switched-On Bach 2000 he decided to resume creating electronic classical music. His first MIDI efforts, dating from 1993, were step-sequenced. He eventually acquired a Yamaha PSR-16 keyboard, which made it easier to sequence complex scores such as Dvorák's New World Symphony and Borodin's Polovtsian Dances. Reinhold describes his earliest MIDI experiences as "disappointing, because when I had a chance to play my sequences on another MIDI keyboard - they sounded awful! Despite GM compliance, the sound difference, especially the interpretation of volume, expression, and velocity, was enormous. From now on, I only sequenced for my GM soundcard in order to obtain a relatively "portable" sound balance." In 1995 he began using a Yamaha MU-80 MIDI tone generator, with Cakewalk 6.0. He later expanded his sound studio to include a Roland A-30 MIDI controller, an EMU Launch Pad, an Anatek Wind Machine, a Yamaha breath controller, and a 200 MHz AMD K6 PC with a SoundBlaster AWE 64 gold card and an Echo Gina digital I/O card. The first score he sequenced with the MU-80 was one of his favorites: Bedrich Smetana's Moldau . That sequence made him famous on the Internet. "I got many encouraging emails and made quite a few new friends world-wide. The sequence even made it into the homepage of the Cleveland Orchestra."
In 1996 he moved to the U.S. and began working as a research scientist at the Rockwell Science Center in Thousand Oaks, California. In his spare time he continues to create MIDI files, but with a new approach. "I had realized that often MIDI files sound very mechanical. Therefore, I experimented a bit with purely live input, recorded one voice at a time. I also experimented with a breath controller, which can produce a stream of controller values from breath pressure. After entering the notes, I 'fine-tune' velocity depending on the score instructions. Sometimes I quantize note locations, sometimes not. I then add expression controls (#11) to each channel in a separate track, either with the breath controller, with an external potentiometer (EMU launch pad), or by drawing lines with the mouse. Then I enter tempo changes at the appropriate places." With this new technique, Reinhold is able to sequence up to 8-10 measures of a full orchestral score (16 channels) in a single hour.
In the future he hopes to sequence Stravinsky's Firebird and Petruschka, Prokofiev's Romeo and Juliet, and several other important 20th century works. He's also progressed into the art of composing original music. ".. today's MIDI technology gives the 'amateur composer' a really valuable instrument at hand - a full virtual orchestra at home. I want to make use of this opportunity." His first work - Tristan and Siegfried Meet Isolde, a kind of a musical collage of motives by Richard Wagner - is available for listening at his website The Virtual Philharmonic, and on his new CD mentioned below.
Reinhold has released his first CD of his MIDI sequences, called Digital Inspirations, and it's available on his popular MP3.COM site for The Virtual Philharmonic.