We had a lovely time at Origin Rang's Live Music concert!
Posted on: October 13, 2007
After an enduring week of work, Ravenelle and I were scanning the Live Music event listings inworld yesterday after getting all dolled up in plausibly 18th-century garb — you could call us The Captain + My Fair Lady. I spotted what looked like a promising programme by solo pianist Origin Rang @ Oyster Bay; I was like, "If this guy plays these pieces well, this'll be really great!"
We TPed, with some difficulty; the region was crammed to the max. of 40 avatars, and I had to repeatedly try to walk in… finally, I made it, and we got seated on a bench overlooking the grounds. Unlike "RL", in Second Life, camscanning is the music lover's overcompensation for distant seating. No opera glasses needed.
The music started unassumingly enough, and while I heard a piano-ish sound, it seemed to lack bass presence on the low notes, and a curious sparseness of sustain pedal during the final page (and I know it 'cuz I've played it) of Liszt's "La Campanella". But before we knew it, the magic arose, and never left the stage until Origin Rang did — brilliantly-executed arpeggiati, extremely clean runs up and down the ivories, and what my wife termed "fluttery" parts moved from one to the next. And gosh, endurance to match! One challenging piece after another! It wasn't all brash and fast either, because there were a number of very slow, willing passages. The programme consisted of (nevermind the misspellings):
<<Franz LIST>>
1 Liebestraume No3
2 La Campanella
3 Hungarian Rhapsodies No2<<Fryderyk Chopin>>
4 Etude Op.10-5 in Gb Major Black Key
5 Etude Op.25-11 in A Minor Winter Wind
6 Etude Op.25-12 in C Minor The Ocean
7 Nocturne No.2 Op.9-2 in Eb Major
8 Etude Op.10-12 in C Minor Revolutionary
9 Fantasie-Impromptu Op.66 in C#Minor
10 Sonata Op. 58 No. 3 in b minor (FULL)
11 Prelude Op.28-15 in Db Major Raindrop<<Sergey Rachmaninov>>
12 Prelude Op3-2
13 Piano Sonata No.1 in D minor Op.28 (FULL)
As you can clearly see, a smorgasbord of classical music's greatest hits. Or, in other words, you may not know the names, but you know the melodies — perhaps you've heard them in a historical documentary or a Looney Tunes cartoon. What was one of the highlights? Definitely Origin's performance of Chopin's "Raindrop" prelude, AKA "THE MUSIC FROM THE HALO 3 ADS!" It was so badass to hear it performed live. I could almost see Master Chief facing off against the Covenant… that's how my mind works! The only piece I wasn't acquainted with was the final one, which Origin explained would be 13-something minutes long. And OMG, what a doozy.
I grew up attending classical concerts and playing piano to match, and I was not only impressed, but emotionally enthralled by this experience! It was even better that I was accompanied by such a distinguished lady of fine taste, AKA my beloved Ravie.
And during it all, in true Torley fashion, I captured images of the event in a Flickr photoset. Apparently, just as my wife foresaw, I'm a WindLight tease! My friends, it's coming.
For more info on Origin Rang and Oyster Bay, be sure to see Morris Vig's Second Arts blog. I've visited Oyster Bay a number of times, and I'd like to thank Morris for his kindness and for his support of the arts… they've definitely got a goldmine with Origin Rang. I can't help but wonder what sort of career he's had outside of Second Life?
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October 13th, 2007 at 4:46 PM PDT
I had heard about Origin when he played at Oyster Bay some months ago, but he played at my European night, so I couldn't attend back then. But I read about the performance and how great he played, so when I saw he played again, I just had to be there. And I'm very glad I was there now.
I also enjoyed seeing your pics come in at Snapzilla during the show
A good thing about Oyster Bay is that it's two regions. Oyster was really full, but people could still enter the Shepherd part and listen from there.
October 14th, 2007 at 9:17 AM PDT
Thanks for the pics I enjoyed them. Did you have the impostor setting on for any of the crowd scenes?
October 14th, 2007 at 5:35 PM PDT
Thanks for the plug, Torley - I'm so glad you and Ravenelle enjoyed the show!
Considering my (well-received) jab at your showing off WindLight to those of us who have been starving for it since the FirstLook viewer went away, I am really quite tickled that you offered up a whole gallery of images that make Oyster Bay look better than it ever has! What a treat.
Please know that you're welcome to play Oyster Bay live if you wish….just let me know when you'd like to come by!
October 15th, 2007 at 6:50 AM PDT
Torley - question on WindLight. Have you tested it at all with a much more average card. Say like my Nvidia GeForce 7900GS with only 256mb memory? Just wondering what a more average experience will be like. Most of us don't have your rig ^^ *thanks!!*
October 25th, 2007 at 3:02 AM PDT
NICE GRAFIKS!!!
I ment…wow, the graphics are specatcular.
Oh btw, nice site (the logo reminds me of a MoreLikeBlue character, if you don't know what that is…search it up on Google)
October 27th, 2007 at 11:51 AM PDT
@Gillian: I've tested WindLight on my older machine which has a 7800GT and aside from earlier bugs which were fixed (specifically quirks with VBO on), it was fine. I'm glad you asked, because we DEFINITELY intend to take advantage of doing a public First Look in order to gain Residents' experiences on a MUCH wider variety of hardware than we could possibly fill our testing lab with.
Long story short, a computer that meets our System Recommendations (which are currently being updated to support Windows Vista) should be fine with WindLight… and if it's unacceptably slow, then there are most likely bugs that need to be worked out. There are also different levels of quality you can turn on, e.g., water reflections for EVERYTHING is *very* intensive, but at the same time, WindLight devs have worked a lot to optimize many things to provide a net overall performance gain compared to the current viewer.
@Morris: Happy to share my feelings about a remarkable inworld experience! THIS is why I'm in Second Life! And thanks for the jab too, it was really motivational. Hehe… and I'll take a so-called "rain cheque" on the live performance bit too. =o)
@Nina: Yes, I did. There are some where you can see slight fringing around avatars when impostors is on, which is a bug which should be fixed in a newer build. Overall, I've found impostors to be WELL worth the 10-20 FPS increase it typically provides me in HEAVY crowds, and even better, since it's an option, it can be turned off at will.
@Daed: Glad to see you at the show too! It was funny because I was camscanning closely, then recognized your head w/glasses. I had a hard time getting into the show because the house was full, but eventually crossed through the region border and sat down with Ravie.
October 27th, 2007 at 11:59 AM PDT
@Groovy: Thanx much! I'm gonna check out MoreLikeBlue too.
October 28th, 2007 at 6:05 PM PDT
Ah yes, my pink & green 3D glasses (used to be solid black, but I did like a bit of alpha to get the eyes shown a little), you can't miss them
October 30th, 2007 at 8:23 AM PDT
TY! *sighs relief*
November 2nd, 2007 at 9:31 AM PDT
Nice pictures that make want to have more. When will it be possible to have a preview of windlight ?
Thank you
November 4th, 2007 at 6:00 PM PST
I continue to do WindLight project updates here:
» https://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/User:Torley_Linden/Project_updates
and as for "when" I don't have an ETA, but SOON, and I hope no showstopping bugs will get in our way (as that's happened several times already)…