Reverberations: An 8-bit approach to J.S. Bach
This post reminded me of my Senior year of EE, we were supposed to do a senior project and I decided I wanted to make a custom IC to play music (our University has a chip fab facility). Keep in mind this was 1978 so the size of the chip was goin to be limited given our facility. I did not know a lot about music, I knew I liked music but I just didn&#x27;t know a lot about the theory behind it. So I decided to take a music class as an elective. After I enrolled in the class I was told by fellow students that this class was &quot;an easy A&quot;. I was tempted to drop the class because I was not looking for an easy A I was looking to learn about music. On the first day of the course the professor was an older, grey haired older gentleman. He explained that the course would be composed of some music theory and some listening. We were to go to listening rooms and listen to various pieces of classical music and become familiar enough with the music to be able to identify it when hearing it. Again, it was 1978 so the music rooms contained vinyl records and record players and headphones. Our first Quiz came and the professor played various records and we were to identify each piece. To my surprise and amazement the other students were able to easily identify each piece. I was not able to pick out even one. The music theory part I was picking up easily but the listening part I was struggling with. I spoke with the professor and explained to him what my project was and he seemed very interested. We got into a long discussion about it which I was really excited about that he was so interested in what I was doing. I explained to him that part of my dilemma was to fit the notes into a small amount of memory that I would be able to fit into the chip I was making. He suggested that I look into Bach, specifically Fugues because there was a lot of repetition, sometimes the same notes simply shifted in tone etc. That was excellent advice. I continued listening, more and more time in the listening rooms but for some reason I was just not picking up on how to identify the music as easily as the other students in the class. I finally asked a fellow student how he was able to do it so easily. He said that everyone in the class had notes that he showed me, the notes said things like &quot;blue label with yellow writing&quot;, &quot;red label, blue writing&quot; and other such things relating to the appearance of the labels on the records. Again, it was 1978, and the professor would hold up the record to the light, then place it on the turn table before playing each piece, the other students would then refer to their notes which they had prepared in the listening room.  They were cheating.  I really liked this professor who I had forged a relationship with so I went to him and explained to him what was going on and that people had told me his class was an easy A. He thanked me and asked how my project was going and we talked about that. He didn&#x27;t seem mad or perturbed particularly. He mentioned that he would appreciate if I brought my project by and show it to him when I finished it and I said I would. The final exam day came and I had continued the listening sessions and had decided not to cheat like everyone else, I really wanted to learn about music. I was really glad I made that decision because for the final there was a written theory portion and a listening and identifying part. The professor brought out a tape deck (reel to reel) and would start and stop it for each piece or portion of a piece we were to identify. You could hear the air go out of everyone&#x27;s lungs in the class (except me). I got a little smile and proceeded to identify each piece to my own surprise.   Later after I had presented my project to my EE professors (and got an A for it) I took it to my music professor and showed it to him, he really liked it, I had hard coded Toccata Fugue in D-minor. He revealed to me that I was the only one in the class that passed (I got a Not so easy but satisfying A).  He flunked everyone but me !  I kinda felt bad about that for about one minute.