IT'S LATE WEDNESDAY MORNING, and First Church of Christ, Scientist in Carmel, California, is empty. So, naturally, Michael Nesmith wants to fill it with music. He taps on a computer keyboard for a minute and notches up the volume – not quite to 11, but loud enough to feel in your bones. The piece, Tomas Albinoni's Adagio for Strings, is familiar – it was used as theme music in Gallipoli – but Nesmith and Calvin, the virtual pipe organ he designed, have transformed it into something spectacular.
Calvin – short for computer-aided live venue instrument – consists of a Dell computer, six powered JBL speakers, and an 18-inch subwoofer. Its modest wooden cabinet sits a couple feet from the console of the church's regular organ, with its floor-to-ceiling pipes. But Calvin's sonic range dwarfs that of its neighbor. "It sounds like the organ, but it's so much better," Nesmith says, as Albinoni's piece, ethereal and startlingly crisp, swirls around us.
Traditional pipe organs are one-man orchestras, versatile instruments that can mimic the sounds of violins, cellos, woodwinds, and brass. But even the most dexterous organist, limited to 10 fingers and two feet, couldn't take on a complex, layered piece like the Adagio. "The organ could play it, but the organist couldn't," Nesmith says.
Calvin, however, can play just about anything, and Nesmith has programmed in church hymns, Mozart, and, for kicks, Sting's "Fields of Gold." Calvin's secret is a database from NDB, a Hungarian company that recorded more than 3,000 tones from two of the world's finest organs, capturing every sound in their Budapest cathedrals, including the reverb of the music off the stone walls. Teaching Calvin a new piece means matching these organ samples to the original instrumentation. Adagio for Strings is usually played by a 50-piece orchestra. To make it work on Calvin, Nesmith programmed a series of digital files that tell the system to select organ sounds that best represent each of those instruments. Some files for individual instruments are available online, and all Nesmith has to do is rearrange and mix them. Other times, Nesmith "plays" the information in himself. The result is not quite the same as live music, but it's far better than a CD. Closing my eyes during Calvin's performance of Bach's Passacaglia and Fugue in C Minor, I'm briefly transported from this wood-paneled, teal-carpeted church in Carmel to a soaring cathedral in Budapest.
Nesmith – yes, we're talking about the former member of the Monkees – is a bona fide digital media visionary. A pioneer of music television and an author of early hypertext fiction, he also helped produce the films Repo Man and Tapeheads and started the seminal home video company Pacific Arts. Not surprisingly, his current project has met some resistance. Most of the Carmel congregation seems to appreciate Calvin (Nesmith says some wept during its first performance of the Adagio), but a few churchgoers have grumbled. Machine-made music in their place of worship? No thanks. Plus, the regular organist feels threatened. "I can't play like that," she told Nesmith after Calvin's inaugural show.
Nesmith doesn't intend to put musicians out of work, but in his soft-spoken way he is on a mission. "Typically, church music hasn't been at the top of my list of things that are inspiring," he says, fiddling with Calvin's controls. "If I'm in a good environment where people can really sing and play, that for me turns into church. That's as high as I get." Nesmith leans back as the opening chords of Ravel's exquisite Pavane pour une infante défunte spread through the sanctuary. "At least," he says, "this is played well."
– Jason Silverman
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Grinding the Organ
