The Times - UK (2020-10-17)

the times | Saturday October 17 2020 2GM 23

News

Nancy May, a

singer, has

teamed up with

Tim Wander, a

radio historian,

to recreate the

voice of Dame

Nellie Melba, left

century, Mr Wander’s decade-long in-

terest in her has still produced crucial

historical information.

A rumour has long been spread that

the first live British radio broadcast

with Melba was recorded; Mr Wander

has succeeded in proving it. Detailed in

two of his books, including From Melba

You hum it

and we’ll

know it,

Google says

Tom Knowles

The next time you have a song stuck in

your head but cannot remember who

wrote it, hum, whistle or sing into the

Google search engine and it will tell you

who the composer was.

Google said that it was using

machine learning algorithms to help to

identify potential song matches. It

revealed the feature at an event held via

video about updates to its search

engine.

It says that lyrics or the name of an

artist is not needed — and adds that

being perfect pitch is not necessary.

“Do you know that song that goes,

‘Da daaaa da da daaaa na naa naa

ooohh yeah’? Or the one that starts

with the guitar chords going, ‘Da na na

naa’?” Google said.

“We’ll show you the most likely

options based on the tune. Then you

can select the best match and explore

information on the song and artist,

view any accompanying music videos

or listen to the song on your favourite

music app, find the lyrics, read analysis

and even check out other recordings of

the song when available.”

For mobile phone users the tool can

be deployed by tapping the microphone

icon in the search bar and saying,

“What’s this song?” before humming

for 10 to 15 seconds. Those with the

Google Assistant on their device are

able to ask “Hey Google, what’s this

song?” and then hum the tune.

The company also announced up-

dates for Google Maps, including an

expansion of its live business indicator

to “millions” more places. Information

about the health and safety precautions

businesses are taking during the

pandemic will also be provided.

Google spoke about how advance-

ments in its artificial intelligence pro-

grammes meant that its search engine

was getting better at understanding

language, including the improved abil-

ity to understand misspelt words.

It said that one in ten queries includ-

ed a spelling mistake and the latest

update “makes a greater improvement

to spelling than all of our improve-

ments over the last five years”.

to Marconi, published this year to mark

the centenary of the first broadcast, Mr

Wander found photographic evidence

in a rare copy of the 1920 edition of the

Société Française Radio-Électrique

(SFR) journal.

The photograph showed two engi-

neers in the SFR lab in Paris recording

the broadcast onto large and extremely

delicate wax discs. Whether these discs

still survive and where they are now,

however, is unknown. “The hunt for the

discs is still on,” Mr Wander said. “Find-

ing them would definitely put you on

Antiques Roadshow.”

Innovation brings sound of greatness

back to life, leading article, page 31

TOM NICHOLSON FOR THE TIMES

Her voice was described by one critic as

one of the loveliest ever, “delicious in its

fullness, richness and purity”. Yet no

one today can hear the voice of the

celebrated Australian opera singer

Dame Nellie Melba in its original

trilling glory.

Although recordings were made dur-

ing her lifetime, the lack of advanced

technology has meant that none cap-

tured her accurately, and it seemed that

her unique sound would be lost. But

now, in an attempt to recover this im-

portant fragment of musical history,

Tim Wander, a radio historian, and

Nancy May, a singer, are work-

ing to recreate Melba’s dis-

tinctive voice as adoring

audiences heard it a

century ago.

As a coloratura

soprano, Melba,

whose performing

career lasted from

the 1880s to 1930,

had the highest

possible vocal

range, producing an

even sound across

three octaves. The reg-

isters of her voice were

so well balanced that they

appeared as one — even to a

leading throat specialist — and her

trills were so perfect that they caused

20ft of level oscillations when scientifi-

cally measured.

This talent led Melba, born Helen

Porter Mitchell, to international star-

dom, with frequent invitations to sing

for royalty and recipes such as Peach

Melba and Melba Toast created for her.

Known to challenge rivals while

they were on stage by singing over them

as she waited in the wings, she was

said to be both inimitable and intimi-

Singer helping

to revive voice of

Nellie Melba in all

its trilling glory

Sara Tor dating. The plan for reproducing her
voice, expected to be completed next
year, is to use a microphone and trans-
mitter from the era and record sound
played from a crystal radio using
modern equipment. Ms May, 27, will
sing Home Sweet Home from John
Howard Payne’s 1823 opera Clari, Maid
of Milan. The recording will be digitised
and analysed to understand the extent
to which the equipment distorts it.
The song has been chosen to com-
memorate Melba singing it during the
first live British radio broadcast for the
Marconi Company. Her singing was
broadcast to homes across Europe on
June 15, 1920, from a makeshift studio in
Chelmsford, Essex.
“Dame Nellie was such a
brilliant singer and the
first person to sing live
on British radio,” Ms
May said. “She is a
huge part of our
history.”
In order to train
her voice to repli-
cate Melba’s as
closely as possible,
Ms May has been
studying the prima
donna’s vocal
methods. Melba was well
known for her ornaments
and trills, but Ms May has found
that she glided on certain notes, paused
on others, frequently rolled the conso-
nant ‘r’, and used rubato — the disre-
garding of strict tempo for expressive
reasons.
Progress is steady but there is still a
question mark over whether Ms May
will ever be able to reproduce such a
special sound. “I am not sure I will ever
get it exact, but I am working on it,” she
said. Yet even if it is not possible to rec-
reate the voice of a large, 60-year-old
highly acclaimed diva of the early 20th-

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