English for AVT specialists. Английский для специалистов в сфере аудиовизуальных технологий. Сборник текстов и упражнений по английскому языку

4) What do you know about the European musicians Hector Berlioz and Richard Wagner?

5) How did Walt Disney and his engineers contribute to the surround sound appearance?

SUBJECT AND LANGUAGE STUDY

Reading

6. Skim the text to complete the following statements:

a) This text considers the…

b) It tells the readers how…

c) Each paragraph gives us information about…

It is more natural for the human ear to listen in surround than to hear sounds in mono or stereo. If we go back to the history as far as the 14—16

centuries, we will see that the Renaissance composers who wrote antiphonal church music managed to fill vast cathedral spaces with the sound of the choir or organ incorporating side-to-side or front-to-rear sonic effects. In 1830, Hector Berlioz composed his Symphonie Fantastique whose score called for the horns to be placed at the back of the concert hall. The German composer and conductor Richard Wagner (1813—1883) created works so mighty and complex that they required large orchestras and the musicians to perform in the foyer, under the stage, and even among the people in the audience.

Throughout the 1930s specialists at Bell Laboratories (also called Bell Labs and formerly known as AT&T Bell Laboratories and Bell Telephone Laboratories) carried out experiments with different multichannel audio formats, including three-channel stereo or system 3.1 (left, center, right). In 1938, Walt Disney triggered off the idea of adding surround sound to his upcoming animated film, Fantasia. The soundtrack was recorded using a technology called Fantasound developed by Disney engineers. Fantasound was a pioneering sound reproduction system, which stored three channels of audio (3.1) and a control track on the film itself. The sound was playbacked through five channels: three front speakers and two rear ones. This speaker configuration, sans subwoofer, was the prototype of the 5.1 arrangement, which is in common use today. Besides – amazingly – the same group of engineers invented multitrack recording, panning, and overdubbing! Thus, Fantasia became the first commercial cinematic release shown in stereophonic sound.

Unfortunately, war preparations dramatically curtailed further advance of surround sound technologies in entertainment. However, multichannel audio was used by the military for identifying the source of the sound: independent speakers were dedicated to various alarm sounds (for example, klaxon, bell, horn) aboard warships and it helped sailors in an emergency instantly locate the entering sound.

Essential glossary

• antiphonal – одноголосый, монофонический

• to incorporate – соединять (ся), объединять (ся)

• sonic – звуковой

• score – муз. оркестровать

• horn – рожок, рог, горн, труба, духовой инструмент

• conductor – дирижёр

• surround sound system – система объёмного звучания

• store – сохранять, запоминать

• film – плёнка

• to playback – воспроизводить, считывать

• speaker – динамик, громкоговоритель, акустическая система, колонка

• subwoofer – низкочастотный динамик, отдельная низкочастотная колонка

• panning – панорамирование

• overdubbing – накладывание одной (магнитофонной) записи на другую

• entertainment – сфера развлечений

• alarm – тревога

• emergency – чрезвычайные обстоятельства

• to locate – определять местонахождение

7. Scan the reading passage. What are the answers to the questions in exercise 5?

8.Read the text quickly. Put the names and the events mentioned in the text in the chronological order.

Richard Wagner; military preparations; the Renaissance composers; Walt Disney’s Fantasia; Hector Berlioz and his Symphonie Fantastique, invention of multitrack recording, panning and overdubbing; Bell Laboratories.

9. Find the English equivalents for the following words and expressions in the passage.

Церковная музыка; заполнять огромные пространства храма звуком хора или органа; величественные и сложные; зрительный зал; в течение 30х; в прошлом известные как; провели эксперименты; инициировал идею; выходящий в прокат мультфильм; непосредственно на самой плёнке; три передних динамика и два задних; без низкочастотного динамика; который сегодня широко распространён; подготовка к войне; дальнейшее развитие технологий объёмного звучания; источник звука; различные сигналы тревоги; на борту военных судов; немедленно определить местонахождение.

10. Read the text in more detail and find the answers to the following questions.

1) What did the Renaissance composers try to do for listening church music in surround?

2) What was so special about Hector Berlioz’s Symphonie Fantastique regarding surround sound?

3) How are Richard Wagner’s works described in the article?

4) What kind of experiment did the Bell Laboratories specialists do with different audio formats?

5) What technology did Disney engineers develop in order to record the soundtrack for the animated film Fantasia?

6) How did the military forces employ multichannel audio systems?

11. Match the people (1—7) with their achievements (a-g).

1) specialists at Bell Laboratories

2 Richard Wagner

3) the military

4) Walt Disney

5) the Renaissance composers

6) Hector Berlioz