School partnership for the Chess Olympiad
Before we come to the musical part of this report, let us explain what the
event involving the German pop stars and the world chess champion were about.
The action School Partnership for the Chess Olympiad in Dresden was initiated
by a Hamburg high school teacher, Björn Lengwenus, who some of you might
recognise as an author of the very successful Fritz
and Chesster children's series. Since there is to be a Chess Olympiad in
Dresden next year, Björn got together with the German Chess Federation's
Youth section to set up partnerships between each of the FIDE member countries
and German schools, who will hold special courses on the country, invite the
ambassador of the country to visit the school, stay in touch with their chess
youth and if possible visit the Olympiad to get to know their partners personally.
It was necessary to mobilise 162 partner schools, and these were quickly found
– in fact the organisers had to select from a list of 180 volunteers.
A total of 60,000 school children will be taking part in the action, for which
a special patron was needed. This was, very appropriately, world champion Vladimir
Kramnik, who immediately agreed to lend his support. Kramnik attended the inaugural
ceremony in Hamburg, which is where our picture report begins. At the bottom
of the page you will find a link to a video report.
Delegations from schools and members of the press gather for the occasion
German GM and TV host Dr Helmut Pfleger (right) introduces the world champion
Vladimir Kramnik speaks to the audience about youth and chess
TV and music star Vaile was one of the celebrities at the event
Vaile, who like Cher and Madonna uses only one name, is a singer and actor,
who is a star in the German soap "Marienhof" and has been referred
to as Germany's answer to Jennifer Aniston. Vaile is not a starlet but a fully
trained actress who attended drama school in Hamburg and New York. Our conversations
with her revealed that she has a very high level of classical education and
very outspoken opinions on relevant subjects, from theatre to film to sitcoms
to music. You can read more about her on her
website here. And yes, we offered to get pliers and rid her of that thing
on her lip, but Vaile demurred. It is part of her image and her personality.
Last year Vaile, a chess enthusiast, played an exhibition game against Levon
Aronian
Vlady and Vaile – the two spent a lot of time discussing chess and
music
Pairing the partners: Kramnik drew the German schools, Vaile the member nations
Vaile draws the names of different countries from a container
Nigeria is partnered with a German school drawn by Kramnik
After the drawings pupils from the partner schools of two countries played
a blitz game.
We must not fail to mention: Nigeria beat Russia in this first School Partnerships
match
The other star at the event: German rapper Smudo
Smudo, who's full name is Michael Bernd Schmidt, is the rapper and texter of
the Hip-Hop band "Die Fantastischen
Vier" (the phantastic four). He too is a chess enthusiast and earlier
this year played an exhibition match against Vaile (there is an illustrated
German report here).
Chess enthusiasts Smudo and Vaile
What are they up to? Smudo with Kramnik's manager Carsten Hensel
Journalist Dr René Gralla, who helped organise the event
Ludwig, the chess musician
The second part of the evening was dedicated to a brand-new musician, Ludwig,
a software product with a remarkable chess background. To kick things off Helmut
Pfleger gave the audience an introduction into the the world of Ludwig.
Chess and music – people love to bring them together. Wasn't Philidor,
the great chess master, also a renowned composer of classical music? Mark Taimanov
is an accomplished concert pianist, former world champion Vassily Smyslov an
operatic singer. And isn't chess itself a form of art, in many ways related
to music?
The answer is yes, chess has much in common with music. But not, perhaps, in
a way that we normally think. Chess is related to music composition because
the latter can be programmed in much the same way as chess. Surprised?
The head of the programming department of ChessBase (and co-founder of the
company) is Matthias Wüllenweber, originally a physicist, who in 1987 wrote
the first professional chess database program. In 1991 he was directly involved
in developing Fritz, the program that today is playing world champion Vladimir
Kramnik.
Matthias Wüllenweber with composer and musician Jan-Peter Klöpfel
Matthias is also an amateur musician. He plays the piano very competently,
fluidly improvising in classical or modern style. He also plays a number of
other instruments, less proficiently but with great enthusiasm. The latest is
the flute, which he is eagerly trying to learn in his spare time.
A few years ago Matthias started to experiment with music composition. Not
with a pencil stub and sitting at the piano, but with the computer. He started
to write algorithms and program code that assisted in finding harmonic and rhythmic
arrangements to a tune. In this endeavor he discovered that he could use many
of the techniques we find in computer chess: a brute force tree search, evaluation,
cutoffs and pruning, and a host of other algorithms. Soon the program was not
just supporting the musician, it was actually composing music all by itself.
Matthias explaining the tree search of a chess playing program
... and the analogous search by Ludwig (during the Kramnik vs Fritz match)
The first pre-alpha version of Ludwig was introduced to the general public
in the National Art Gallery during the Man vs Machine event last December in
Bonn, Germany. Naturally it is not just a composition program, which people
could use to produce hundreds of new songs a day. That would be a very restricted
application, to pu it mildly. So Ludwig developed another talent: it has become
a musical companion for the novice player.
What should I compose for you: a Ludwig control screen (click
to enlarge)
The basic idea is that people who want to learn a musical instrument have problems
finding interesting scores to practise with. Usually they have to play simple
tunes, which do not sound very pleasant until the student becomes fairly proficient.
This is where Ludwig comes in. You tell the program what instrument you are
playing, and what level of proficiency you have reached. Then you tell it what
kind of music you like. After this Ludwig composes a piece for you, one which
has full accompaniment, with different instruments. So while you are playing
a very simple tune on your instrument, the piece already sounds impressive.
You can be playing the solo part in an orchestra, a string quartet, a big band
or a jazz group.
The Ludwig accompaniment screen (click
to enlarge)
In Hamburg Matthias Wüllenweber, who is being assisted by composer and
musician Jan-Peter Klöpfel, showed the audience that all of this actually
works, using himself as a prime example. He played the flute as a child, and
after a 30-year pause has taken it up again, practicing with Ludwig. He and
Klöpfel played a number of pieces, composed, on the fly, by Ludwig. At
one stage Matthias asked for a volunteer in the audience to play percussions
(you can tune out individual instruments in Ludwig and play them yourself).
Guess who took up the challenge.
Vladimir Kramnik accompanies Matthias and Jan-Peter on the stage
The chess master and the musicians
A visitor in the audience enjoying the impromptu recital
Incidentally Vladimir's mother is a piano teacher, so this kind of thing
is not completely new to him
After the recital Vladimir Kramnik and Frederic Friedel discuss Ludwig with
Vaile
Vladimir reminded me that we should ask Vaile what she thought of Ludwig. "If
you were presenting a new chess playing program you would come to me for an
opinion, wouldn't you? We must consult a professional." Vaile did not want
to give us a final opinion, after the short demo and restricted knowledge of
the program. But she did promise to come around some day, test Ludwig and explain
to us exactly what the (human) music composing act involves.
We can learn from her: Vaile, a real flesh-and-blood composer
Ludwig will be available as a ChessBase product in October this year
Report by Frederic Friedel
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