1,641 research outputs found
Diesis
No full textThis work is an exploration of microtonal commas (a minute interval) of which a diesis, a diminished second, gives this piece its title. Historically when tuning a scale, rather than divide an octave into equal parts (as used today with equal temperament) early tuning systems would tune notes using a sequence of pure intervals, which are slightly different in size to the equal tempered intervals we use today. These discreet differences in pitch would result with an undesirable and perceptually dissonant imperfect octave, the interval of this imperfection being a comma. Diesis is therefore a response to the dissonant qualities that made a comma undesirable: namely its complex timbre and pulsing beating tones (which result when two notes very close in pitch are played together)
Ellipsis
No full textThis work is a study experimenting with a number of parameters, such as polyphony, just intonation and process. The latter stems from what has been a long fascination in the visual counterpoint that we encounter every day, be it the interweaving cyclic structure when passing a gasometer, observing a hanging mobile or the movement of celestial bodies. Furthermore I’ve been keen to work with perception of distance and speed, such as when traveling how distant objects appear to be static and then accelerate as we pass these by. Part of the ongoing challenge has been how to interpret these ideas into music to which this work exhibits my attempt so far
Triple Point
No full textPianists Kate Halsall and Semra Kurutaç perform a selection of commissioned pieces by UK composers Duncan Macleod, Andrew Morgan, Colin Riley, Jamie Telford and Peter Wiegold.
"The triple point of a substance is the temperature and pressure at which three phases (for example, gas, liquid and solid) of that substance coexist in thermodynamic equilibrium. Our interpretation explores these elements through a combination of acoustic, electronic, sequenced and prepared sounds."
duoDorT, 2010
credits
released December, 2010
Kate Halsall and Semra Kurutaç - Piano & keyboards
Recorded by Chris Jinks
Mastered by Chris Lewi
Performance with Trio SoundKarD
No full textWorks, improvisation and new arrangements by Ryoko Akama, Duncan MacLeod, Adam Melvin, Amber Priestly and Kat Lamb
Also By The Same Author: AKTiveAuthor, a Citation Graph Approach to Name Disambiguation
No full textThe desire for definitive data and the semantic web drive for inference over heterogeneous data sources requires co-reference resolution to be performed on those data. In particular, name disambiguation is required to allow accurate publication lists, citation counts and impact measures to be determined. This paper describes a graph-based approach to author disambiguation on large-scale citation networks. Using self-citation, co-authorship and document source analyses, AKTiveAuthor clusters papers, achieving precision of 0.997 and recall of 0.818 over a test group of eight surname clusters
Machair
No full textMachair is a geolocative soundwalk composition that explores the agronomic practices and ecology of the Western Isles’ machair through spoken word, song, music, and soundscape composition. Commissioned by Taigh Chearsabhagh Museum & Arts Centre, the work was developed over six months in partnership with communities on Uist, drawing on contemporary and archival recordings that span over 70 years of oral tradition.
Structured around intergenerational narratives, the soundwalk is mapped to an established trail on Lionacleit machair (Benbecula) and reflects the landscape and traditions of this unique environment. Comprised of five sections, the work charts the growing season, from cultivating the soil with seaweed in Spring to harvesting crops in Autumn. Gàidhlig music and song frame the walk, echoing themes in the spoken narratives, while original compositions provide underscore and anchor the work through environmental wildlife recordings (captured on the machair), and works for synthesiser that respond to the ecology of the machair through the bio-sonification of it’s wildflowers.
The resultant composition is an episodic collage of sound materials structured around a montage of voices that guides the listener. The assemblage of music, song, and soundscape elements accumulates meaning, evoking a sense of place and time through sonic association. In doing so, the work seeks to challenge traditional norms of engagement and interpretation, inviting new ways of exploring place, identity, and community through creative sound practices.
Work information:
This geolocative soundwalk explores the agricultural traditions and ecology of Uist’s machair. A Gaelic word meaning fertile, low-lying grassy plain, machair is one of Europe's rarest yet most species-rich habitats; only occurring on the exposed west-facing shores of Scotland and Ireland. Generations of low-intensity farming have shaped this unique living landscape and encouraged wildlife over millennia. Developed in partnership with the local community, this work combines spoken narratives, Gaelic song, field recordings, and compositions with archival sound recordings from Edinburgh University’s School of Scottish Studies, that chart over 70-years of tradition.
Contemporary voices include crofters Alasdair MacEachen and Anne MacLennan, whose crofts have been in their families for generations. With a lifetime of crofting experience, both provide first-hand perspectives on working the machair and reflect on how crofting practices have changed in their lifetime. Environmental scientist Matt Topsfield provides insights into the machair's formation, history, and ecology. Originally from Essex, Matt settled on Uist in 2010 as a project advisory officer for the EU-funded research project Machair Life. Towards the end of the walk, we hear from the next generation of crofters, namely brothers Freddie (aged 7) and Seoras (aged 4) MacDonald, who provide an excellent commentary on harvesting crops on the machair.
From the archive, we hear excerpts of Dr Emily Lyle's 1977 interview with islanders Roderick MacKillop, John MacIver, Angus MacKenzie, and John Morrison. Through their conversation, insights are given into pre-war crofting practices, collecting seaweed and planting crops, where the absence of machinery required considerable manual labour. Despite the hard work, we learn that these practices were an important social event that brought communities together – as MacKillop exclaims, ‘it was a special day!’.
As a cultural landscape, the machair and crofting practices are a source of inspiration and are often cited in Gàidhlig music and song. As such, songs from the Western Isles feature throughout and help frame the structure of the walk, echoing the themes featured in spoken narratives. These include songs about homeland and crofting practices, such as Angus MacDonald’s rendition of ‘Eilean Uibhist Mo Rùin’ (My beloved island of Uist) recorded in 1986, and Nan MacKinnon singing the children's song ‘Orra Bhonnagan a Ghaoil’ (Dear Orra Bonnagan) about lifting potatoes recorded in 1958. As we learn about seaweed, a 1977 recording of the waulking song ‘Mhòrag 's na Hòro-gheallaidh’ (Morag and the Promised) is heard that recounts a love story about a girl collecting seaweed. Light-hearted songs include a celebration of the humble potato, in the 1950 recording of Angus Fletcher singing ‘Am Buntàta 's an Sgadan’ (The Potato and Herring), and a selection of puirt à beul (mouth-music) dance tunes sung by Kenneth MacIver in 1959.
This work was commissioned by Dandelion and Taigh Chearsabhagh Museum & Arts Centre, with funds from Event Scotland. Production team: Duncan MacLeod (composer), Mairi McFadyen (creative ethnologist), and Sorcha Monk (creative producer)
Semiometrics: Applying Ontologies across Large-Scale Digital Libraries
No full textAs large-scale digital libraries become more available and complete, not to mention more numerous, it is clear there is a need for services that can draw together and perform inference calculations on the metadata produced. However, the traditional Relational Database Management System (RDBMS) model, while efficiently constructed and optimised for many business structures, does not necessarily cope well with issues of concurrent data updates and retrieval at the scale of hundreds of thousands of papers. At the same time the growth of RDF and the increasing interest in Semantic Web technologies perhaps begins to present a viable alternative at a scalable, practical level. This paper considers a specific application of large-scale metadata analysis and conducts scalability tests using real-world data. It concludes that RDF technologies are both a scalable and performance-realistic alternative to traditional RDBMS approaches. It also shows that for relationship-based queries on large-scale metadata stores, RDF technologies can significantly out-perform traditional RDBMS approaches by allowing both retrieval and updating of data in a timely manner
Behold, the best of morning dawns
No full textCommissioned by Making Music as part of the 2012 Adopt a Composer Scheme funded by the PRS Foundation. Premiered by Llandaff Cathedral Choral Society, at the Royal Welsh College of Music & Drama, Cardiff September 9th 2012.
Programme note
Behold, The Best of Morning Dawns is a response to the Welsh tradition of plygain, or Christmas matins, in which Christians would meet in chapels to greet the sunrise on Christmas morning by singing traditional carols - in this case Wel dyma’r borau gorau i gyd (Behold the Best of Morning Dawns)
Semiometrics: producing a compositional view of influence
No full textHigh-impact academic papers are not necessarily the most cited. For example, Einstein's 'Special Relativity' paper from 1905 received (and continues to receive) fewer citations from other papers than his 'Brownian Motion" paper of the same year, despite the former radically changing the course of an entire scientific discipline to a much greater extent. Similarly, 'impact' metrics using citation count alone are, it is argued, not adequate for determining the scientific influence of papers, authors or small groups of authors. Although valid, they remain controversial when used to determine influence of larger groups or journals. While the term 'impact' has become closely linked to a journal's citation-based Journal Impact Factor score, this thesis uses the term 'influence' to describe the wider effectiveness of research, combining citation and metadata analysis to allow richer calculations to be performed over large-scale document networks. As a result, more qualitative influence ratings can be determined and a broader outlook on scientific disciplines can be produced. These ratings are best applied using an ontology-based data source, allowing more efficient inference than under a traditional RDBMS system, and allowing easier integration between heterogeneous data sources. These metrics, termed 'Semantic Bibliometrics' or 'Semiometrics', can be applied at a variety of levels of granularity, allowing a compositional framework for impact and influence analysis. This thesis describes the process of data preparation, systems architecture, metric value and data integration for such a system, introducing novel approaches at all four stages, thereby creating a working semiometrics system for determining influence at different semantic levels of granularity
Illustrated type catalogue of Amphidromus Albers, 1850 in the Natural History Museum, London, and descriptions of two new species
No full textCopyright Chirasak Sutcharit et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. The attached file is the published version of the article.NHM Repositor
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