HANS ABRAHAMSEN AND A RECURRENT ‘CHILDLIKE’ RHYTHM

Tempo ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 76 (299) ◽  
pp. 18-29
Author(s):  
Noah Kahrs
Keyword(s):  
Solo Piano ◽  
Compositional Practice ◽  
Formal Properties ◽  
Apparent Conflict

AbstractHans Abrahamsen has reused the same rhythm across four pieces spanning 33 years: in his Ten Studies, for solo piano, and Six Pieces, for horn trio (both from 1984), in Schnee (2008) and in Three Pieces, for orchestra (2017). Because self-borrowing is crucial to Abrahamsen's compositional practice, this rhythm provides a case study in his compositional priorities, particularly in the role canonic techniques play in his music. Although the rhythm's formal properties lend it a marked asymmetry at the foreground, it is presented in Schnee as part of a canon with highly symmetric pitch materials. But despite this apparent conflict between symmetries and asymmetries, Abrahamsen's music freely combines different approaches to the rhythm, as long as it is linked to a high-register shimmer, suggesting that Abrahamsen's noted uses of canons are largely for textural ends.

scholarly journals The Pen as Camera

2021 ◽  
Vol 27 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard Beaudoin
Keyword(s):  
Case Studies ◽  
Musical Borrowing ◽  
History Of Photography ◽  
Solo Piano ◽  
Piano Works ◽  
Tonal Function ◽  
History Of ◽  
Compositional Practice

The photographic effect of overexposure is analogous to Michael Finnissy’s technique of selective musical borrowing. Just as a photographer uses the camera to allow an overabundance of light to wash out pictorial details, Finnissy uses his transcriptive pen to allow an overabundance of silence to alter and fragment his borrowed sources. Case studies demonstrate Finnissy’s borrowing of cadential phrases by J. S. Bach, Beethoven, and Bruckner in his solo piano works Wenn wir in höchsten Nöthen sind (1992) and The History of Photography in Sound (1995–2001). Comparing original sources, unpublished sketches, and published autographs reveals the composer’s precise transcriptive mechanisms. Measuring the alteration of tonal function enacted by specific harmonic and rhythmic distortions illuminates Finnissy’s pre-compositional practice while celebrating the sonic experience of his music on its own terms.

COLLABORATION AND THE COMPOSER: CASE STUDIES FROM THE END OF THE 2OTH CENTURY

Tempo ◽  
2007 ◽  
Vol 61 (240) ◽  
pp. 28-39 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sam Hayden ◽  
Luke Windsor
Keyword(s):  
Case Studies ◽  
Historical Data ◽  
Collaborative Work ◽  
The West ◽  
Compositional Practice ◽  
The Aesthetic ◽  
The Uk

The folk view of composition is often that of an isolated, possibly unhinged genius, struggling alone at the piano or desk. However, in this article we will investigate the collaborative aspects of compositional life, showing how such an individualistic model of the composer is both accurate and inaccurate, and how this paradox is played out in current attempts to valorize collaborative work in composition. Although we intend some of the observations and conclusions from this article to generalize, we are fully aware that such a case-study can only really be illustrative and provocative. Given that this is the case we will finish by attempting to make some general points about the aesthetic and social contradictions which this study has brought to light. Our concern in this article is more prospective than retrospective: although we will refer to some historical data, we aim to reflect mainly on contemporary compositional practice in the West, and particularly the UK.

scholarly journals Towards a constructional approach to discourse-level phenomena: The case of the Spanish interpersonal epistemic stance construction

2018 ◽  
Vol 52 (1) ◽  
pp. 107-138 ◽  
Author(s):  
Renata Enghels
Keyword(s):  
Speech Act ◽  
Spanish Speakers ◽  
Frequency Data ◽  
Epistemic Stance ◽  
Pragmatic Markers ◽  
Central Argument ◽  
Diachronic Analysis ◽  
Formal Properties

Abstract This study contributes to a better understanding of how constructional models can be applied to discourse-level phenomena, and constitute a valuable supplement to previous grammaticalization accounts of pragmatic markers. The case study that is presented concerns the recent development of the interpersonal epistemic stance construction in Spanish. The central argument is that the expanding use of sabes as a pragmatic marker can best be fully understood by taking into account the composite network of related expressions which Spanish speakers have at their disposal when performing a particular speech act. The diachronic analysis is documented with spoken corpus examples collected in recent decades, and is mainly informed by frequency data measuring the productivity, as well as formal properties of the construction and its instantiations.

Philosophy, Science, and Common Sense

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hilary Kornblith
Keyword(s):  
Common Sense ◽  
Wilfrid Sellars ◽  
Personal View ◽  
Scientific Image ◽  
The World ◽  
Deliberative Processes ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Manifest Image ◽  
Apparent Conflict

Wilfrid Sellars recognized a conflict between what he called “the scientific image” of our place in the world, and “the manifest image.” Sellars sought, somehow, to join these views together in spite of their apparent conflict. This chapter argues that we should endorse features of the manifest image only to the extent that they are part of the scientific image. It presents a case study in epistemology, showing how these issues play out in discussion of doxastic deliberation. The manifest image of such deliberation is flatly in conflict with the best current scientific theorizing about the nature of deliberative processes. The only reasonable response to such conflict, the chapter argues, is to embrace the scientific account and reject our first-personal view of deliberation as illusory. This case study is suggestive of a broader conclusion about the relationship between the scientific and the manifest image.

scholarly journals Custom Design of Packaging through Advanced Technologies: A Case Study Applied to Apples

Materials ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 12 (3) ◽  
pp. 467 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lucía Rodríguez-Parada ◽  
Pedro Mayuet ◽  
Antonio Gámez
Keyword(s):  
Food Packaging ◽  
Design Procedure ◽  
Advanced Technologies ◽  
Fresh Food ◽  
Custom Design ◽  
Formal Properties ◽  
Design Customization ◽  
Competitive Products

In the context of food packaging design, customization enhances the value of a product by meeting consumer needs. Personalization is also linked to adaptation, so the properties of the packaging can be improved from several points of view: functional, aesthetic, economic and ecological. Currently, functional and formal properties of packaging are not investigated in depth. However, the study of both properties is the basis for creating a new concept of personalized and sustainable product. In accordance with this approach, a conceptual design procedure of packaging with personalized and adapted geometries based on the digitization of fresh food is proposed in this work. This study is based on the application of advanced technologies for the design and development of food packaging, apples in this work, in order to improve the quality of the packaging. The results obtained show that it is possible to use advanced technologies in the early stages of product design in order to obtain competitive products adapted to new emerging needs.

scholarly journals Monotonicity and Noise-Tolerance in Case-Based Reasoning with Abstract Argumentation

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Guilherme Paulino-Passos ◽  
Francesca Toni
Keyword(s):  
Case Based Reasoning ◽  
Noise Tolerance ◽  
Trade Secrets ◽  
Abstract Argumentation ◽  
Reasoning System ◽  
Legal Domain ◽  
Formal Properties ◽  
The U.S ◽  
Case Based

Recently, abstract argumentation-based models of case-based reasoning (AA-CBR in short) have been proposed, originally inspired by the legal domain, but also applicable as classifiers in different scenarios. However, the formal properties of AA-CBR as a reasoning system remain largely unexplored. In this paper, we focus on analysing the non-monotonicity properties of a regular version of AA-CBR (that we call AA-CBR_>). Specifically, we prove that AA-CBR_> is not cautiously monotonic, a property frequently considered desirable in the literature. We then define a variation of AA-CBR_> which is cautiously monotonic. Further, we prove that such variation is equivalent to using AA-CBR_> with a restricted casebase consisting of all "surprising" and "sufficient" cases in the original casebase. As a by-product, we prove that this variation of AA-CBR_> is cumulative, rationally monotonic, and empowers a principled treatment of noise in "incoherent" casebases. Finally, we illustrate AA-CBR and cautious monotonicity questions on a case study on the U.S. Trade Secrets domain, a legal casebase.

scholarly journals Problem-Solving Strategies in Music Composition: A Case Study

2004 ◽  
Vol 21 (3) ◽  
pp. 391-429 ◽  
Author(s):  
STEPHEN McADAMS
Keyword(s):  
Problem Solving ◽  
Chamber Orchestra ◽  
Music Composition ◽  
Contemporary Music ◽  
Solo Piano ◽  
Performance Constraints ◽  
Temporal Structures ◽  
Final Score ◽  
Problem Solving Strategies

The composition of a piece of contemporary music for solo piano, 16-piece chamber orchestra, and 6-channel, computer-processed sound was tracked and documented from its initial conception to its concert premier. Notebooks, sketches, diagrams, recorded interviews, and the final score were used to address the solving of three compositional problems raised within the context of the piece. The first problem concerned the need to compose the five themes for the piece (23––100 s in duration) for both solo piano and chamber orchestra. Issues of performance constraints associated with the two media and on translation from a restricted to a more open timbral palette played an important role. The second problem involved composing the two major parts of the piece with similar temporal structures but vastly different ways of traversing the same thematic musical materials. Spatial, graphical representations and self-imposed graphic organization of the score were important factors in resolving this issue. The third problem involved conceiving of the computer component to accompany either of the two major parts, because the piece could be played with them in either order. The solution involved organizing the computer component into discrete parts that had fairly continuous textures and finalizing this component before the final composing of the instrumental components. Issues concerning the aspects of compositional problem-solving that are available for study, the types of representations used in problem solving,and the generalizability of such results to other pieces by the same composer or other composers are discussed.

“It’s Perfect. It Looks Just Like the Book!”: Scott Pilgrim, Stylistic Remediation, and Transmedia Style

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Drew Morton
Keyword(s):  
Comic Books ◽  
Comic Book ◽  
Box Office ◽  
The World ◽  
Formal Properties

This chapter examines the process of stylistic remediation at work in the adaptation of a comic book to a film and how it is used by a media conglomerate as a means to unite its transmedia properties. It uses Edgar Wright's adaptation of Bryan Lee O'Malley's comic series, Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, as a case study and shows how the comic book's stylistic remediation became a type of transmedia style. The chapter first explains what makes film and comic books distinct media forms by identifying their ontological differences before defining the formal properties that are being remediated in Scott Pilgrim. It then considers how stylistic remediation can become a form of transmedia style through O'Malley's work in the Scott Pilgrim series. Scott Pilgrim vs. the World (2010) did poorly in the box office, which the chapter argues diminished a rich trajectory of stylistic remediation in comic book adaptations.

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