Worlds Falling Apart — The Bowed String Instrument Esraj Amid a Demolition Scene

When working with Pamalka Manjitha Karunanayake in 2018, the two of us ended up recording in Cult Studios (Colombo, Sri Lanka). There, I audio-recorded Pamalka's rendering of some marvelous samples all of which showcasing his deep understanding of the raga charukeshi. Charukeshi is a highly ambivalent raga. As a result, the performance of a skilled player will always convey joy as well as grief, and oscillate between emotional qualities. On this December 4th 2018 none of us had any clue about the catastrophes that were in store. Nevertheless, I had field-recorded impressive sounds of some demolition machinery, tearing down an old building that had been used as an arts centre in Fulda, central-Germany. That was meant to gentrify the neighbourhood. I brought these somehow eerie recordings to my longtime colleague Bernie Rothauer in Salzburg to see what could be done with them in his Ôbaxé studio. Bernie loves to work with weird soundscapes. My then working title was "Making a Trance." This contribution comes as a post-workshop interview about how that music came into being.

Kinetics Analysis of Overhead Standing Smash in Badminton

The purpose of this study was to analyze the joint motion kinetics of the shoulders, elbows, and wrists between experienced player (skilled player) group and unskilled player group when performing overhead standing smash in badminton game. The samples involved were 26 samples. The samples included 13 male badminton players joining Student Activity Unit who had achieved many achievements and had a high skill (skilled), while the other 13 samples were unskilled players, involving students who had just studied under one year. The mean of participants’ age was 19.4 ± 1.6 years, height was 1.73 ± 0.12m, and body weight was 62.8 ± 3.7kg. This study used 3 Panasonic Handycams, a calibration set, 3D Frame DIAZ IV motion analysis software, and a speed radar gun. Normalization of the kinetic motion score of the shoulder, elbow, and wrist joints was calculated using the inverse dynamics method. The t-test was used to determine the significance of motion kinetic difference of the two different groups. The results presented that the shuttlecock speed of the skilled player group, during the overhead standing smash, showed a significant difference. Meanwhile, the joint motion of the inferior shoulder force, shoulder anterior force, shoulder internal rotation torque, shoulder horizontal abduction torque, elbow anterior force, and wrist flexion torque were higher in the skilled players group than the unskilled player group.

Effects of Different String Tension Patterns and Racket Motion on Tennis Racket-Ball Impact

Much study has been done to examine the various aspects of tennis racket performance including racket materials, shape, balance, and flexibility, but recently the string in the frame has come to interest scientists. The purpose of this investigation was to determine the effects of varying string tension patterns on the mechanical behavior of racket, string, and ball during and immediately after impact. Two separate experiments were conducted; one examined 12 rackets strung differently with a string lock system by filming the impacts at 3,500 frames per second, and the other quantitatively evaluated the forehand drive results of a skilled player who experimented with the rackets. Differences were found in the various impacts examined, and these differences were attributed to the various characteristics of the string, racket, and ball. In addition, larger coefficients of restitution than those found in previous literature were also calculated.