Composing Performances

All too often, critics, historians, and music analysts draw upon the aesthetic and analytic language of composition to describe and account for performed interpretations. This article explores the inequities and challenges that derive from this borrowing of language. Yet a study of Ernst Levy and his recorded performance of Brahms, however, reveals how compositional aesthetics can also be appropriated and repurposed to new creative ends.

“A Balm In Gilead”

The chapter grapples with the oft-cited interrelation of characteristically Black preaching and gospel music, using what has been called “the musicality of Black preaching” to understand the centrality of vamps to gospel singing. This cumulative turn toward musicality is more than just a homiletical strategy: rather, it functions as the formal logic, the organizing principle, for the network of belief, performance, and reception that we have come to know as the Gospel Imagination. Tuning up catalyzes movement between “material” and “spiritual” worlds, manifesting gospel’s belief that sound is a vehicle for interworldly exchange. The chapter begins with the live recorded performance of Richard Smallwood’s song “Healing” (1998), which shows how this piece stages its own transcendence, musically performing, within the context of song, what is performed in sermons by the shift from speech to song. After using discourses drawn from homiletics, ritual theory, and phenomenology to shape an understanding of tuning up, the chapter offers a fuller sense of this constitutive practice by attending to vignettes from four sermons, and four songs: Walter Hawkins’s “Marvelous,” Judith McAllister’s “High Praise,” Myrna Summers’s “Oh, How Precious,” and Glenn Burleigh’s “Order My Steps.”

Effect of Feeding Bio-fortified Maize on Performance and Slaughter Parameters in Vanaraja Birds

Background: The normal maize contains high zein fraction and devoid of lysine and tryptophan thus making lysine as second limiting amino acid in it. The opaque-2 and floury-2 mutants produce higher levels of lysine and tryptophan. Through plant breeding programme, bio-fortified maize (Provitamin-A enriched) is being produced. Therefore, the study was conducted to determine the effect feeding different bio-fortified maize based diets in Vanaraja birds.Methods: The experiment was conducted during January to April 2018 at ICAR-Directorate of Poultry Research. For the purpose, 175 day old chicks were randomly divided into 5 dietary groups each having 7 replicates with 5 birds each. Five experimental diets were formulated to contain normal maize (Diet 1), Vivek Hybrid 9 (Diet 2), APQH9 (Diet 3), Vivek QPM 9 (Diet 4) and white maize (Diet 5). The experimental diets fed ad libitum to all the chicks up to 6 weeks (nursery phase) and recorded performance parameters.Result: Improved feed efficiency was recorded in the group fed diet with APQH9 (Diet 3) compared to other experimental diets. The decrease in abdominal fat and increased breast muscle among the birds fed diet contained Vivek QPM 9 (Diet 4) and APQH9 (Diet 3) was recorded in comparison to other dietary groups. Hence, it is concluded that the birds fed QPM and QPM + Provit A showed an improved feed efficiency, reduced abdominal fat and increased breast muscle in Vanaraja birds during nursery phase.

Timbral Heuristics and the Sonorous Presence of Steven Jesse Bernstein

In recent years, music analysts have grappled with the sonic strategies from popular expressions that evade traditional notation. Their approaches often rely on harmonic spectrographs or various textual tools to decode the creative mechanics of these art forms. But for many practices with innate musicality—such as spoken-word poetry—these common techniques make limited explanatory headway. This article proposes an alternate path to fill the gaps: Adopt an analytic perspective, grounded in phenomenology, that listens for the musical subject’s negotiation of embodiment through their calculated treatment of timbre in the voice. Here, the analyst traces their perception of the subject’s bodily resonance through diagrams called timbral maps. And through these maps, two key concepts are discovered that structure the creator’s interior logic: timbral surfaces and timbral moments. Surfaces and moments are built into recognizable patterns, which in turn disclose the methods of these artists as lucid on their own terms. This “surface-moment” model is prototyped using a recorded performance of “This Clouded Heart” by the grunge-era Seattle poet and performance artist Steven Jesse Bernstein. The model reveals several stylistic tactics honed by Bernstein through his play with resonant shifts, but more significantly, argues for recasting timbre in analytic contexts: first, as a sustained and winding musical dimension, able to unfurl like other large-scale organizing principles; and second, as a heuristic capable of engaging listeners in an empathetic web between themselves and the subject through the mimetic connection of their bodies.

34 Effects of rumen-protected Capsicum oleoresin on growth performance and immune response in growing beef cattle

Objectives were to determine effects of rumen-protected Capsicum (RPC) on growth performance and immune response in growing beef cattle. Cattle were stratified by sex (steers = 24; heifers = 12) and body weight (BW; heavy or light) and randomly assigned to treatments: Control (no additive), or RPC (15 mg/kg of dry matter intake (DMI)). Cattle were transitioned over 21 days to a final diet of 80% grain mix and 20% corn silage. Cattle were weighed on test (d0 and 1), at end of adaptation (d21), at midpoint (d48 and 49), and off test (d98 and 99). Blood samples were collected on days 0, 21, and 98 for analysis of parameters related to immune function and energy status. Health treatments were recorded. Performance and blood variables (as repeated measures) were analyzed using the MIXED procedure of SAS. Pen was the experimental unit. Health data were analyzed using the GLIMMIX procedure; animal was the experimental unit. There was no interaction (P > 0.10) of treatment and sampling day, nor main effect of treatment (P > 0.10), for any blood parameters measured. There were no treatment effects (P > 0.10) on DMI or feed efficiency. From d0 to 21, average daily gain (ADG) tended to be greater (P = 0.13) for animals fed RPC and was 22.9% greater (P = 0.10) for animals fed RPC from d22 to 49. While only 14% of the heavy animals were treated two or more times, 66% of light animals were treated two or more times (P < 0.01), of which 77% were fed Control. Supplementing RPC improved early feedlot ADG. Although there were no changes in blood parameters, ADG improvement may be related to health status.

On the participatory agency of texts: Using institutional forms in performance appraisal interviews

Drawing on studies of the performative effects and agency of texts in organizations, the paper investigates how the agency of texts figures through their participatory status in interaction. The empirical data for the study consist of video-recorded performance appraisal interviews in a Finnish public organization in which the interaction relies heavily on an appraisal form. The data are analyzed through a sequential analysis that draws on multimodal conversation analysis and ethnographic knowledge. The analysis shows that the human participants orient to three different acts that are inscribed in the textual document: 1) presenting demands for the participants; 2) offering topics for the discussion as well as perspectives from which those topics should be discussed; and 3) suggesting conventional ways of progressing in the interaction. Furthermore, the material and the semiotic facets of textual documents are shown to be systematically related in that specific orientations to the material aspect of the paper form entail specific orientations to the semiotic content. The study sheds light on the subtle ways through which the distributed, albeit dissymmetric, agency of human and non-human participants is constructed, and on how texts are treated as more or less authoritative in face-to-face interaction.

Exploring the Use of Video-Recorded Practical Examination Performance to Enhance Student Self-Assessment

Purpose: The purposes of this study were to explore the ability of doctor of physical therapy students to self-assess performance during a video-recorded practical examination, to evaluate student perceptions of the experience, and to determine their perception of their ability to self-assess. Method: A cross-sectional design with students from 2 consecutive cohorts was utilized. Participants worked in groups of three conducting a video-recorded gait training session. Students graded their own performance immediately upon completing the practical examination. Students then regraded their performance from the video recording. The instructor graded each student’s video-recorded performance using the same rubric as the students. Following the experience, students completed a 7-question survey administered via Survey Monkey. Data were analyzed using Friedman’s ANOVA with post-hoc Wilcoxon signed-rank test to compare median scores. Cohen’s Kappa and percent agreement calculations assessed inter- and intra-rater reliability. Student perception data were analyzed using descriptive statistics and non-parametric Wilcoxon signed-rank test. Results: The only significant difference in scores was between student-live and faculty examiner assessments for Cohort 2. Inter-rater reliability (.09-.17) and percent agreement (20.7%-26.3%) were low across all comparisons. Intra-rater reliability (.12-.23) and percent agreement (23.7%-34.5%) were also low for both cohorts. Students rated their ability to self-assess from the video-recorded performance significantly higher than from the live performance (pConclusions:Students’ ability to self-assess performance does not appear to be well developed in the early stages of physical therapy education. The use of video-recorded performance, in conjunction with instructor feedback, could enhance this ability, ideally leading to independent and effective self-assessment as students proceed through the curriculum.

DYNAMIC ANALYSIS OF THREE DIFFERENT HIGH BAR DISMOUNTS IN THE SIMMECHANICS ENVIRONMENT

This study compares certain kinematic and kinetic parameters in giant circles performed before twisting, double stretched and double tucked dismounts using the dynamic model in the SimMechanics environment. The joint moments calculated using the designed model were investigated for the three different dismounts. The study included a 13-year-old voluntary national gymnast with seven years of training history. Markers were placed on the wrist, elbow, shoulder, hip, knee and ankle joints of the gymnast. The gymnast was asked to perform twisting, double stretched and double tucked dismounts. MATLAB and SimMechanics were used to calculate joint moments. The moves were simulated and the joint moments during the moves were calculated using the SimMechanics toolbox. The study observed that the highest joint moment was in the wrist joint in all three dismounts, in line with the findings of previous studies. However, unlike other studies, higher joint moments were calculated in the accelerated giant circle performed together with thrusts, compared with the regular giant circle. While there were similar maximum moment values in twisting dismounts and double tucked dismounts, an almost three times higher moment was observed in double stretched dismounts. In terms of joint moments, stretched dismount is obviously the most difficult move, which is consistent with the difficulty levels. A recorded performance of the mechanical model created in the SimMechanics environment was investigated in terms of the twist angle and moments generated on the bar, and found to be sufficient and useful. However, there are certain restrictions regarding the methods employed in this study. We concluded that the mechanical model will allow for the performance of kinematic and kinetic analyses of different gymnasts and types of moves thanks to its flexible structure.

Laughter as an immediate responsive communicative action of recipients in English ideation speeches

The article deals with study of responsive communicative actions of recipients in English ideation speeches that are expressed as laughter. English ideation speech is a structured and time-limited oral speech by an ideator using multi-modal actions relevant for communication , that is happening in front of the audience (recipients), directly or indirectly included into communication, that is the same time and space coordinates with the ideator (directly in a studio where the ideator performs live) or at different time and space coordinates (watching recorded performance of the ideator). Ideation speeches are to convey certain ideas to the audience so that they are implemented into social practice. Responsive actions of recipients are implicit-evaluative (number of views of ideation speech video) or explicit-evaluative (comprehensive written evaluation in comments and unexpanded evaluation through choosing evaluating adjectives form a given list). Immediate responsive actions can be spontaneous, initiated by recipients themselves, and non-spontaneous, initiated by the ideator. Spontaneous immediate responsive actions are expressed as laughter, exclamations, applause, that prove communicative success of speech, acceptance of the ideator and the ideator`s idea. Study of responsive actions of recipients gives an opportunity to determine success or failure of a certain initial communicative strategy of ideator. Audience's laughter is the sign of success of the ideator's ommunicative act to change the mode from serious to humorous. Laughter shows that recipients comprehend and understand the point of a joke. In some cases laughter expresses different emotional reactions of recipients, like, for instance, surprise, disgust, excitement, etc.