Understanding expressive intonation

Research on intonation has mainly sought for classifying and/or expressive explanations for performers’ strategies. In the field of music psychology and music perception, such explanations have been explored in terms of interval direction, size, or type; in the field of performance analysis, to which this article belongs, investigation on intonation has been not only scarce but also limited to short excerpts. In this context, this article explores Pau Casals’ intonational practice specific to his recording of Bach’s E flat major prelude for solo cello. To do so, on the basis of exact empirical measurements, it places such practice alongside the cellist’s conscious, theoretical recommendations apropos what he called “expressive” string intonation, showing that the interpretation of the latter should is not straightforward. It also proposes several reference points and tuning systems which could serve as models for Casals’ practice and looks for explanations beyond simple interval classification. In this manner, it ultimately proposes a structural function for intonation, in partnership with tempo and dynamics. Similarly, it understands Casals’ intonational practice not as a choice between but as a compromise for multiple options in tuning systems (mostly equal temperament and Pythagorean tuning), reference points (the fundamental note of the chord and the immediately preceding tone), the nature of the compositional materials (harmonic and melodic), and, most importantly, structure and expression.

Dynamics of the mathematical model of phase-locked systems with delay

In the article, the conditions for the existence of limit cycles of the first kind are obtained for self-tuning systems with delay, which, in turn, determine the conditions for the occurrence of hidden synchronization modes in such systems. The principle of the proof is based on constructing a positively invariant toroidal set using two cylindrical surfaces, whose boundaries are determined by the limit cycles of a system of the second-order differential equations. Using the results obtained in the article for limit cycles, the possibility of using the curvature of the cycle for a comparative analysis of the proximity of the cycles of phase and non-phase systems, as well as for determining the mode of hidden synchronization, is shown.

Vibrating, and Silent

This chapter examines silence in Pärt’s music from the perspectives of psychoacoustics and the material acoustics of the piano. I listen to Pärt’s music not only for its meanings (what it figures, symbolically represents, or enables through performance), its qualities (the values and identities it mediates), or its referential capacities (structure, tuning systems, genre), but also for the phenomena of its vibration. As vibrating material, music is “silent” in the sense that it offers no message or code. Listening subjects “silence” music through the perception of sound as energy and medium, haptic and resonant perception. I show how, in Pärt’s work, silence attunes listeners to acoustic phenomena—the resonant frequencies of spaces, the timbral shimmer of voices, or the inharmonicity of a piano. By attending to psychoacoustics and specific practices of listening, this approach extends Pärt scholarship further into the fields of sound and embodiment.

The Psychology of Creative Processes in Music

In contrast to cerebral or mentalistic psychological accounts of creative processes, this chapter argues for an approach based within the frameworks of ecological theory and 4E cognition—the idea that psychological functioning is embodied, extended, embedded, and enacted. The chapter considers “everyday” and exceptional notions of the creative process and reviews cognitive models of musical creativity as a form of decision-making, as well as the tension between individualistic and social perspectives. As an alternative, it offers an account that recognizes the reciprocal relationship between materials (instruments, notations, tuning systems, recording/playback systems) and human minds and bodies conceived individually and collectively, drawing attention to four important features of musical creating: (1) the different scales at which it takes place, (2) its temporality, (3) its distributed and collaborative character, and (4) its intimate entanglement with environmental affordances.

Origins (1939–1962)

This chapter focuses on Wendy Carlos’s life from her 1939 birth in Pawtucket, Rhode Island, to her graduation from Brown University in 1962. From her earliest days, Carlos was innovative and resourceful. She built equipment out of spare parts, hammered her piano into different tuning systems, and taught herself harmony and counterpoint from library books. Carlos knew from childhood that her gender identity made her a target for ridicule and violence, so she retreated into a solitary world of electronic music. Under the guidance of Wesley Nyborg at Brown University, Carlos created a major that blended physics and music.

Improving the Stability of Optimal Control Systems for Thermal Processing

The article presents the results of the analysis different methods to enhance theaccuracy, sustainability and energy efficiency of automatic control systems. Shows the constraints on the possibility of increasing the accuracy and stability of automatic control systems. The necessity of the use of self-tuning systems for control of nonstationary objects, which include the installation of thermal processing of building materials and products. Theblock diagram of the analytical self-tuning system optimal reference model.

Architecture and language in the seven String Quartets by Iulia Cibişescu-Duran

Written between 1990 and 2009, my seven works for string quartet: Poems for string Quartet and 6 numbered Quartets approach different modal languages, from prepentatonic or pentatonic structures to heptachordic or dodecaphonic configurations, sometimes overlapping musical languages, generating those polymorphous languages, with moments of overlapping or juxtaposing of syntaxes, with a motivic cycling determinant of a conceptual unit of works linked to synthetic, elaborate thinking. Pluripartite, seen as suites of miniatures (String Quartet No. 3, Poems for string quartet), tripartite (Quartets No. 2, 4, 5, 6) or monopartite (Quartet No. 1), the 7 String Quartets are written in the sphere of formal patterns caused by construction based on dramaturgy inspired by literary works (see Quartet No. 5 inspired by Winter at Lisbon by Antonio Munoz Molina, see Poems for string quartet and Quartet no. 3 inspired by my own poems from the volumes Hiding places of Masks and Egyptian Mystery), from the contemplation of the chordal sonorities of some tonal-functional relations or of some jazz sonorities (Quartet No. 4), of a Byzantine song or children’s songs (Quartet No. 3), of philosophical meditations (see Quartet No. 1), of sonorities belonging to the Romanian song and dance (Quartet No. 6) or of some concision and refinement as reflections of Webern’s music, overlaying on small temporal spaces different musical languages belonging to different tuning systems (Poems for string quartet). The first audition of String quartets was at the International Festivals of the Musical Autumn of Cluj and Cluj Modern Festival (1990, 1993, 1999, 2001, 2003, performers: Concordia Quartet: Albert Markos, Grigore Botar, Olimpiu Moldovan, Adalbert Torok), as well as at the International Meridian Festival, Bucharest (2018, Quartet No. 6 played by the Ad Hoc Quartet: Vlad Răceu, Diana Man, Ovidiu Costea, Vlad Rațiu, musical management: Matei Pop).

DESIGN AND INVESTIGATION OF RESISTOR MATRIX FOR ACTIVE ANALOG RC FILTERS

Resistor matrixes are widely used in active RC filters as well as in self-tuning systems. Using self-tuning systems for active RC filters, it is possible to automatically tune various parameters of filter – cut-off frequency, gain and quality of filter. Most recent multiband transceivers employ higher order filters for fine bandpass filtering, thus number of passive components increases. In this work, a novel resistor matrix structure and design method is proposed. Proposed resistor matrix structure compensates both integrated circuit process variations and temperature change. Proposed resistor matrix is designed using 0.18 μm TSMC CMOS technology node and investigated using Cadence Virtuoso software. For most accurate comparison of different resistor matrices, all of them were designed in same technology node using design techniques described in other authors’ works.