my space

2005-10-23T21:55:00.000Z

"Just rerax, practice tai sabaki, arms force - no. Ok?" Enlighting words!
1. Obata sensei - a tiniest man, smallest hands, very quiet and gentle. Beautiful aikido, natural and effortless like walking or breathing, incredibly precise weapon work.
2. Now I've seen the right way of taking ukemi from irimi nage. This makes me very happy.
3. When doing tsuki with a boken the boken is almost parallel with the body and the whole body leans forward as one thrusts forward.

2005-10-10T02:59:00.000Z

Just came across this beauty.

http://accad.osu.edu/~coatley/oatart.htm
http://accad.osu.edu/~coatley/index.html

Actually I was looking for something else - an image of an expose sheet just to remind myself of my thoughts, coz I won't remember a thing tomorrow morning. Anyways, I couldnt find any decent one so I will write a note to myself instead:

"look at the pages 291 and 292 in the big "Illusion of Life" book!"

2005-10-10T02:28:00.000Z

Tempo
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

In musical terminology, tempo (Italian for "time") is the speed or pace of a given piece.

Measuring tempo
The tempo of a piece will typically be written at the start of a piece of music, and is usually indicated in beats per minute (BPM). This means that a particular note value (for example, a quarter note or crotchet) is specified as the beat, and the marking indicates that a certain number of these beats must be played per minute.
Mathematical tempo markings of this kind became increasingly popular during the first half of the 19th century, after the metronome had been invented, although early metronomes were somewhat unreliable; Beethoven's metronome markings, in particular, are notoriously unreliable. MIDI files today also use the BPM system to denote tempo.
Some 20th century composers (such as Bela Bartok and John Cage) would alternatively give the total execution time of a piece, from which the proper tempo can be roughly derived.

Musical vocabulary for tempo
Whether a music piece has a mathematical time indication or not, in classical music it is customary to describe the tempo of a piece by one or more words. Most of these words are Italian, a result of the fact that many of the most important composers of the 17th century were Italian, and this period was when tempo indications were used extensively for the first time.
Before the metronome, words were the only way to describe the tempo of a composition. Yet after the metronome's invention, these words continued to be used, often additionally indicating the mood of the piece, thus blurring the traditional distinction between tempo and mood indicators. For example, "presto" and "allegro" both indicate a speedy execution ("presto" being faster), but "allegro" has more of a connotation of joy (seen its original meaning in Italian), while "presto" rather indicates speed as such (with possibly an additional connotation of virtuosity). (Presto did not acquire this connotation until the late 18th century.)
Additional Italian words also indicate tempo and mood. For example, the "agitato" in the Allegro agitato of the last movement of George Gershwin's piano concerto in F has both a tempo indication (undoubtedly faster than a usual "Allegro") and a mood indication ("agitated").

Understood tempos
In some cases (quite often up to the end of the Baroque period), conventions governing musical composition were so strong that no tempo had to be indicated: e.g. the 1st movement of Bach's Brandenburg Concerto No. 3 has no tempo or mood indication whatsoever. To provide movement names, publishers of recordings resort to ad hoc measures, for instance marking the Brandenburg movement "Allegro", "(Allegro)", "(Without indication)", and so on.
In Renaissance music most music was understood to flow at a tempo defined by the tactus, roughly the rate of the human heartbeat. Which note value corresponded to the tactus was indicated by the mensural time signature.
Often a particular musical form or genre implies its own tempo, so no further explanation is placed in the score. Thus musicians expect a minuet to be performed as a fairly stately tempo, slower than a Viennese waltz; a Perpetuum Mobile to be quite fast, and so on. The association of tempo with genre means that genres can be used to imply tempos; thus Ludwig van Beethoven wrote "In tempo d'un Menuetto" over the first movement of his Piano Sonata Op. 54, although that movement is not a minuet. Popular music charts use terms such as "bossa nova", "ballad", and "latin rock" in much the same way.

Italian tempo markings
See also Italian musical terms.

Basic tempo markings
The most common tempo markings in Italian are:
Largo - slowly and broadly
Adagio - slowly
Lento - "slow" but usually only moderately so
Andante - at a walking pace
Moderato - at a moderate tempo
Allegretto - "a little allegro", understood to be not quite as fast as allegro
Allegro - quickly
Presto - fast

Common Qualifiers
non troppo - not too much; e.g. Allegro non troppo (or Allegro ma non troppo) means "Fast, but not too fast."
molto - very, as in Allegro molto
poco - slightly, as in Poco Adagio
Various diminutive suffixes in Italian have been used, in addition to Allegretto: Andantino, Larghetto, Adagietto, as well as superlatives such as Larghissimo, Prestissimo.

Mood markings with a tempo connotation
Some markings that primarily mark a mood (or character) also have a tempo connotation:
Vivace - lively (which generally indicates a rather fast movement)
Maestoso - majestic or stately (which is generally a solemn slow movement)

Terms for change in tempo
There is also a set of terms that are used to designate a change of tempo:
Accelerando - speeding up (abbreviation: accel.)
Meno Mosso - less movement or slower
Più Mosso - more movement or faster
Rallentando - slowing down (abbreviation: rall.)
Ritardando - slowing down (abbreviation: rit.)
Ritenuto - slightly slower
These generally designate a gradual change in tempo; for immediate tempo shifts, composers normally just provide the designation for the new tempo. There is also:
A tempo - return to the previous tempo after change(s); and
Tempo I - often at the beginning of a new section of a piece, denotes a return to the piece's original tempo.
These terms also indicate an immediate, not a gradual, tempo change. Composers typically use these terms for tempo change even if they have written their initial tempo marking in some other language.
More complex and less precise (though vital in many composers' music) is:
Rubato - free adjustment of tempo for expressive purposes

Tempo markings in English
English indications, for example quickly, have also been used, by Benjamin Britten, amongst many others. In jazz and popular music charts, terms like "fast", "laid back", "steady rock", "medium", "medium-up", "ballad", and similar style indications.

Rushing and dragging
When performers unintentionally speed up, they are said to rush. The similar term for unintentionally slowing down is drag. Both of these actions are undesirable, although dragging is usually worse, since it tends to suck the energy from a performance. Because of their negative connotation, neither rush nor drag (nor their equivalents in other languages) are often used as tempo indications in scores, Mahler being a notable exception: as part of a tempo indication he used schleppend ("dragging") in the first movement of his 1st symphony, for example.

Both the electronic "Wittner" (left) as the older "Seth Thomas" model shown on theright include Tempo markings along with BPM on the scales of the metronome

Can tempo terms be defined with the metronome?
Most musicians would agree that it is not possible to give Beats per minute (BPM) equivalents for these terms; the actual number of beats per minute in a piece marked allegro, for example, will depend on the music itself. A piece consisting mainly of minims (half notes) can be played very much quicker in terms of BPM than a piece consisting mainly of semi-quavers (sixteenth notes) but still be described with the same word.
Metronome manufacturers, however, usually do assign BPM values to the traditional terms, but these values do not necessarily mean that these values are correct for every song.

Tempo markings as movement names
Generally, composers (or music publishers) will name movements of classical compositions (and in some cases individual compositions) after their tempo (and/or mood) marking, as for instance in Samuel Barber's Adagio for Strings.

Usage note: plural
The plural of tempo in Italian is tempi. Some writers employ this plural when writing in English. Others use the native English plural tempos. Standard dictionaries reflect both usages.
Unfortunately, neither plural can be used without offending the tastes of at least some readers: inevitably, tempos will strike some readers as incorrect, and tempi will strike other readers as pretentious. Careful writers will assess their context and choose accordingly.

External links
Research group specializing in rhythm, timing, and tempo, University of Amsterdam
Tempo indications in Mozart's music
Tempo Terminology, Virginia Tech department of music
Musical notation
Staff : Clef Key signature Time signature Leger line Barline
Notes : Note value Dotted note Accidental Rest Tie

Expression marks: Tempo Dynamics Articulation Octaves

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tempo"

2005-10-10T02:24:00.000Z

Texture (music)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

(Redirected from Musical texture)
In music, the word texture is often used in a rather vague way in reference to the overall sound of a piece of music. A piece may be described as having a "thick" texture, or a "light" texture, or other terms taken from outside of music (Aaron Copland's more popular pieces are described as having an "open" texture). The perceived texture of a piece can be affected by the number of parts playing at once, the timbre of the instruments playing these parts and the harmony and rhythms used, among other things.
There are more precise terms which describe the number and relationships between voices:
Monophony (base musical texture) is music with just one part (such as Gregorian chant). According to Adris Butterfield (1997), monophony, "is the dominant mode of the European vernacular genres as well as of Latin song...in polyphonic works, it remains a central compositional principle."
Heterophony is a kind of complex monophony - there is only one melody, but multiple voices each of which play the melody differently.
Polyphony is music with several parts, each independent but related and each as important as the others - none of them are merely accompaniment.
Homophony is music in which the top part has a dominant melody and other parts are subservient to it, moving in the same rhythm.
Monody is 17th century Italian song with a dominant melody and a separate accompaniment.
Note that none of these terms accurately describes the majority of western music made today, featuring a melody and rhythmically free accompaniment; in homophony the accompaniment is not rhythmically free, and monody is typically used in a historically specific way.
A simultaneity is more than one complete musical texture occurring at the same time, rather than in succession.
A more recent type of texture first used by György Ligeti is micropolyphony.

Source
Ardis Butterfield (1997). "Monophonic song: questions of category", Companion to Medieval & Renaissance Music. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0198165404.

External link
A Guide to Musical Texture with multimedia

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texture_%28music%29"
Categories: Musical techniques

2005-10-10T02:16:00.000Z

Pattern
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

A pattern is a form, template, or model (or, more abstractly, a set of rules) which can be used to make or to generate things or parts of a thing, especially if the things that are generated have enough in common for the underlying pattern to be inferred or discerned, in which case the things are said to exhibit the pattern. Pattern matching is the act of checking for the presence of the constituents of a pattern. The detection of underlying patterns is called pattern recognition.
The simplest patterns are based on repetition/periodicity: several copies of a single template are combined without modification. For example, in aviation, a "holding pattern" is a flight path which can be repeated until the aircraft has been granted clearance for landing.
Pattern recognition is more complex when templates are used to generate variants. For example, in English, sentences often follow the "N-VP" (noun - verb phrase) pattern, but some knowledge of the English language is required to detect the pattern.
Pattern recognition is studied in many fields, including psychology, ethology, and computer science.
Some patterns (for example, many visual patterns) may be directly observable through the senses.
Some patterns are named. Simple decorative examples are stripes and zigzags. Further examples include the regular tiling of a plane, echoes, and balanced binary branching.
The planets of our solar system are caught in an incredibly ancient pattern by the gravity of the Sun. The planets have been following their (very predictable) elliptical orbits for billions and billions of years. There is certainly a recognizable pattern/cycle there.
Fractals are mathematical patterns. Naturally occurring patterns obey certain principles also found in fractals, for example self-similarity. Even though self-similarity in nature is only approximate and stochastic, integral measures describing fractal properties can also be applied to natural "fractals" like coastal lines, tree shapes, etc. (see fractal geometry). While the outer appearance of self-similar patterns can be quite complex, the rules needed to describe or produce their formation can be extremely simple (e.g. Lindenmayer systems for the description of tree shapes).
Patterns are also common in other areas of mathematics. Recurring decimals will repeat a sequence of digits an infinite number of times. For example, 1 divided by 81 will result in the answer 0.012345679... the numbers 0-9 (except 8) will repeat forever — 1/81 is a recurring decimal.
In addition to static patterns, there may be patterns of movement such as oscillation.

Patterns in nature
Sea shells, Sand Dollars
Sand dunes, Grand Canyon
Tree branches, ferns, coastal lines, clouds

Patterns in art
Modern art: Mondrian, Op Art
Impressionism: Pointillism
Performance Art: Crop circles

Patterns in science and mathematics
Fractals
Crystals
Tessellation
Penrose tilings

Quotation
"Art is the imposing of a pattern on experience, and our aesthetic enjoyment is recognition of the pattern." Alfred North Whitehead (1861-1947), English philosopher and mathematician. Dialogues, June 10, 1943.
Mathematics is commonly described as the "Science of Pattern."

Other senses of "pattern"
Sometimes pattern is defined as the repetition of a template, or as the abstract quality shared by products produced from a template according to a set of rules.
In sewing and fashion design, a pattern is:
An original article of clothing from which others are copied
The (usually) paper template used to cut out the parts of a garment before assembling (see Pattern (sewing))
In machine learning, a pattern is a non-null finite sequence of constant and variable symbols. The language of a pattern is the set of strings generated by substituting variables in the pattern by non-null sequences of constant symbols.
"Pattern" may also refer to a (generally non-rigid) routine as in a person developing a certain pattern of life. See Ethnomethodology for the science of such regular routines. See also Cycle and List of cycles.
In aviation, "the pattern," short for "traffic pattern," is the rectangular traffic flow immediately surrounding a runway.
In Ireland, "pattern" can also refer to devotional practices associated with a patron saint.

See also
Design pattern (architecture)
Design pattern (computer science)
Pattern (devotional)
Pattern recognition
Regular expressions
DNA motifs
Pattern (sewing)

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pattern"
Categories: Design

2005-10-10T02:12:00.000Z

Rhythm
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Rhythm (Greek ρυθμός = tempo) is the variation of the duration of sounds or other events over time. When governed by rule, it is called meter. It is inherent in any time-dependent medium, but it is most associated with music, dance, and the majority of poetry. The study of rhythm, stress, and pitch in speech is called prosody; it is a topic in linguistics. All musicians, instrumentalists and vocalists, work with rhythm, but it is often considered the primary domain of drummers and percussionists.
In Western music, rhythms are usually arranged with respect to a time signature, partially signifying a meter. The speed of the underlying pulse, called the beat, is the tempo. The tempo is usually measured in 'beats per minute' (bpm); 60 bpm means a speed of one beat per second. The length of the meter, or metric unit (usually corresponding with measure length), is divided almost exclusively into either two or three beats, being called duple meter and triple meter, respectively. If each beat is further divided by two it is simple meter, if by three compound meter.
Some genres of music make different use of rhythm than others. Most Western music is based on divisive rhythm, while non-Western music uses more additive rhythm. African music makes heavy use of polyrhythms, and Indian music uses complex cycles such as 7 and 13, while Balinese music often uses complex interlocking rhythms. By comparison, a lot of Western classical music is fairly rhythmically simple; it stays in a simple meter such as 4/4 or 3/4 and makes little use of syncopation. In the 20th century, composers like Igor Stravinsky, Philip Glass, and Steve Reich wrote more rhythmically complex music using odd meters, and techniques such as phasing and additive rhythm. At the same time, modernists such as Olivier Messiaen and his pupils used increased complexity to disrupt the sense of a regular beat, leading eventually to the widespread use of irrational rhythms in New Complexity. This use may be explained by a comment of John Cage's where he notes that regular rhythms cause sounds to be heard as a group rather than individually; the irregular rhythms highlight the rapidly changing pitch relationships that would otherwise be subsumed into irrelevant rhythmic groupings (Sandow 2004, p.257). LaMonte Young also wrote music in which the sense of a regular beat is absent because the music consists only of long sustained tones (drones). In the 1930s, Henry Cowell wrote music involving multiple simultaneous periodic rhythms and collaborated with Léon Theremin to invent the Rhythmicon, the first electronic rhythm machine, in order to perform them.
Clave is a common underlying rhythm in African, Cuban music, and Brazilian music.
A rhythm section generally consists of percussion instruments, and possibly chordal instruments (e.g., guitar, banjo) and keyboard instruments, such as piano (which, by the way, may be classified as any of these three types of instruments).
"Rhythm," wrote Tom Robbins in Another Roadside Attraction, "is everything pertaining to the duration of energy."
Narmour (1980, p.147-53) describes three categories of prosodic rules which create rhythmic successions which are additive (same duration repeated), cumulative (short-long), or countercumulative (long-short). Cumulation is associated with closure or relaxation, countercumulation with openness or tension, while additive rhythms are open-ended and repetitive. Richard Middleton points out this method cannot account for syncopation and suggests the concept of transformation.
A rhythmic unit is a durational pattern which occupies a period of time equivalent to a pulse or pulses on an underlying metric level, as opposed to a rhythmic gesture which does not (DeLone et. al. (Eds.), 1975, chap. 3).

Sources
Narmour (1980). Cited in DeLone et. al. (Eds.) (1975). Aspects of Twentieth-Century Music. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall. ISBN 0130493465.
Middleton, Richard (1990/2002). Studying Popular Music. Philadelphia: Open University Press. ISBN 0335152759.
Sandow, Greg (2004). "A Fine Madness", The Pleasure of Modernist Music. ISBN 1580461433.

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhythm"
Categories: Rhythm

2005-10-06T20:08:00.000Z

Hello world!