A semiotic approach to musical metaphor : theory and methodology

textThe idea that music acts in part as a vehicle for meaning is a truism in both popular reception and music scholarship. The language used to speak and to write about music is replete with words that describe it metaphorically. Melodies descend; rhythms speed up; timbre is smooth. Certainly, we use these terms for communicative facility, yet by applying this language to music, we create metaphors that, according to Ludwig Wittgenstein, act as frames that direct interpretation. In the paper, I put forth a theory that views metaphor as the process of semantic transfer or substitution in which a non-musical concept stands in for a musical feature, effectively enabling us to hear music as more than simply sound. The use of certain metaphors receives inspiration from previously heard music, programs, a perceived similarity with non-musical phenomena, or a combination of these. The methodology that I propose coordinates these metaphors—places them within a single frame—and enables them to interact with one another and to create a more palpable musical experience for the listener. I use Chopin's E minor and A major preludes from Op. 28 as the primary models for expounding this hermeneutic.Musi

The virtual observing agent in music: a theory of agential perspective as implied by indexical gesture

The human body is inseparable from our understanding of music. Through embodied cognition, listeners conceptualize music as performed action. We find evidence of this in our most fundamental musical language. “High” pitches resonate high in a singer’s head, while “fast” rhythms resemble fast bodily movement. Scholars have followed the entailments of these metaphors in recent decades, developing theories of bodily gesture (Hatten 2004, Lidov 2005) and physical mimesis (Cox 2011). These hold that the bodily movement that we hear in music can imitate the physical gestures that we use in everyday communication (e.g., waving, nodding, bowing, or sighing). This has its own entailments; most fundamentally, it implies the presence of a virtual, human-like agent within music that is similar to the “virtual persona” theorized by Edward T. Cone (1974). In other words, in perceiving musical sounds as imitative of physical movement and gesture, we infer the presence of a virtual agent who enacts them. This dissertation extends these theories, demonstrating that musical gestures can be mimetic of indexical somatic movements—that is, bodily movements of pointing, looking, striving, and reaching. These indexical gestures suggest the presence of a virtual observing agent. The virtual observing agent acts a lens through which we, the listener, can experience the interior world (diegesis) of a work. This leads us to embody a single and more individualized perspective on the musical representation. I explore the implications of indexical gesture and perspective with an examination of music from the common practice period. Moreover, I bring the theory of virtual observing agency together with theories of musical narrative and emotion.Musi

Bridging the Gap: Simultaneous Fine Tuning for Data Re-Balancing

There are many real-world classification problems wherein the issue of data imbalance (the case when a data set contains substantially more samples for one/many classes than the rest) is unavoidable. While under-sampling the problematic classes is a common solution, this is not a compelling option when the large data class is itself diverse and/or the limited data class is especially small. We suggest a strategy based on recent work concerning limited data problems which utilizes a supplemental set of images with similar properties to the limited data class to aid in the training of a neural network. We show results for our model against other typical methods on a real-world synthetic aperture sonar data set. Code can be found at github.com/JohnMcKay/dataImbalance.Comment: Submitted to IGARSS 2018, 4 Pages, 8 Figure

Incontri tirrenici: le relazioni fra Fenici, Sardi ed Etruschi in Sardegna (630-480 a.C.)

This research concerns the relations between Etruria and Sardinia in the period between 630 and 480 B.C. In particular, it was created a catalog of all etruscan imports of the Island, that includes both published materials and unpublished pieces from sites like Sulky-Sant'Antioco (CI), Monte Sirai Nuraghe and Sirai near Carbonia (CI). Based on these objective data, and its quantitative and qualitative analysis on the discovery contexts and on the type of imported vases, historical and archaeological reconstruction on the relations between Phoenicians, Sardinians and Etruscans have been proposed. The proposed hypotheses concerns the Sardinian and Phoenician market of the Island; furthermore, the Etruscan cities participating in the trade, and the analysis concerning the distribution routes and carriers, followed by the materials to arrive on the Island. Following the analysis of the object and the form of the archaic trade, an attempt to hypothesize who are the persons who buy Etruscan products and for which motivation was made. Based on the type of imported vessels, mainly concerning the consumption of wine, a phoenician "symposium" was tried to define. Finally, basing on a set of indicators, an attempt to figure out if Etruscans have directly attended the sardinian coasts, and if their exports had an impact, for example showing signs of imitation and inspiration, on the sardinian and phoenician local production, was made

Topographical survey and digital models

In this paper we will briefly discuss the evolution of the solutions that the Chair ofEtruscology of the Bologna University applied to the topographic survey of the archaeological excavation in the Etruscan city of Marzabotto (BO). The operational choices, the instruments and the software used in the latest excavation fields will be presented here. We will then illustrate the applied experimental workflow and its possible further development in order to take full advantage of the possibilities and benefits offered by the 3D survey techniques