5,648 research outputs found
Lute, Vihuela, and Early Guitar
ProducciĂłn CientĂficaLutes, guitars, and vihuelas were the principal plucked instruments in use in Europe until around
1800. Ancient forms of the lute existed in many parts of the ancient world, from Egypt and
Persia through to China. It appears to have become known in Europe, where its earliest
associations were with immigrants such as the legendary Persian lutenist Ziryab (b. c. 790–d.
852), who was established in Moorish Spain by 822. The origins of the various flat-backed
instruments that eventually became guitars are more difficult to trace. The vihuela is one such
instrument that evolved in the mid-15th century and was prolific in Spain and its dominions
throughout the 16th century and beyond. Very few plucked instruments, and only a handful of
fragmentary musical compositions, survive from before 1500. The absence of artifacts and
musical sources prior to 1500 has been a point of demarcation in the study of early plucked
instruments, although current research is seeking to explore the continuity of instrumental
practice across this somewhat artificial divide. In contrast, perhaps as many as thirty thousand
works—perhaps even more—for lute, guitar, and vihuela survive from the period 1500–1800.
The music and musical practices associated with them are not well integrated into general
histories of music. This is due in part to the use of tablature as the principal notation format until
about 1800, and also because writers of general histories of music have for the most part
ignored solo instrumental music in their coverage. (For example, the Oxford Anthology of
Western Music, Vol. 1 (2018), designed to accompany chapters 1–11 of Richard Taruskin’s
Oxford History of Western Music, does not contain a single piece of instrumental music prior to
Frescobaldi [1637]). Contrary to this marginalized image, lutes, vihuelas, and guitars were a
revered part of courtly musical culture until well into the 18th century, and constantly present in
urban contexts. After the development of basso continuo practice after 1600, plucked
instruments also became frequent in Christian church music, although the lute was widely
played by clerics of all levels, particularly during the Renaissance. It was also one of the
principal tools used by composers of liturgical polyphony, in part because tablature was the
most common way of writing music in score. From the beginning of music printing, printed
tablatures played a fundamental role in the urban dissemination of music originally for church
and court, and plucked instruments were used widely by all levels of society for both leisure and
pleasure. After 1800, the lute fell from use, the guitar was transformed into its modern form with
single strings, and tablature ceased to be the preferred notation for plucked instruments.Este trabajo forma parte del proyecto de investigación “La obra musical renacentista: fundamentos, repertorios y prácticas” HAR 2015-70181-P (MINECO/FEDER, UE
Antibodies for immunolabeling by light and electron microscopy : not for the faint hearted
Reliable antibodies represent crucial tools in the arsenal of the cell biologist and using them to localize antigens for immunocytochemistry is one of their most important applications. However, antibody-antigen interactions are much more complex and unpredictable than suggested by the old 'lock and key' analogy, and the goal of trying to prove that an antibody is specific is far more difficult than is generally appreciated. Here, we discuss the problems associated with the very complicated issue of trying to establish that an antibody (and the results obtained with it) is specific for the immunolabeling approaches used in light or electron microscopy. We discuss the increasing awareness that significant numbers of commercial antibodies are often not up to the quality required. We provide guidelines for choosing and testing antibodies in immuno-EM. Finally, we describe how quantitative EM methods can be used to identify reproducible patterns of antibody labeling and also extract specific labeling distributions.Peer reviewe
Milky Way Kinematics: Measurements at the Subcentral Point of the Fourth Quadrant
We use atomic hydrogen (HI) data from the Southern Galactic Plane Survey to
study the kinematics of the fourth quadrant of the Milky Way. By measuring the
terminal velocity as a function of longitude throughout the fourth Galactic
quadrant we have derived the most densely sampled rotation curve available for
the Milky Way between 3 < R < 8 kpc. We determine a new joint rotation curve
fit for the first and fourth quadrants, which can be used for kinematic
distances interior to the Solar circle. From our data we place new limits on
the peak to peak variation of streaming motions in the fourth quadrant to be
~10 km/s. We show that the shape of the average HI profile beyond the terminal
velocity is consistent with gas of three velocity dispersions, a cold component
with km/s, a warmer component with km/s and a
fast component with km/s. Examining the widths with Galactic
radius we find that the narrowest two components show little variation with
radius and their small scale fluctuations track each other very well,
suggesting that they share the same cloud-to-cloud motions. The width of the
widest component is constant until R<4 kpc, where it increases sharply.Comment: 36 pages, 10 figures, accepted to ApJ. Full electronic version of
table 1 available at
ftp://ftp.atnf.csiro.au/pub/people/nmcclure/papers/velocity_tab1.te
Whole body vibration training and its application to age-related performance decrements:an exploratory analysis
Middle age is associated with a pronounced decline in power and flexibility. Whilst whole body vibration training (WBVT) improves performance in a range of populations, whether WBVT can improve muscle power and flexibility in a middle-aged population is not known. The present study aimed to determine the influence of 5 weeks progressive WBVT in middle-aged (45-55 yrs.) and younger (20-30 yrs.) recreationally active females. Participants in each age group were randomly allocated to an intervention (WBVT) or control group. The WBVT groups trained for five weeks on a vibration platform, while the control groups performed identical exercises, with no vibration. Prior to, and after, the five-week study vertical countermovement jump (VCMJ) and range of motion (ROM) performance were measured. WBVT significantly (P = 0.001) improved VCMJ performance when compared to the control groups. This improvement was significantly (P = 0.001) greater in the middle-aged compared with the younger WBVT group. WBVT significantly (P = 0.001) improved ROM irrespective of age. Taken together, these results suggest that WBVT can off-set age related performance decrements, which has therapeutic implications for musculoskeletal aging. Therefore, WBVT could be undertaken to minimise age-related performance deterioration in middle-aged female populations
MusicologĂa, informática y la vihuela en el siglo XXI
This article explores the use of computing applied to musicology, in the first instance, summarising a representative selection of key projects in relation to international digital humanities, followed by an introduction to my current project to create a database dedicated to the vihuela de mano, the Spanish renaissance musical instrument par excellence. The article underlines the high level of professional organisation in the discipline of musicology that permitted, from the middle of the twentieth century, the creation of international projects to catalogue the world’s musical sources, firstly on paper but ideal for transformation into digital resources. The article explores reviews key projects related to music theory, plainchant, renaissance polyphony, and the new computational challenges for the digital handling of musical materials. The second part is devoted to the creation of a digital environment for the world of the vihuela: the instrument, its music, its players, makers and consumers, as well as documentation, bibliography, and related discography.Este trabajo explora el uso de la informática aplicada a la musicologĂa, en primer lugar, resumiendo una selecciĂłn de proyectos representativos y claves en la área de las humanidades digitales internacionales, seguido por una introducciĂłn del proyecto que tengo sobre la mesa de crear una base de datos dedicado a la vihuela de mano, instrumento musical español renacentista por excelencia. La ponencia subraya el alto nivel de organizaciĂłn profesional en la musicologĂa que permitiĂł desde mediados del siglo XX la creaciĂłn de proyectos internacionales de catalogaciĂłn de fuentes, inicialmente en papel e ideales para su transformaciĂłn en herramientas digitales. Explora algunos de los proyectos principales dedicados a la teorĂa musical, el canto llano, polifonĂa renacentista, y los nuevos desafĂos informáticos para el manejo digital de informaciĂłn musical. La segunda parte se dedica a la creaciĂłn de un hábitat digital para todo lo que se refiere a la vihuela: al instrumento y su mĂşsica, a las personas, bien sean tañedores, constructores o consumidores, y la informaciĂłn documental, bibliográfica y discográfica relacionada
Can Heteroclito Giancarli change the world?
Less familiar to contemporary musicologists than Benjamin Button, Heteroclito Giancarli might be poised to do more for music than Benjamin Button did for the science of ageing. A Venetian patrician, amateur singer and author of a collection of Compositione musicali published in 1602, Heteroclito Giancarli might be just the man to unsettle one of the pivotal foundation stones of Western musical culture concerning the genesis of opera. He is the tip of an iceberg that offers an alternate history to the modern myth starring Florentine nobleman Giovanni Bardi and his Camerata of monody co-conspirators, Girolamo Mei, Vincenzo Galilei and Jacopo Peri. Instead, the Giancarli story tells of a hundred years of singing to the lute, of a much more realistic and subtle development and reshaping of existing practices, and of Baroque styles that grew from renaissance traditions rather than as reaction against them. It therefore questions whether it was really the Bardi Laboratories that killed off polyphony in order to reinvent monody, and that acted to enable the Ancient World to triumph over Modernity. My research suggests a less theatrical scenario that recognises the presence of singer-songwriters throughout the sixteenth century, musicians usually omitted from general histories of sixteenth-century music, and suggests a series of continuities that link Giulio Caccini and other early baroque monodists to the lutenist songsters who flourished throughout the sixteenth century. Departamento de MusicologĂ
What is sociology of law? (On law, rules, social control and sociology)
In this essay, I recapitulate and reformulate an oft-interrupted conversation I have had with myself and with many others during the past more than half-century. The conversation concerns sociology of law and the question around which it has circled is this: "What is sociology of law?" and - implied in that question - is such a thing possible
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