“Where Words Fail, Music Speaks”: The Experience of Adapting Literature to Music

Adaptation is a relatively new yet growing academic field consisting mainly of research on the modification of book into film. This study endeavors to expand the discourse on adaptation to the modal transformation of literary works to music. By using this specific adaptive type to examine the process and functionality of adapted works, I was able to address several key aspects of modern adaptation, including the hot-button issue of fidelity to an established source text, the role of adaptor as co-author, and the ability of solitary artistic modes to augment each other when combined. The resulting personal attempts at adaptation of a short poem to an accompanied vocal composition and an unaccompanied choral work were accomplished by the practical application of adaptive theory presented in several documents on the strategies behind the adaptive process. In using an experience-based approach, this study provides a hands-on look at the complex processes involved in adaptation and contributes to the growing body of adaptation research. This venture came about as a result of the marriage of my two academic passions: music and literature. The initial idea surrounding the project was to study modern adaptive practice through several articles on the modification of book into film as well as Julie Sanders’ in-depth study of musical adaptations of the works of William Shakespeare, Shakespeare and Music: Afterlives and Borrowings. I began by engaging myself in the discourse of adaptation by composing responses to each article I read: Dudley Andrew’s “Adaptation,” “The Ethics of Infidelity” by Thomas Leitch, “Beyond Fidelity: The Dialogics of Adaptation” by Robert Stam, and Glenn Jellenik’s “Quiet, Music at Work: The Soundtrack and Adaptation.” Thoroughly immersed in the ideas and terminology surrounding modern adaptation, I then turned to Sanders’ book. My goals were to obtain a solid understanding of the many and varied musical settings of the timeless works of Shakespeare and then to take a more focused look at a single foray into a musical adaptation of one of the Bard’s works. My concentration landed on Romantic composer Johannes Brahms’ Ophelia Lieder, a German song cycle composed of five, short unaccompanied songs to be used in practical performances of Hamlet. I comprehensively examined Brahms’ illustration of the madness of Ophelia through musical techniques as well as his role as adaptive co-author to Shakespeare. Acquiring comprehension of the general thoughts and concepts surrounding adaptation and then delving into one particular transformation of written word into melody contributed greatly to my overall understanding of the process by which one mode is turned into another. However, I did not merely wish to analyze how adaptation is done; I wanted to put my money where my mouth was, so to speak, and apply what I had learned of the theory into practice by adapting a piece of literature myself. Though adaptation is a recently developed field of study and little has been written on the subject of transforming literary works into music in favor of book to film modal examinations, the discourse on the subject that has already been established provided me with a solid foundation of concepts and ideologies with which to rework my chosen source text into a musical setting. Building on this experience, I then took the adaptive process a step further by arranging a choral work based on the solo composition; in essence, I adapted my own adaptation. These two in-depth examinations of the hands-on experience of adapting provide an unprecedented look into the modal transformation of literature to music. Furthermore, the experiential approach to adaptation this study employs expands upon the growing body of discourse associated with adaptation in a different and compelling way. As adaptation between virtually all modes becomes more prevalent in our society and culture, studies will no doubt move into the limelight of the discipline. In response to the burgeoning growth of the subject, this study aims to build upon previous adaptive research while simultaneously providing a basis for future investigation into this new and exciting field

Modifying Ferritic Stainless Steels for Solid Oxide Fuel Cell Applications

One of the most important problem areas associated with the solid oxide fuel cells is selection of a cost effective material for use as the interconnect component of the cell.  Metals are now being considered as materials for this component, with ferritic stainless steels being the leading candidate.  This work evaluates methods to combat the problem areas, namely rapid growth rate and vaporization of the oxide scale, that hinder the use of these materials.  Oxidation experiments have been performed in dry and wet single atmosphere exposures as well as a dual environment exposure to simulate the conditions in a working SOFC.  Measurements of the electrical properties of the oxides that formed were also performed.  Commercial alloys, E-Brite and Crofer 22APU, were tested to form a baseline and resultant oxidation and electrical behaviors match those found in the literature.  Isothermal oxidation tests for short exposure times have also led to a possible mechanism for the formation of the MnCr2O4 layer on Crofer.  All of these tests were then replicated on a series of experimental Fe-22Cr-XTi (X=0-4) alloys.  These alloys are shown to form a rutile layer analogous to the MnCr2O4 layer on Crofer.  While this layer does prevent some chromia vaporization, the consequences due to the presence of Ti in the chromia include increased growth rate, decreased resistivity, extensive internal oxidation and nitridation of Ti, and a change of the growth direction of the chromia.  The alloys containing ~2 – 3 wt%Ti appear to offer the best combination of oxidation, electrical, and mechanical properties.  Coatings of lanthanum chromites and ferrites were also tested and shown to be very sensitive to exposure condition, resulting in the formation of pores, and to coating thickness, where thicker coatings are subject to cracking.  Finally, reactive element oxide doping was attempted to slow the oxide growth rate for E-Brite (CeO2 doping) and for the Fe-Cr-Ti alloys (CeO2 and La2O3 doping).  A significant effect was observed for E-Brite, while both dopants produced little change in the amount of oxide formed on the Ti bearing alloys.</p

“Where Words Fail, Music Speaks”: The Experience of Adapting Literature to Music

Adaptation is a relatively new yet growing academic field consisting mainly of research on the modification of book into film. This study endeavors to expand the discourse on adaptation to the modal transformation of literary works to music. By using this specific adaptive type to examine the process and functionality of adapted works, I was able to address several key aspects of modern adaptation, including the hot-button issue of fidelity to an established source text, the role of adaptor as co-author, and the ability of solitary artistic modes to augment each other when combined. The resulting personal attempts at adaptation of a short poem to an accompanied vocal composition and an unaccompanied choral work were accomplished by the practical application of adaptive theory presented in several documents on the strategies behind the adaptive process. In using an experience-based approach, this study provides a hands-on look at the complex processes involved in adaptation and contributes to the growing body of adaptation research. This venture came about as a result of the marriage of my two academic passions: music and literature. The initial idea surrounding the project was to study modern adaptive practice through several articles on the modification of book into film as well as Julie Sanders’ in-depth study of musical adaptations of the works of William Shakespeare, Shakespeare and Music: Afterlives and Borrowings. I began by engaging myself in the discourse of adaptation by composing responses to each article I read: Dudley Andrew’s “Adaptation,” “The Ethics of Infidelity” by Thomas Leitch, “Beyond Fidelity: The Dialogics of Adaptation” by Robert Stam, and Glenn Jellenik’s “Quiet, Music at Work: The Soundtrack and Adaptation.” Thoroughly immersed in the ideas and terminology surrounding modern adaptation, I then turned to Sanders’ book. My goals were to obtain a solid understanding of the many and varied musical settings of the timeless works of Shakespeare and then to take a more focused look at a single foray into a musical adaptation of one of the Bard’s works. My concentration landed on Romantic composer Johannes Brahms’ Ophelia Lieder, a German song cycle composed of five, short unaccompanied songs to be used in practical performances of Hamlet. I comprehensively examined Brahms’ illustration of the madness of Ophelia through musical techniques as well as his role as adaptive co-author to Shakespeare. Acquiring comprehension of the general thoughts and concepts surrounding adaptation and then delving into one particular transformation of written word into melody contributed greatly to my overall understanding of the process by which one mode is turned into another. However, I did not merely wish to analyze how adaptation is done; I wanted to put my money where my mouth was, so to speak, and apply what I had learned of the theory into practice by adapting a piece of literature myself. Though adaptation is a recently developed field of study and little has been written on the subject of transforming literary works into music in favor of book to film modal examinations, the discourse on the subject that has already been established provided me with a solid foundation of concepts and ideologies with which to rework my chosen source text into a musical setting. Building on this experience, I then took the adaptive process a step further by arranging a choral work based on the solo composition; in essence, I adapted my own adaptation. These two in-depth examinations of the hands-on experience of adapting provide an unprecedented look into the modal transformation of literature to music. Furthermore, the experiential approach to adaptation this study employs expands upon the growing body of discourse associated with adaptation in a different and compelling way. As adaptation between virtually all modes becomes more prevalent in our society and culture, studies will no doubt move into the limelight of the discipline. In response to the burgeoning growth of the subject, this study aims to build upon previous adaptive research while simultaneously providing a basis for future investigation into this new and exciting field

Spectral pitch distance and microtonal melodies

We present an experiment designed to test the effectiveness of spectral pitch distance at modeling the degree of “affinity” or “fit” of pairs of successively played tones or chords (spectral pitch distance is the cosine distance between salience-weighted, Gaussian-smoothed, pitch domain embeddings of spectral pitches—typically the first eight to ten partials of a tone). The results of a previously conducted experiment, which collected ratings of the perceived similarity and fit of root-position major and minor triads, suggest the model works well for pairs of triads in standard 12-tone equal temperament tunings. The new experiment has been designed to test the effectiveness of spectral pitch distance at modeling the affinity of tones in microtonal melodies where the partials of the tones can be variably tempered between being perfectly harmonic and perfectly matched to the underlying microtonal tuning. The use of microtonal tunings helps to disambiguate innate perceptual (psychoacoustical) responses from learned (cultural) responses. Participants are presented with a software synthesizer containing two unlabeled controls: one adjusts the precise tuning of the tones; the other adjusts the extent to which the spectrum is tempered to match the tuning (as set by the first control). A selection of microtonal melodies are played in different tunings, and the participants adjust one, or both, controls until they find a “sweet spot” at which the music sounds most “in-tune” and the notes best “fit” together. The results of these experiments will be presented and discussed

Metrics for pitch collections

Models of the perceived distance between pairs of pitch collections are a core component of broader models of the perception of tonality as a whole. Numerous different distance measures have been proposed, including voice-leading, psychoacoustic, and pitch and interval class distances; but, so far, there has been no attempt to bind these different measures into a single mathematical framework, nor to incorporate the uncertain or probabilistic nature of pitch perception (whereby tones with similar frequencies may, or may not, be heard as having the same pitch). To achieve these aims, we embed pitch collections in novel multi-way expectation arrays, and show how metrics between such arrays can model the perceived dissimilarity of the pitch collections they embed. By modeling the uncertainties of human pitch perception, expectation arrays indicate the expected number of tones, ordered pairs of tones, ordered triples of tones and so forth, that are heard as having any given pitch, dyad of pitches, triad of pitches, and so forth. The pitches can be either absolute or relative (in which case the arrays are invariant with respect to transposition). We provide a number of examples that show how the metrics accord well with musical intuition, and suggest some ways in which this work may be developed

Micrometeoroid penetration measuring device Patent

Measuring micrometeroid depth of penetration into various material

Theoretical Models for Classical Cepheids: IV. Mean Magnitudes and Colors and the Evaluation of Distance, Reddening and Metallicity

We discuss the metallicity effect on the theoretical visual and near-infrared PL and PLC relations of classical Cepheids, as based on nonlinear, nonlocal and time--dependent convective pulsating models at varying chemical composition. In view of the two usual methods of averaging (magnitude-weighted and intensity-weighted) observed magnitudes and colors over the full pulsation cycle, we briefly discuss the differences between static and mean quantities. We show that the behavior of the synthetic mean magnitudes and colors fully reproduces the observed trend of Galactic Cepheids, supporting the validity of the model predictions. In the second part of the paper we show how the estimate of the mean reddening and true distance modulus of a galaxy from Cepheid VK photometry depend on the adopted metal content, in the sense that larger metallicities drive the host galaxy to lower extinctions and distances. Conversely, self-consistent estimates of the Cepheid mean reddening, distance and metallicity may be derived if three-filter data are taken into account. By applying the theoretical PL and PLC relations to available BVK data of Cepheids in the Magellanic Clouds we eventually obtain Z \sim 0.008, E(B-V) \sim 0.02 mag, DM \sim 18.63 mag for LMC and Z \sim 0.004, E(B-V) \sim 0.01 mag., DM \sim 19.16 mag. for SMC. The discrepancy between such reddenings and the current values based on BVI data is briefly discussed.Comment: 16 pages, 11 postscript figures, accepted for publication on Ap

The Shape and Scale of Galactic Rotation from Cepheid Kinematics

A catalog of Cepheid variables is used to probe the kinematics of the Galactic disk. Radial velocities are measured for eight distant Cepheids toward l = 300; these new Cepheids provide a particularly good constraint on the distance to the Galactic center, R_0. We model the disk with both an axisymmetric rotation curve and one with a weak elliptical component, and find evidence for an ellipticity of 0.043 +/- 0.016 near the Sun. Using these models, we derive R_0 = 7.66 +/- 0.32 kpc and v_circ = 237 +/- 12 km/s. The distance to the Galactic center agrees well with recent determinations from the distribution of RR Lyrae variables, and disfavors most models with large ellipticities at the solar orbit.Comment: 36 pages, LaTeX, 10 figure

Hex Player—a virtual musical controller

In this paper, we describe a playable musical interface for tablets and multi-touch tables. The interface is a generalized keyboard, inspired by the Thummer, and consists of an array of virtual buttons. On a generalized keyboard, any given interval always has the same shape (and therefore fingering); furthermore, the fingering is consistent over a broad range of tunings. Compared to a physical generalized keyboard, a virtual version has some advantages—notably, that the spatial location of the buttons can be transformed by shears and rotations, and their colouring can be changed to reflect their musical function in different scales. We exploit these flexibilities to facilitate the playing not just of conventional Western scales but also a wide variety of microtonal generalized diatonic scales known as moment of symmetry, or well-formed, scales. A user can choose such a scale, and the buttons are automatically arranged so their spatial height corresponds to their pitch, and buttons an octave apart are always vertically above each other. Furthermore, the most numerous scale steps run along rows, while buttons within the scale are light-coloured, and those outside are dark or removed. These features can aid beginners; for example, the chosen scale might be the diatonic, in which case the piano’s familiar white and black colouring of the seven diatonic and five chromatic notes is used, but only one scale fingering need ever be learned (unlike a piano where every key needs a different fingering). Alternatively, it can assist advanced composers and musicians seeking to explore the universe of unfamiliar microtonal scales

Cepheid Period-Radius and Period-Luminosity Relations and the Distance to the LMC

We have used the infrared Barnes-Evans surface brightness technique to derive the radii and distances of 34 Galactic Cepheid variables. Radius and distance results obtained from both versions of the technique are in excellent agreement. The radii of 28 variables are used to determine the period-radius relation. This relation is found to have a smaller dispersion than in previous studies, and is identical to the period-radius relation found by Laney & Stobie from a completely independent method, a fact which provides persuasive evidence that the Cepheid period-radius relation is now determined at a very high confidence level. We use the accurate infrared distances to determine period-luminosity relations in the V, I, J, H and K passbands from the Galactic sample of Cepheids. We derive improved slopes of these relations from updated LMC Cepheid samples and adopt these slopes to obtain accurate absolute calibrations of the PL relation. By comparing these relations to the ones defined by the LMC Cepheids, we derive strikingly consistent and precise values for the LMC distance modulus in each of the passbands which yield a mean value of DM (LMC) = 18.46 +- 0.02. Our results show that the infrared Barnes-Evans technique is very insensitive to both Cepheid metallicity and adopted reddening, and therefore a very powerful tool to derive accurate distances to nearby galaxies by a direct application of the technique to their Cepheid variables, rather than by comparing PL relations of different galaxies, which introduces much more sensitivity to metallicity and absorption corrections which are usually difficult to determine.Comment: LaTeX, AASTeX style, 9 Figures, 10 Tables, The Astrophysical Journal in press (accepted Oct. 14, 1997). Fig. 3 replace