Lifting the veil on ‘a good jam’: describing the coordination dynamics of an acoustic jazz trio

As a professional bass player and teacher I have experienced various instances of musicians interacting with one another in a group setting. These interactions varied from school ensembles, music students at a tertiary level, to professional musicians. Through my own teaching and playing career, I have noticed that certain groups of musicians are better than others at communicating their ideas and to coordinate as a group during a musical performance. Meadows(2008, 2) explains that a system is "a set of things – people, cells, molecules, or whatever – interconnected in such a way that they produce their own pattern over time" while Kelso (2009, 1539) states that coordination dynamics aims to identify and describe the nature of coordination within a part of a system. With these statements in mind, Bishop (2018, 4) argues that a musical ensemble can be regarded as a system in which the individual musicians, their instruments, the audience, and the performance space, are components that are interacting as a system. There is an apparent gap in the literature as authoritative texts on improvisation and coordination within the jazz rhythm section such as Saying Something by Ingrid Monson (1996) and Thinking in Jazz by Paul Berliner (1994) mainly focus on musicians in the United States. This study examines the interaction and coordination of a South African jazz trio during a musical performance to address the apparent shortfall in the literature in a South African context. This lack of depth in the literature leads to the research question: What are the main methods of communication and coordination within the Charl du Plessis Trio during a performance? A summary of the history and circumstances that led to the formation of the jazz piano trio as a group format is included in this study. It highlights the work of prominent trios and compares them to the work of the trio led by Charl du Plessis, examining the ways that his trio performs traditional jazz works and how their interaction and coordination methods differ from traditional jazz performance conventions. I undertook to describe the main communication and coordination dynamics to determine whether a jazz group in the South African context functions similarly to their American counterparts. This dissertation aims to contribute to the scholarly literature about the lived experience of musicians in such a trio. The Charl du Plessis Trio, of which I am a member, was chosen as a sample group, considering its critical acclaim (see Section 2.2.4 Charl du Plessis sample group), its South African context, and its history of actively performing as a jazz trio between 2006 and 2021. This history is in contrast with the ad hoc zero history of groups studied by Bastien and Hostager (1988) in a jazz context. This study describes the differences and similarities in each musician’s viewpoint or experience in the trio, specifically examining the work of the Charl du Plessis Trio, drawing on the work by Kelso (2003, 45) on how patterns of coordinated behaviour emerge from each member’s musical contributions over time. Due to the small sample group, the research design of this study consists mainly of structured interviews with the participants using the Interpretive Phenomenological Analysis framework. The participants’ interviews were transcribed and analysed to identify which of the Wittenbaum et al. (2002, 178–80) coordination methods (pre-plans, tacit pre-coordination, in-process planning, or in-process tacit coordination) were most relevant for describing the coordination between participants during a performance. This study finds that in-process tacit coordination (members making mutual strategy adjustments tacitly while working to fit the observed behaviour of others) is the most common method of coordination during a performance within the sample group. Other methods of coordination that were also found to contribute to the group's performance were pre-plans (members making explicit their planned actions), tacit pre-coordination (where members make assumptions about what is expected of them), and in-process planning (where members define their roles explicitly communicating their planned strategy).Art and MusicM. Mus. (Musicology

Multi-scale Drivers of Spatial Variation in Old-Growth Forest Carbon Density Disentangled with Lidar and an Individual-Based Landscape Model

Forest ecosystems are the most important terrestrial carbon (C) storage globally, and presently mitigate anthropogenic climate change by acting as a large and persistent sink for atmospheric CO₂. Yet, forest C density varies greatly in space, both globally and at stand and landscape levels. Understanding the multi-scale drivers of this variation is a prerequisite for robust and effective climate change mitigation in ecosystem management. Here, we used airborne light detection and ranging (Lidar) and a novel high-resolution simulation model of landscape dynamics (iLand) to identify the drivers of variation in C density for an old-growth forest landscape in Oregon, USA. With total ecosystem C in excess of 1 Gt ha⁻¹ these ecosystems are among the most C-rich globally. Our findings revealed considerable spatial variability in stand-level C density across the landscape. Notwithstanding the distinct environmental gradients in our mountainous study area only 55.3% of this variation was explained by environmental drivers, with radiation and soil physical properties having a stronger influence than temperature and precipitation. The remaining variation in C stocks was largely attributable to emerging properties of stand dynamics (that is, stand structure and composition). Not only were density- and size-related indicators positively associated with C stocks but also diversity in composition and structure, documenting a close link between biodiversity and ecosystem functioning. We conclude that the complexity of old-growth forests contributes to their sustained high C levels, a finding that is relevant to managing forests for climate change mitigation.Keywords: old-growth forests, functional diversity, iLand, forest carbon storage, forest stand dynamics, ecosystem structure and functioning, individual-based modeling, airborne Lidar, climate change mitigationKeywords: old-growth forests, functional diversity, iLand, forest carbon storage, forest stand dynamics, ecosystem structure and functioning, individual-based modeling, airborne Lidar, climate change mitigatio

Softsensors: key component of property control in forming technology

The constantly increasing challenges of production technology for the economic and resource-saving production of metallic workpieces require, among other things, the optimisation of existing processes. Forming technology, which is confronted with new challenges regarding the quality of the workpieces, must also organise the individual processes more efficiently and at the same time more reliably in order to be able to guarantee good workpiece quality and at the same time to be able to produce economically. One way to meet these challenges is to carry out the forming processes in closed-loop control systems using softsensors. Despite the many potential applications of softsensors in the field of forming technology, there is still no definition of the term softsensor. This publication therefore proposes a definition of the softsensor based on the definition of a sensor and the distinction from the observer, which on the one hand is intended to stimulate scientific discourse and on the other hand is also intended to form the basis for further scientific work. Based on this definition, a wide variety of highly topical application examples of various softsensors in the field of forming technology are given

Tatami and wood: ink rubbings and the discussion of materiality in postwar Japanese calligraphy and art

This paper discusses the relationship between postwar Japanese avant-garde calligraphy and the abstract art of the 1950s, showing how calligraphy contributed to the international postwar discussion of materiality. Postwar Japanese art – as exemplified by the art collectives Gutai and Mono-ha – is widely recognized for its close attention to materiality. This study will introduce Japanese avant-garde calligraphy into the discussion of materiality, examining the relationship between the avant-garde calligraphers’ use of traditional takuhon ink rubbings and the technically identical surrealist technique of frottage, invented in 1924 by Max Ernst as a way to implement ideas of automatism in art and to release the ‘material’ from conscious control. The first attempt to examine the encounter between Japanese calligraphy and surrealism, this study argues that when Japanese avant-garde calligraphers such as Inoue Yūichi (1916–85) and abstract painters such as Hasegawa Saburō (1906–57) began incorporating traditional takuhon ink rubbings into their active art practice in the 1950s, they introduced a new dimension of spirituality into the international discourse on materiality

Das Budget als Führungsinstrument öffentlicher Wirtschaftseinheiten

Das Budget als Führungsinstrument öffentlicher Wirtschaftseinheiten : e. betriebswirtschaftl. orientierter Beitr. zur Übernahme neuer Budgetverfahren für öffentl. Betriebe u. Verwaltungen. - München : Florentz, 1979. - IX, 420 S. - Zugl.: Augsburg, Univ., Diss. - (Schriftenreihe wirtschaftswissenschaftliche Forschung und Entwicklung ; 37

Zero base budgeting

Zero base budgeting. - In: Neue Betriebswirtschaft. 34. 1981. S. 259-26