Expertise is perceived from both sound and body movement in musical performance

Music is a rich form of nonverbal communication, in which the movements that expert musicians make during performance can influence the perception of expressive and structural features of the music. Whether the actual skill of a musician is perceivable from vision of movement was examined. In Experiment 1, musicians and non-musicians rated performances by novice, intermediate and expert clarinettists from point-light animations of their movements, sound recordings, or both. Performances by clarinettists of more advanced skill level were rated significantly higher from vision of movements, although this effect was stronger when sound was also presented. In Experiment 2, movements and sound from the novice and expert clarinettists' performances were switched for half the presentations, and were matched for the rest. Ratings of novice music were significantly higher when presented with expert movements, although the opposite was not found for expert sound presented with novice movements. No perceptual effect of raters' own level of musicianship was found in either experiment. These results suggest that expertise is perceivable from vision of musicians' body movements, although perception of skill from sound is dominant. The results from Experiment 2 further indicate a cross-modal effect of vision and audition on the perception of musical expertise. © 2012 Elsevier B.V.

Creating a Circus of Words, Music, and Sound: From Roaratorio to Owenvarragh

This article documents the creation of a work by the authors based on a score written by the composer John Cage entitled 'Owenvarragh: A Belfast Circus on The Star Factory.' The article is part of a documentary portfolio in the journal which also includes a volume of the poetry created by Dowling in accordance with the instructions of the Cage score, and a series of documentary videos on the creation of the work and its first performance. Cage's score is based on his work 'Roaratorio: An Irish Circus on Finnegan's Wake' (1979) and it provides a set of detailed instructions for the musical realisation of a literary work. The article documents this first fully realised version of the score since Cage first produced 'Roaratorio' in 1979. The work, which was motivated by the Cage centenary year in 2012, musically realises Carson's book 'The Star Factory' (1998), a novelestic autobiography of Carson's Belfast childhood. The score required the creation of a fixed media piece based on over 300 field recordings of the sounds and places mentioned in the book, a volume of poetry created from the book which is recited to form the rhythmic spine of the work, and the arrangement of a performance including these two components along with live musical performance by the authors in collaboration with three other musicians under their direction, and a video installation created for the work. The piece has been performed three times: in association with the Sonorities 2012 Festival at Queen's University of Belfast (March 2012), at The Belfast Festival at Queen's (October 2012), and in the Rymer Auditoium of the University of York (June 2013).

Additional information:

The work which the article documents was conceived by Monaghan and Dowling, and the project was initiated by Monaghan after a she received a student prize to support its development and first performance. Elements of the project will be included in her PhD dissertation for which Dowling is a supervisor. Monaghan created the fixed media piece based on over 300 field recordings, the largest single aspect of realising Cage's score. Dowling was responsible for initiating the collaboration with Ciaran Carson, and for two other components: the creation of a volume of poetry derived from the literary work which is recited in the performance, and the creation of and supervision of the technical work on a video which accompanies the piece. The co-authors consulted closely during the work on these large components from May 2011 until March 2012 when the first performance took place. The co-authors also shared in numerous other artistic and organisational aspects of the production, including the arrangement and performnance of the music, musical direction to other performers, and marketing.

Expert players accurately detect an opponent's movement intentions through sound alone

Sounds offer a rich source of information about events taking place in our physical and social environment. However, outside the domains of speech and music, little is known about whether humans can recognize and act upon the intentions of another agent’s actions detected through auditory information alone. In this study we assessed whether intention can be inferred from the sound an action makes, and in turn, whether this information can be used to prospectively guide movement. In two experiments experienced and novice basketball players had to virtually intercept an attacker by listening to audio recordings of that player’s movements. In the first experiment participants had to move a slider, while in the second one their body, to block the perceived passage of the attacker as they would in a real basketball game. Combinations of deceptive and non-deceptive movements were used to see if novice and/or experienced listeners could perceive the attacker’s intentions through sound alone. We showed that basketball players were able to more accurately predict final running direction compared to non-players, particularly in the second experiment when the interceptive action was more basketball specific. We suggest that athletes present better action anticipation by being able to pick up and use the relevant kinematic features of deceptive movement from event-related sounds alone. This result suggests that action intention can be perceived through the sound a movement makes and that the ability to determine another person’s action intention from the information conveyed through sound is honed through practice.

Design Methodology for Real-Time FPGA-Based Sound Synthesis

Explicit finite difference (FD) schemes can realise highly realistic physical models of musical instruments but are computationally complex. A design methodology is presented for the creation of FPGA-based micro-architectures for FD schemes which can be applied to a range of applications with varying computational requirements, excitation and output patterns and boundary conditions. It has been applied to membrane and plate-based sound producing models, resulting in faster than real-time performance on a Xilinx XC2VP50 device which is 10 to 35 times faster than general purpose and DSP processors. The models have developed in such a way to allow a wide range of interaction (by a musician) thereby leading to the possibility of creating a highly realistic digital musical instrument.

Fully nonlinear ion-sound waves in a dense Fermi magnetoplasma

The nonlinear propagation of ion-sound waves in a collisionless dense electron-ion magnetoplasma is investigated. The inertialess electrons are assumed to follow a non-Boltzmann distribution due to the pressure for the Fermi plasma and the ions are described by the hydrodynamic (HD) equations. An energy balance-like equation involving a new Sagdeev-type pseudo-potential is derived in the presence of the quantum statistical effects. Numerical calculations reveal that the profiles of the Sagdeev-like potential and the ion-sound density excitations are significantly affected by the wave direction cosine and the Mach number. The present studies might be helpful to understand the excitation of nonlinear ion-sound waves in dense plasmas such as those in superdense white dwarfs and neutron stars as well as in intense laser-solid density plasma experiments.

Speeds of sound and isentropic compressibilities of binary mixtures containing trialkylamines with alkanes and mono-alkylamines at 303.15 and 313.15 K

Isentropic compressibilities ?S, and excess isentropic compressibilities ?SE have been determined from measurements of speeds of sound u and densities ? of 14 binary mixtures of triethylamine (TEA) and tri-n-butylamine (TBA) with n-hexane, n-octane, iso-octane, n-propylamine, n-butylamine, n-hexylamine and n-octylamine. The relative magnitude and sign of ?SE have been interpreted in terms of molecular interactions and interstitial accommodation. The values of ?SE for TEA + alkane are positive while for TBA + alkane are negative. The values of ?SE for TEA + primary amine become progressively less positive and eventually to negative with the increase in chain length of alkylamine. In case of TBA + primary amine, the values of ?SE increase from n-propylamine to n-butylamine, and then decrease with chain length of primary amine. The experimental speeds of sound u have been analyzed in terms of collision factor theory, free length theory and Prigogine–Flory–Patterson statistical theory of solutions.

Speeds of sound, isentropic compressibilities, and excess molar volumes of cycloalkanes, alkanes and aromatic hydrocarbons at 303.15 K. II. Results for cycloalkanes+aromatic hydrocarbons

The speeds of sound u, isentropic compressibilities ?S, molar sound functions R, excess isentropic compressibilities ?SE and excess molar volumes VE for eight binary mixtures of cyclopentane, cyclohexane, cyclooctane and methylcyclohexane with benzene and of cyclohexane with toluene, ethyl benzene, p-xylene and propyl benzene at 303.15 K are reported. The effects of molecular sizes and shapes of the component molecules and of interaction energy in the mixture have been discussed. The Prigogine–Flory–Patterson theory has been applied to analyze the present binary mixtures along with the mixtures of cis- and trans-decalins with benzene and toluene taken from the literature.

Densities, speeds of sound, isentropic compressibilities, refractive indices and viscosities of binary mixtures of tetrahydrofuran with hydrocarbons at 303.15 K

Isentropic compressibilities, Rao's molar sound functions, molar refractions, excess isentropic compressibilities, excess molar volumes, viscosity deviations and excess Gibbs energies of activation of viscous flow for seven binary mixtures of tetrahydrofuran (THF) with cyclohexane, methylcyclohexane, n-hexane, benzene, toluene, p-xylene and propylbenzene over the entire range of composition at 303.15 K have been derived from experimental densities, speeds of sound, refractive indices and viscosities. The excess partial molar volumes of THF in different solvents have been estimated. The experimental results have been analyzed in terms of the Prigogine–Flory–Patterson theory.

Densities, speeds of sound, isentropic compressibilities, refractive indexes, and viscosities of tetrahydrofuran with haloalkane or alkyl ethanoate at T = 303.15 K

Isentropic compressibilities ?S, excess isentropic compressibilities image, excess molar volumes VE, viscosity deviations ??, and excess Gibbs energy of activation of viscous flow ?G*E for nine binary mixtures of C4H8O with CCl4, CHCl3, CHCl2CHCl2, 1-C6H13Cl, 1-C6H13Br, CH3CO2CH3, CH3CO2C2H5, CH3CO2C4H9, and CH3CO2C5H11 at 303.15 K have been derived from experimental densities ?, speeds of sound u, refractive indexes nD and viscosities ?. The limiting values of excess partial molar volumes of C4H8O at infinite dilution image in different solvents have been estimated. The results obtained for dynamic viscosity of binary mixtures were used to test the semi-empirical relations of Grunberg–Nissan, Tamura–Kurata, Hind–McLaughlin–Ubbelohde, Katti–Chaudhri, McAllister, Heric, and Auslaender. Finally, the experimental refractive indexes were compared with the predicted results for Lorentz–Lorenz, Dale–Gladstone, Eykman, Arago–Boit, Newton, Oster, Heller, and Wiener equations.