Rhythmic Modes Research Articles

Speech rhythm in Akan/Twi: A preliminary experiment

This study explores the rhythmic timing patterns of Akan/Twi, a West African tone language thought to be syllable-timed, using the Speech Cycling Task (Cummins & Port, 1998; Port, 2003, 2007; Tajima & Port, 2003). How rhythm appears in tone languages without stress/accent is poorly understood. In the Speech Cycling Task, speakers were expected to place prominent elements within rhythmic modes, where specific syllables are pronounced more frequently in certain temporal regions. To uncover which syllables are considered rhythmically prominent, a previous tapping experiment (Darwin & Donovan, 1980; Donovan & Darwin, 1979; Purvis, 2009) was used in which subjects displayed entrainment between tapped beats and specific syllables (akin to stress-timing), rather than beat entrainment with all syllables. Prominent elements should also be resistant to temporal displacement when syllables are inserted between them and temporal compensation should occur when syllables can be deleted. The data included 20 phrases ranging from 4 to 8 syllables in length and four tone melodies (H, L, HL, and LH) repeated at varying rates. Results suggest subjects prefer certain rhythmic modes and that displacement and compensation occur such that rhythmic patterns change. Implications for the stress-timing/syllable-timing dichotomy and how tonal melodies affect rhythmic patterns are discussed.

Synaptic Kainate Receptors in Interplay with INaP Shift the Sparse Firing of Dentate Granule Cells to a Sustained Rhythmic Mode in Temporal Lobe Epilepsy

Dentate granule cells, at the gate of the hippocampus, use coincidence detection of synaptic inputs to code afferent information under a sparse firing regime. In both human patients and animal models of temporal lobe epilepsy, mossy fibers sprout to form an aberrant glutamatergic network between dentate granule cells. These new synapses operate via long-lasting kainate receptor-mediated events, which are not present in the naive condition. Here, we report that in chronic epileptic rat, aberrant kainate receptors in interplay with the persistent sodium current dramatically expand the temporal window for synaptic integration. This introduces a multiplicative gain change in the input-output operation of dentate granule cells. As a result, their sparse firing is switched to an abnormal sustained and rhythmic mode. We conclude that synaptic kainate receptors dramatically alter the fundamental coding properties of dentate granule cells in temporal lobe epilepsy.

Virginia Tech Multimedia Music Dictionary

Virginia Tech Multimedia Music Dictionary. Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University. http://www.music .vt.edu/musicdictionary/ (Accessed May-December 2008). [Requires Web browser and an Internet connection. Sound and video adjuncts may require media player.] The Virginia Tech Multimedia Music Dictionary (VTMMD) is very respectable music dictionary of terms with the helpful addition of sound samples of the pronunciation of terms. The credits section of the dictionary lists over twenty people who have contributed to the project, led by co-editors Richard Cole and Ed Schwartz, of (respectively) the music and technology departments at Virginia Tech. The dictionary of several thousand words concentrates on terminology. There are no entries for persons or places, although many instruments are represented, and there are few anomalies such as American nationalism: Music celebrating the United States of America through the use of patriotic and programatic devices. For the most part, though, the headings here are those one might find in good pocket dictionary of musical terms. The dictionary is updated frequently, and the last two years of updates are tracked on the Additions and Updates page. According to that page, there were 248 new or updated entries in 2008, between 10 January and 6 November. The definitions are very concise, with few running longer than couple of sentences, but they are generally accurate and helpful, if not always as complete as the Dolmetsch and Grove sources. Specialized knowledge is not generally required, and when term is defined in reference to another, the other term is often linked to in the entry. Etymology is not included, but country of origin is generally given. The definition of Mode here is itself rather brief, just three sentences, however, links to Gregorian modes and Rhythmic modes provide easy access to expanded definitions. Foreign-language words are often defined twice, once as they might be in general dictionary, with literal translation, and again with an expanded, contextual definition. For example, A punta d'arco is translated as [It., point of the bow], and then defined in context as a directive to string instrument musicians to perform the indicated passage with the tip of the bow. This definition is further enriched by photograph and very brief video example of the technique. Indeed, as its name implies, VTMMD is one of the most mediarich sources reviewed here. …

Free Online Dictionaries

Free Online Dictionaries Paul Cary For information regarding the scope of this column, consult the headnote in the September 2008 issue (p. 136 of this volume). The dates of access for each review of an online source indicate the dates during which the reviewer was evaluating the resource. All Web sites were last accessed to verify availability on 18 February 2009. Free Online Dictionaries In the age of electronic publishing, many of us have become accustomed to immediate access from anywhere, via computer networks, to authoritative, scholarly resources such as Grove Music Online ( http://oxfordmusiconline.com ) and the Harvard Dictionary of Music (4th ed., 2003 [ http://corp.credoreference.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=121&xrvolid=292 ]). For most of us, our institutions provide this access, it costs us nothing, and we seldom need to think about availability. But what of the researcher or music-lover who is not affiliated with a library that subscribes to such resources? Or what if we are away from home, and access to the scholarly resources for which our institutions pay so much is not available? Thankfully, there is help in such instances, in the form of music dictionaries available for free on the World Wide Web. As one might expect, these resources vary widely in terms of scope, quality, and functionality. This review will evaluate five such sources, concentrating on what might be called terminological dictionaries rather than encyclopedic or biographical sources. Dolmetsch Online Music Dictionary. Dolmetsch Musical Instruments. http://www.dolmetsch.com/musictheorydefs.htm (Accessed May-December 2008). [Requires a Web browser and an Internet connection. Sound and video adjuncts may require a media player.] The largest of the sources reviewed here, the Dolmetsch Online Music Dictionary (DOMD) defines thousands of terms. Indeed, the number of entries under the letter A alone exceeds one thousand. This large number is accounted for, in part, by the fact that the dictionary does not con-fine itself to the field of music. In addition to specifically musical terms, it defines general words that might appear in printed scores or in writings about music. In French, German, Italian, and Spanish, the selection of words is asserted to be equivalent to “any good pocket dictionary” (Introduction). Specialist terms are also taken from a broad range of related fields, including dance, linguistics, drama, and poetry, to name but a few. The editors intend the dictionary to enable readers to define or translate most terms that they might come across while performing or studying music in major Western languages, and the dictionary seems quite successful in this goal. Although no editors of the dictionary are named on the site, overall responsibility for it seems to lie with Dolmetsch Musical [End Page 808] Instruments, the British firm founded by Arnold Dolmetsch. The dictionary is one of several free resources provided by the Dolmetsch organization. These range from a dictionary of composers (with very brief entries) to fingering charts for the recorder, and ebooks. The editors are careful to lay out the scope and purpose of the dictionary, as noted above. They also explicate their practice regarding names and abbreviations, exhibiting more attention to such details than most similar sources. Perhaps most helpfully, they provide a section of acknowledgments, consisting largely of links (complete with copyright dates and authors) to other online sources that supplement DOMD’s coverage. In some instances, these sites are also the source of DOMD’s own definitions. These are often documented more specifically within the entry by a link pointing to the site from which material was taken. The definitions in DOMD vary quite a bit in terms of length and depth, and because of the derivative nature of many of them, they lack the consistency of approach one might find in a dictionary assembled from whole-cloth. Still, they are generally quite good—concise, yet often multi-faceted, defining a term in several different ways when appropriate. As an example, the definition of “Mode” incorporates the broad concept of a sequence of notes; the more specific meaning as it applies to early Western music; and a brief definition of rhythmic modes. This is supplemented by an illustration (in scale form) of each of...

The Gamma Oscillation: Master or Slave?

The idea that gamma enhancement reflects a state of high neuronal excitability and synchrony, critical for active brain operations, sets gamma up as a "master" or executor process that determines whether an input is effectively integrated and an effective output is generated. However, gamma amplitude is often coupled to the phase of lower frequency delta or theta oscillations, which would make gamma a "slave" to lower frequency activity. Gamma enslavement is productive and typical during rhythmic mode brain operations; when a predictable rhythm is in play, low and mid-frequency oscillations can be entrained and their excitability fluctuations of put to work in sensory and motor functions. When there is no task relevant rhythm that the system can entrain to, low frequency oscillations become detrimental to processing. Then, a continuous (vigilance) mode of operation is implemented; the system's sensitivity is maximized by suppressing lower frequency oscillations and exploiting continuous gamma band oscillations. Each mode has costs and benefits, and the brain shifts dynamically between them in accord with task demands.

Half way: Appreciating the poetics of Northern Kimberley song1

In a series of discussions between 1999 and 2002 Scotty Martin—an expert composer of junta songs in the northern Kimberley—dictated the texts of his jadmi style songs to first Linda Barwick and then myself so that they could be accurately transcribed. In the course of these discussions, Martin identified five short sections of text that he described as ‘half way’. In each case, this ‘half way’ description refers to the fact that, when sung, the text differs from its spoken form. The question of differences between sung and spoken language has been the focus of much recent research on Australian Aboriginal song by musicologists and linguists, and a number of recent detailed studies have identified textual and rhythmic factors that guide the rhythmicization of texts. As well as deepening understanding of the technical processes of song text construction and performance, this line of inquiry has also enabled linguists and musicologists to turn more closely to the poetics and aesthetics that permeate the relationship between and delivery of text and rhythm in songs. In this article I investigate the relationship between rhythmic modes and text structures in Martin's jadmi repertory to determine whether correlations between these two elements may play a role in the ‘half way’ singing of words, and then consider other creative factors—musical and non-musical (ancestral and foundational)—that may also play a role, in relation to Martin's own explanations of how and why ‘halfway’ text occurs. I argue that an understanding of how text/rhythm correlations are combined and negotiated by the composer and an awareness of the broader creative foundations of jadmi songs and singing are core to appreciating what ‘halfway’ (in the context of sung versus spoken language) means, and that these also contribute to appreciating the poetics and aesthetics of the jadmi song tradition and northern Kimberley song more broadly.

Low-frequency neuronal oscillations as instruments of sensory selection

Neuroelectric oscillations reflect rhythmic shifting of neuronal ensembles between high and low excitability states. In natural settings, important stimuli often occur in rhythmic streams, and when oscillations entrain to an input rhythm their high excitability phases coincide with events in the stream, effectively amplifying neuronal input responses. When operating in a 'rhythmic mode', attention can use these differential excitability states as a mechanism of selection by simply enforcing oscillatory entrainment to a task-relevant input stream. When there is no low-frequency rhythm that oscillations can entrain to, attention operates in a 'continuous mode', characterized by extended increase in gamma synchrony. We review the evidence for early sensory selection by oscillatory phase-amplitude modulations, its mechanisms and its perceptual and behavioral consequences.

‘Motz el Son’: Pound’s musical modernism and the interpretation of medieval song

ABSTRACTThe article explores an interdisciplinary conjunction of music, literature and modernism. I examine the relationship between aspects of early music scholarship and modernism, with specific reference to Ezra Pound’s critical and editorial work on medieval song, and to the composition, in the 1920s, of his modernist opera Le Testament. This analysis places Pound’s work as editor and composer not only in the context of recent critical reflections on the idea of authenticity, but also in relation to the histories and methodologies of medieval music interpretation. First, in drawing attention to Pound’s much–neglected collaborative edition of medieval songs entitled Hesternae Rosae, I contextualise his experiments in rhythmic reconstruction with reference to early and late twentieth-century musicologists working in this field. I make particular reference to the work of Pierre Aubry and rhythmic mode theory, and the later perspectives of Hendrik van der Werf. Secondly, I proceed to analyse Pound’s monophonic and dance song compositions in Le Testament, exploring the way in which serious medieval musicological scholarship prepared for, and is allied to, the development of a rhythmically and dramatically complex musical style.

Modulation of Soleus H-Reflexes During Gait in Children With Cerebral Palsy

In healthy adults, soleus H-reflexes are rhythmically modulated and generally depressed during gait compared with rest. From ages 6 to 13 yr, there is a progressive increase in the tonic inhibition of H-reflexes during walking, especially during the stance phase of the step cycle. In adults, rhythmic modulation and tonic depression are severely disturbed after bilateral spinal lesions but remain partly preserved after unilateral cerebral lesions. Children with diplegic cerebral palsy (CP) suffer from a bilateral supraspinal lesion of the corticospinal tract that occurs before the maturation of the CNS is complete. If supraspinal structures are involved in the tonic, but not rhythmic, age-dependent reflex depression, it could be hypothesized that the tonic reflex depression with age is disturbed in CP, whereas the rhythmic part of the modulation remains unaffected. To test this hypothesis, soleus H-reflexes were assessed during gait in 16 CP children aged 5-11 and 15-16 and compared with 25 age-matched healthy children walking at similar velocities. Although the rhythmic part of the modulation pattern was present in CP, there was no significant tonic reflex depression with age, thus reflecting a lack of maturation of the corticospinal tract. It is argued the rhythmic part of the modulation may be generated on a spinal or brain stem level and is therefore not affected by the bilateral supraspinal lesion, whereas the tonic depression that occurs with maturation of the CNS is under supraspinal control. In conclusion, the supraspinal structures affected in CP are therefore likely involved in this age-dependent tonic depression.

Towards a systemic theory of rhythmic modes in Wesst Afrcian musical studies

Current studies on African rhythm are characterized by the absence of a formalized theoretical framework for describing rhythm on a conceptually analytical level. This paper offers a formal theoretical framework within which the problem of rhythm can be more systematically studied. During an examination of scores of Yoruba drum music, it was observed that the continuous repetition of ‘rhythmic ostinato' was the structural framework upon which an entire composition is often organized. Some rhythmic ostinato were then extracted from some composition and compared with those of the music of neighboring groups such as the Edo, Fon and Ewe. It was discovered that the so-called ‘standard twelve-beat pattern' exists in various forms which literally speaking are ‘modes'. More important is that other ‘modes' can be generated from a given mode by starting at different points within the “rhythmic cycle” in a way analogous to the derivation of modes in scale construction. A mode can also be generated through a retrograde inversion of the other. A formal table was then constructed showing the number of modes derivable from the ‘standard twelve-beat pattern'. Using this approach, rhythmic patterns that are generically related can be grouped together as modes and given a nomenclature. Nigerian Music Review Vol. 6 2005: pp. 9-26

3-dimensional Locomotion of a Snake-like Robot Controlled by Cyclic Inhibitory CPG Model

With 3D movement s ability and rhythmic locomotion mode, a nature snake makes itself survive in rugged terrains. The rhythmic activities of most creatures are generated by the CPG (Central Pattern Generator). Based on this fact, the sustained-type neuron has been adopted to construct a cyclic inhibitory CPG model for a snake-like robot whose joints are perpendicularly connected in series. The cyclic inhibitory CPG was proven to be able to generate rhythmic output with the least number of differential equations. The neuron network organized by the CPGs connected in line with unilateral excitation has been introduced to control the 3D locomotion of the snake-like robot, and then the necessary condition is also presented for the CPG neuron network to sustain a rhythmic output. By implementing this control architecture to a simulator of a snake-like robot, preliminary parameters of the CPG neuron network for its 3D locomotion are obtained. Moreover, it is known that“Perambulator”can successfully exhibit 3D locomotion by using the output of the proposed CPG network. The obtained results have also provided a brand-new approach to understand the unknown neuron network of nature snake.

Modulation of soleus H-reflexes during gait in healthy children

During locomotion spinal short latency reflexes are rhythmically modulated and depressed compared to rest. In adults this modulation is severely disturbed after bilateral spinal lesions indicating a role for supra-spinal control. Soleus reflex amplitudes are large in the stance phase and suppressed in the swing phase contributing to the reciprocal muscle activation pattern required for walking. In early childhood the EMG pattern during gait underlies an age-dependent process changing from co-contraction of agonists and antagonists to a reciprocal pattern at the age of 5-7 years. It is unknown whether at this stage apart from the EMG also reflexes are modulated, and if so, whether the reflex modulation is fully mature or still underlies an age-dependent development. This may give important information about the maturation of CNS structures involved in gait control. Soleus Hoffmann H-reflexes were investigated in 36 healthy children aged 7-16 years during treadmill walking at 1.2 km/h and 3.0 km/h. At 7 years old a rhythmic modulation similar to adults was observed. The H-reflex size during the stance phase decreased significantly with age while the maximum H-reflex (H (max)) at rest remained unchanged. At 3.0 km/h H-reflexes were significantly larger during the stance phase and smaller during the swing phase as compared to 1.2 km/h but the age-dependent suppression was observed at both walking velocities. In conclusion H-reflex modulation during gait is already present in young children but still underlies an age-dependent process independent of the walking velocity. The finding that the rhythmic part of the modulation is already present at the age of 7 years may indicate that the supra-spinal structures involved mature earlier than those involved in the tonic reflex depression. This may reflect an increasing supra-spinal control of spinal reflexes under functional conditions with maturation.

Music and Medieval Manuscripts: Paleography and Performance (review)

MEDIEVAL AND EARLY MODERN TOPICS Music and Medieval Manuscripts: Paleography and Performance. Edited by John Haines and Randall Rosenfeld. Burlington, VT: Ashgate Publishing Co., 2004. [xxxiv, 438 p. ISBN 0-7546-0991-X. $104.95.] Music examples, index, bibliography. In a twelfth-century colophon, pen warns scribe: Hold me firmly and put me down gently. If you have not you will have a bad day.(from Arras, Mediatheque 924, fol. I, as translated by Richard Gameson, The Scribe Speaks? Colophons in Early English Manuscripts, H. M. Chadwick Memorial Lectures, 12 [Cambridge: Department of Anglo Saxon, Norse, and Celtic, University of Cambridge, 2001], 2.) In this collection of essays, edited by a musicologist with profound interests in paleography (John Haines) and a codicologist who is a specialist in performance of early music (Randall Rosenfeld), a diverse group has written well, offering a good day to scholars and performers alike. The book is dedicated to distinguished musicologist Andrew Hughes, whose studies in a broad array of repertories have always been well grounded in sources themselves; it is prefaced by a brief essay introducing his work as teacher as well as scholar. Much of collection centers on two general topics: ways in which close source studies yield new understandings of performance; and recontextualization of familiar materials in order to challenge or expand upon commonly held ideas. A third group of papers relates to broader studies recendy finished or currendy in progress, allowing for a detailed look at particular examples. As to close analysis and performance practice, John Haines' fascinating of erasure patterns in several major thirteenth-century sources allows him to predict how familiar scribe was with music being copied and also nature of sources from which scribe worked, including notauonal style and arrangement of parts. Haines demonstrates that of scribes' working habits across a range of sources testifies to their dependence upon sources, cautioning that the stereotype of extemporizing scribe should not be exaggerated (p. 88). Randall Rosenfeld too takes us into world of medieval scribe, demonstrating how difficult it is to say precisely how they held their pens, and warning against misinterpretation of visual depictions of scribes at work. Jan Ziolkowski turns to neuming of women's laments in classical texts and, pointing to the spirit of experimentation that a woman's lament elicited (p. 140), uses them as evidence for culture of schools and music's role within it, as well as sometimes thin line between secular and sacred studies. Ziolkowski's engaging presentation makes reader want to hear these pieces and calls for further exploration. In another paper that combines of texts and music, George Dimitri Sawa explores rhythmic modes in Baghdad! rhythmic theories and practices in twelfth-century Andalusia, showing how study of rhythm eventually became one of most sophisticated arts in Arabic theory (p. 181). His work leaves reader wondering if or how these ideas made their ways to West in twelfth and thirteenth centuries. Brian Power opens a musicological can of worms in his of polyphonic introits in Trent 93 and demonstrates that performers who wish to hear these pieces will need to be creative, interpreting meaning of missing sections, working around what are clearly mistakes, and deciding whether or not to improvise apparently missing parts. Close studies abound too in papers of scholars whose works serve to challenge commonly held ideas. Albert Derolez, a specialist in Gothic and late medieval book hands, here takes on role of Petrarch in development of humanistic script and judges that he was not instrumental after all. Timothy McGee looks for ways in which techniques of rhetoric serve as basic formative principles for composition of late medieval music (p. …

Marri Ngarr Lirrga Songs: A Musicological Analysis of Song Pairs in Performance

This essay discusses a set of lirrga songs performed for Allan Marett in I998 at Wadeye in Australia’s Northern Territory by a group of senior Marn Ngarr men comprising the singers and composers Pros Luckan and Clement Tchinburur, the ritual specialist John Nummar and the karnbi (didjeridu) player Benedict Tchinburur. The texts of these songs and information about Marri Ngarr language are presented in the companion essay by Lysbeth Ford in this volume. The song session was performed for Marett to teach him about Marri Ngarr songs, and to document lirrga songs for future generations. After chscussion of the historical origins of the lirrga genre and metaphors ofhminality presented in the song texts, the essay attempts to understand the aesthetic intentions of the composers and performers through analysis of the musical conventions used in the genre and the performers’ shaping of the session by juxtaposition of contrasting rhythmic modes and song subjects.

Human GH pulsatility: an ensemble property regulated by age and gender.

Age and gender impact the full repertoire of neurohormone systems, including most prominently the somatotropic, gonadotropic and lactotropic axes. For example, daily GH production is approximately 2-fold higher in young women than men and varies by 20-fold by sexual developmental status and age. Deconvolution estimates of 24-h GH secretion rates exceed 1200 microg/m2 in adolescents and fall below 60 microg/m2 in aged individuals. The present overview highlights plausible factors driving such lifetime variations in GH availability, i.e., estrogen, aromatizable androgen, hypothalamic peptides and negative feedback by GH and IGF-I. In view of the daunting complexity of potential neuromodulatory signals, we underline the utility of conceptualizing a simplified three-peptide regulatory ensemble of GHRH, GHRP (ghrelin) and somatostatin. The foregoing signals act as individual and conjoint mediators of adaptive GH control. Regulation is enforced at 3-fold complementary time scales, which embrace pulsatile (burst-like), entropic (orderly) and 24-h rhythmic (nycthemeral) modes of GH release. This unifying platform offers a convergent perspective of multivalent control of GH outflow.

Impact of Age on Cortisol Secretory Dynamics Basally and as Driven by Nutrient-Withdrawal Stress*

The present study tests the clinical hypothesis that aging impairs homeostatic adaptations of cortisol secretion to stress. To this end, we implemented a short-term 3.5-day fast as an ethically acceptable metabolic stressor in eight young (ages 18-35 yr) and eight older (ages 60-72 yr) healthy men. Volunteers were studied in randomly ordered fed vs. fasting sessions. To capture the more complex dynamics of cortisol's feedback control, blood was sampled every 10 min for 24 h for later RIA of serum cortisol concentrations and quantitation of the pulsatile, entropic, and 24-h rhythmic modes of cortisol release using deconvolution analysis, the approximate entropy statistic, and cosine regression, respectively. The stress of fasting elevated the mean (24-h) serum cortisol concentration equivalently in the two age cohorts [i.e. from 7.2 +/- 0.35 to 11.6 +/- 0.71 microg/dL in young men and from 7.7 +/- 0.39 to 12.6 +/- 0.59 microg/dL in older individuals (P < 10(-7))]. The rise in integrated cortisol output was driven mechanistically by selective augmentation of cortisol secretory burst mass (P = 0.002). The resultant daily (pulsatile) cortisol secretion rate increased significantly but equally in young (from 94 +/- 6.3 to 151 +/- 15 microg/dL x day) and older (from 85 +/- 5.4 to 145 +/- 7.3 microg/dL x day) volunteers (P < 10(-4)). Nutrient restriction also prompted a marked reduction in the quantifiable regularity of (univariate) cortisol release patterns in both cohorts (P < 10(-4)). However, older men showed loss of joint synchrony of cortisol and LH secretion even in the fed state, which failed to change with metabolic stress (P < 10(-6)). In addition, older individuals maintained a premature (early-day) cortisol elevation in the fed state and unexpectedly evolved an anomalous further cortisol phase advance of 99 +/- 16 min during fasting (P < 10(-5)). Caloric deprivation in aging men also disproportionately elevated the mesor of 24-h rhythmic cortisol release (P = 10(-7)) and elicited a greater increment in the mean day-night variation in cortisol secretory-burst mass (P < 0.01 vs. young controls). Lastly, short-term caloric depletion in older subjects paradoxically normalized their age-associated suppression of the 24-h rhythm in cortisol interburst intervals. In summary, acute metabolic stress in healthy aging men (compared with young individuals) unmasks distinct, albeit complex, disruption of cortisol homeostasis. These dynamic anomalies impact the feedback-dependent and time-sensitive coupling of pulsatile and 24-h rhythmic cortisol secretion. Nutrient-withdrawal stress in the older male heightens the cortisol phase disparity already evident in fed elderly individuals. Conversely, the stress of fasting in young men paradoxically reproduces selected features of the aging unstressed (fed) cortisol axis; viz., abrogation of joint cortisol-LH synchrony and suppression of the normal diurnal variation in cortisol burst frequency. Whether fasting would unveil analogous disruption of feedback-dependent control of the corticotropic axis in healthy aging women is not yet known.

African Rhythm: A Northern Ewe Perspective

African Rhythm: A Northern Ewe Perspective. By Kofi Agawu. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1995. [xx, 217 p. and 1 compact disc. ISBN 0-521-48084-1. $64.95.] Kofi Agawu's stimulating and provocative book African Rhythm: A Northern Ewe Perspective, presents a model of rhythm in northern Ewe (Ewedome) music from seven Ghanaian towns--Peki, Matse, Ziavi, Klefe, Avenut, Kpando, and Ho--and in music of their Akpafu neighbors. Juxtaposed with a fictionalized ethnography, model appears at end of chapter 1, Rhythms of Society, and argues that primordial, originary, rhythmic event is gesture. It lies at base of four other aspects of rhythmic expression, each generated by preceding one: (1) spoken word, having tone and rhythm: (2) vocal music in free and strict rhythm, as is case with speech and stylized speech; (3) instrumental music, embracing drum language in speech rhythm and dance music in stylized speech rhythm; and (4) dance. In subsequent chapters--Rhythms of Language, Rhythms of Song, Rhythms of Drumming and Dancing, Rhythms of Musical Performance,--Rhythms of Folktale Performance--Agawu's attempts to demonstrate model are subverted by claims of a purely musical impulse, rhythm for rhythm's sake (p. 106), purely musical thinking lacking constraints of speech-tone patterns (p. 176), nonverbal descending melodic line as originary musical element (p. 181), and processual factors, some of which he acknowledges (pp. 182, 183, 184), and others that will he clear to reader. Agawu defines rhythm as stress, quantity and resultant pattern (p. 34) and, by starting with speech acts in chapter 2, gives careful attention to lone levels and accentual schemes embedded in greetings, announcements, riddles, and prayers. This is a strength of book, along with its exposition of musical categories that Ewedome and Akpafu share with other Ghanaian musical cultures. Among these categories is music for funerals, children, occupational groups, religious practices, recreation, and storytelling. Each adds new information of comparative value, which is enhanced by accompanying nineteen photographs and compact disc. Agawu emphasizes, however, that book was not conceived to be a contribution to ethnomusicology (p. 3). In chapter 3 Agawu describes his analytical stance: The particular generative musical structure developed here, draws on work of Heinrich Schenker (p. 201). This frame of reference, along with other tools from music theory, enable him to show ways in which recurring patterns of Northern Ewe music are like rhythmic modes of medieval Europe (p. 34), and how parts of funeral dirge are sung in a Schoenbergian Sprechstimme (p. 77), performer highlighting transformation of recitative into aria (p. 83, see also p. 171). Upon examination of Ziavi Zigi group in performance, Agawu asserts in chapter 5, that the strophic impulse is everywhere in evidence (p. …

Cutaneous reflex activity of the cat forelimb during fictive locomotion

To investigate mechanisms of rhythmic modulation of cutaneous reflex by the central pattern generator for locomotion, we made intracellular recordings from elbow flexor motoneurons, biceps brachii (Bi) and brachialis (Br), and quantitatively analyzed excitatory postsynaptic potentials (EPSPs) evoked by stimulation of superficial radial (SR) nerves during forelimb fictive locomotion, which was evoked in immobilized, decerebrate cats with the low thoracic spinal cord transected. We found that (1) in both Br and Bi, SR stimulation evoked trisynaptic EPSPs (segmental latencies were 2.10±0.39 ms for Br and 2.07±0.93 ms for Bi), (2) the SR-EPSPs of Br and Bi were rhythmically modulated with a similar pattern; the maximal and minimal EPSPs appeared in the flexor and extensor phase, respectively, (3) however, there were differences as follows. In the control state where fictive locomotion was absent, the mean amplitude of SR-EPSPs of Br (4.65±2.76 mV, n=14) was much larger than that of Bi (1.25±1.22 mV, n=10). During fictive locomotion, the maximum amplitude of SR-EPSPs of Br was 5.63±1.79 mV ( n=18), and the minimum was 3.82±1.69 mV ( n=18); that is, the maximum during fictive locomotion was larger or smaller than that of the control, while the minimal were always smaller. In contrast, SR-EPSPs of Bi were modulated over the control level; the maximum was 3.97±1.71 mV ( n=16) and the minimum was 2.24±1.11 mV ( n=16), both the maximum and the minimum during locomotion being larger than that of the control. These results may suggest that two mechanisms are involved in the rhythmic modulation, first, cyclic facilitation in the flexor phase, and secondly, cyclic inhibition in the extensor phase. The former was involved in both cases of Bi and Br motoneurons, while the latter would be involved only in the case of Br motoneurons. © 1997 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.

Echoes from the Gorge; Percussion Quartet (1989)

In many ways, Chou Wen-chung's percussion quartet Echoes from Gorge serves as paradigm of music in latter half of twentieth century, in which element of has been elevated to position of eminence. This view of sound, revealed in Edgard Varese's use of term organized sound in preference to has been explained by Chou himself as a modern Western parallel of pervasive Chinese concept: that each single tone musical entity in itself, that musical meaning lies intrinsically in themselves, and that this concept is manifest in great emphasis placed on production and control of tones, which often involves an elaborate vocabulary of articulations, modifications in timbre, inflections in pitch, fluctuations in intensity, vibratos, and tremolos (Chou Wen-chung, Concepts and Twentieth-Century Western Composers, The Musical Quarterly 57 [1971]: 214, 216). This concern for the production and control of tones readily apparent in score to Echoes from Gorge. Seventy-two instruments are distributed evenly among four players and grouped by timbral or articulatory characteristics into families: lignophones, for example, claves, wood blocks, castanets, and temple blocks; metallophones, featuring Asian cup bells and Chinese cymbals that impart distinct oriental flavor; membranophones, such as bongos, timbales, tom-toms, and bass drums; and instruments capable of multiple articulations, such as snare and parade drums. Instruments are also categorized by characteristics of tessitura (high and low sounds), sonority, and pitch (undulating and sliding, former produced by large metal sheet and latter by lion's roar). Chou stipulates use of ten specific playing areas, from edges or rims of instruments to their centers, and twenty-five implements in addition to fingers. Fluctuations in intensity of are controlled through notation of subtle gradations in dynamic levels, at times on note-by-note basis. The coordination of multiple playing areas, number of implements, and fluctuating dynamic levels pose significant challenge for percussionist. For example, one player required to strike large gong fortissimo near its rim with hard yarn mallet in right hand, while left hand simultaneously executes mezzo-forte stroke at center with wood beater. The titles of twelve short sections of this twenty-minute work evoke an orientally inspired imagery: Raindrops on Bamboo Leaves, Shadows in Ravine, Droplets Down Rocks. Some sections are devoted to instruments of one family - metallophones in Clear Moon, membra-nophones in Drifting Clouds; others are distinguished by textural characteristics sustained, rolled sounds in Peaks and Cascades and very dense fabric in Sonorous Stones. The rhythmic structure not based on meter, but on permutations of six rhythmic modes derived from permutations of durational ratios of 3:2:1. An expressive performance of Chou's Echoes from Gorge requires consummate musicianship and ensemble playing of highest order. This literature that makes available to percussion ensemble an opportunity for musical expression previously found only in long established chamber repertory written for instruments of string, woodwind, and brass families. Wolfgang Rihm has an extensive list of works to his credit, embracing chamber music, instrumental pieces, vocal and choral works, chamber operas, pieces for music theater, and orchestral music. He has been particularly inclined to write for orchestras of Mahlerian proportions. Percussion has played prominent roles in many of these works. Rihm's Stuck for three percussionists, short theatrical event. It was written in 1988-89, product of same approximate period as his major work for musical theater, Die Eroberung von Mexico. Each of three performers in Stuck are limited to single instrument: bongo, suspended cymbal, and wood block. …

THE THIRD RHYTHMIC MODE IN THE THIRTEENTH AND FOURTEENTH CENTURIES

THE THIRD RHYTHMIC MODE IN THE THIRTEENTH AND FOURTEENTH CENTURIES