Silk Strings Research Articles

Silk Roads and Strings of Pearls: The Strategic Geography of China’s New Pathways in the Indian Ocean

ABSTRACTControl over access to the Indian Ocean is often seen through a highly securitised lens. Strategic actors have long sought to use geographical constraints to maintain the region as a relatively enclosed strategic space. It has only a few narrow maritime entrance points and the littoral is not well connected to the interior of the Eurasian continent. These factors have contributed to the historical domination of the Indian Ocean by a succession of extra-regional maritime powers and the virtual exclusion of Eurasian land powers such as China and Russia. This paper considers how the physical geography of the Indian Ocean has contributed to its control by some powers and the exclusion of others. It then discusses China’s Maritime Silk Route/One Belt One Road initiative, which includes growing interests in Indian Ocean ports and plans to build new overland pathways to connect China with the Indian Ocean. The paper concludes that while China’s growing maritime interests in Indian Ocean are strategically important, it is the new overland routes connecting the Eurasian hinterland with the ocean that have the potential to change the entire geostrategic character of the region.

THE ANGLO-NORMAN CORONATION ORDER OF EDWARD II

Anybody viewing the footage of the 1953 Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II broadcast in the recent context of her Diamond Jubilee could not have failed to be struck by the archaisms of the ceremony. Indeed, a number of inevitable differences notwithstanding, the format of her coronation was in many respects similar to that prescribed in the Sixth Recension of the Coronation Order, compiled for James II in 1689. There was, however, a significant difference in respect of the regalia delivered to Elizabeth II. After the sword, James II had received: 'Ye Armill (made of Cloth of Tissu, in Modum Stolae) ... deliver'd to ye Dean of Westminster; Who puts it about ye Kings Neck and ties it to ye Bowings of both his Arms above and below ye Elbows wth silk strings: and ye Archbishop saith: Receive this Armill, as a Token of ye divine Mercy.'1 At the equivalent point in her coronation, however, Elizabeth II received not an armill in the form of a stole, but rather armills in the form of a pair of golden bracelets, gifted by the countries of the Commonwealth, which were handed over with the formula: 'Receive the bracelets of sincerity and wisdom.' Why this peculiar change in regalia?The tradition according to which the armills took the form of a stole can be traced back to the third and final form of the Fourth Recension of the Coronation Order, as contained in the Liber regalis, compiled for the coronation of Richard II in 1377. Initially, this Order introduces the armills by reproducing a rubric which had appeared in Coronation Orders since the compilation of the Third Recension nearly 300 years earlier: Accinctus autem ense similiter armillas accipiat, dicente metropolitano uel episcopo: Accipe armillas sinceritatis et sapiencie.'2 Then, however, the Liber regalis departs from its antecedents by including a new instruction regarding what was to be done with these armills: 'Iste quidem armille in modum stole circa collum et ab utraque scapula usque ad compages brachiorum erunt dependentes. In ipsis brachiorum compagibus laqueis sericis connexe prout plenius per ipsarum poterit discerni composicionem.'3 If it is in this new prescription that we recognize the explanation for the stole-armill of James II, in the bracelet-armills of Elizabeth II we find not a wilful innovation, but the restoration of a venerable tradition.4 For while the compilers of the Liber regalis may have been perplexed by the armills,5 no such confusion had been experienced some fifty years earlier by the author of the Anglo-Norman Coronation Order: 'Et puis quant il serra ceynt de l'espee, il rescevera les bracers d'or sur les deux braz, et lui dirra l'ercevesqe: Rescevez les bracers de clerte' (lines 245f.). It is not, however, solely by virtue of such valuable insights into the evolution of coronation regalia that this text merits our attention.6Text, source, and previous editionsThe Anglo-Norman Coronation Order is a prose translation, around 4,300 words in length and probably written around the time of the coronation of Edward III (1327), of the first form of the Fourth Recension of the Coronation Order, presumably compiled shortly before its use in the coronation of Edward II (1308).7 Closely following its Latin source, the Anglo-Norman text prescribes in rich detail all aspects of the ceremony to crown cesti Edward nostre roi, including the people to be involved, the clothes to be worn, the insignia to be conferred, the prayers to be said, and the antiphons to be sung.The Anglo-Norman text is best known to scholarship as one of the documents which records the coronation oath of Edward II.8 Doubtless sworn in French, this oath, presumably upon the insistence of magnates concerned by the prospect of Edward II's reign, introduced a new clause, the so-called 'fourth clause', in which the king had to grant and promise to keep and defend the laws and customs that the people of his realm would choose, as well as anything else reasonable that the people might wish to add (lines 68-74 of the present edition). …

Improved Plucked String Synthesis Model Considering Tuning and Playing Style

ABSTRACTThis paper describes a plucked string synthesis model including a simplified tuning system and a right-hand playing style. The proposed model based on digital waveguide synthesis is applied to the Gayageum, a traditional Korean plucked string instrument. The Gayageum has 12 twisted silk strings, each supported by a movable bridge called an Anjok, which is placed on the body and is moved sideways along a string to tune it. The simplified tuning system is formulated with parameters related to the tension of the string and location of the Anjok, and these determine the pitch of a specific string. The unique right-hand playing style, a consecutive flick in which a player flicks a string twice in succession by the middle and index fingers, is implemented by a simple feed-forward filter. The proposed synthesis model is evaluated based on the frequency signal-to-noise ratio.

Development of silk strings from original Japanese silkworm races –Tone properties of silk strings of various cocoons–

Development of silk strings from original Japanese silkworm races –Tone properties of silk strings of various cocoons–

Development of silk strings from original Japanese silkworm races: physical properties of silk strings from various cocoons

Development of silk strings from original Japanese silkworm races: physical properties of silk strings from various cocoons

“… And I Was Born”

“… And I Was Born”

Timoshenko Modeling of the Pipa String

The timbre of the pipa, a traditional plucked Chinese music instrument, is characterized by nuanced inharmonicity resulting from peculiarities of regionally distinct string composition and construction. This paper investigates the relationship between string physical construction and the resulting inharmonicity in the sounds produced by the traditional silk and modern Beijing and Shanghai metallic strings. Inharmonicity occurs in string instruments primary due to stiffness of the strings, and is commonly analyzed using Fletcher's inharmonicity formulation based on the Euler-Bernoulli stiff-string physical model. While this formulation accurately predicts partial shifts observed in the solid-core steel Beijing strings throughout the audible frequency range, it fails to accurately predict the partial shifts observed in the stranded-core steel Shanghai and traditional silk strings beyond about 8 kHz. An alternate formulation of inharmonicity is developed based on the Timoshenko beam physical model, which accounts for not only stiffness, but also rotary inertia and shear deformation within the string. Inharmonic partials derived from this formulation are verified by comparing against spectra of pipa recordings, and it is found that the Timoshenko-based formulation is capable of predicting the observed inharmonicity across all pipa string types. The unusual inharmonicity of the silk and Shanghai strings above 8 kHz is explained by the shear deformation properties of the string materials and construction, which limit the phase velocities supported by the strings and hence limit the inharmonic frequency shifts of the upper partials. In the case of the solid-core steel Beijing string, the shear deformation limit is beyond the audible frequency range, so the Euler-Bernoulli based formulation is adequate to explain its inharmonicity. In the case of the stranded steel Shanghai and twisted silk strings, whose physical shear moduli are 1-2 orders of magnitude smaller than that of the solid-core steel Beijing string, the shear deformation influences inharmonicity within the audible frequency range. For these strings (and generally for strings with relatively lower shear moduli), the Timoshenko-based formulation of inharmonicity should be used.

A real‐time music synthesis engine for physical modeling of plucked string instruments.

Music synthesis continues to offer huge potential possibilities for the creation of new musical instruments. One of the promising music synthesis techniques is physical modeling which produces output sounds that resemble much more closely their physical counterparts since it offers the potential of more intuitive control. However, this results in tremendous computational and I/O requirements, prohibiting real‐time use in composition and live performance. To meet the performance requirements, we introduce a parallel processing engine. Whereas commercial digital signal processors such as TI TMS320C6x families use silicon area for large multiported register files, large caches, and deeply pipelined functional units, our parallel processing engine contain many more simple processing elements (PEs) for the same silicon area. As a result, our engine often employs thousands of PEs while possibly distributing and colocating PEs with the data I/O to minimize storage and data communication requirements. In this paper, we implemented physical modeling of a representative plucked Korean string instrument, called Gayageum, which has 12 silk strings. Our engine achieved 12‐notes music synthesis in real‐time at 44.1 kHz sampling rate for the physical modeling algorithms. This is in contrast to TI TMS320C6x, which achieves only single‐note music synthesis. [Work supported by KOSEF, R01‐2008‐000‐20493‐0.]

Zithers of East Asia: Extension of Silk Strings and Diversity of Sounds. 2007. Edited by Iguchi Junko. Produced by the Osaka College of Music. Published by Kyogei Music Publishers. In Japanese and Chinese with Japanese captions. 109 minutes, colour, DVD. hanbai@kyogei.co.jp.

Zithers of East Asia: Extension of Silk Strings and Diversity of Sounds. 2007. Edited by Iguchi Junko. Produced by the Osaka College of Music. Published by Kyogei Music Publishers. In Japanese and Chinese with Japanese captions. 109 minutes, colour, DVD. hanbai@kyogei.co.jp. - Volume 40

Regeneration of Tubular Complex Is Promoted by a Free Space

Regeneration of the pancreas is initiated by the tubular complexes that consist of a cluster of epithelia surrounded by the mesenchymal cells. They have the potential to become pancreatic lobes, but their growth stops before the complete regeneration of the organ. To elucidate the possibility that we could promote the regeneration of the pancreas, the potential for growth or differentiation of tubular complex was analyzed. The intact lobes were growing around the silk knot after ligation of the pancreas in adult mice. To develop this reaction to a quantitative assay, tubular complexes were induced on the silk strings in the pancreas and were growing into a free space under the silicon cover. The proliferation and differentiation of new lobes with or without the space were analyzed. The number of tubular complexes, which express PDX-1, was increased 5.4 times by the space effect. The proliferating cell nuclear antigen labeling index of acinar cells was 1.7 times stimulated, but that of tubular complex was not changed. The amputated pancreas recovered 49.5% of the resected part under the silicon cover; however, it remained the same weight without the cover. The proliferation and differentiation of tubular complex are promoted by a free space.

The Comparative Analysis of Sawari on the Shamisen

The shamisen is a long-necked, spiked lute from Japan. Like its Chinese ancestor, the san-hsien, the shamisen has three silk strings and a body covered with skin. Because the first Japanese shamisen players were biwa players, several important changes were made. Players began to use the plectrum used for the biwa instead of their fingers to pluck the instrument and found that the snake skin could not take the heavy blows of the plectrum, thus cat or dog skin was substituted for the snake skin (Malm 1959:185). Secondly, because the strings of the biwa produced a buzzing sound, this twangy quality was added to the shamisen.1 The innovations made by the biwa players serve to distinguish the shamisen from the san-hsien as well as provide the two most characteristic sounds associated with the shamisen; the percussive sound produced when the plectrum strikes the skin after plucking the string, and the buzzing quality known as sawari. Sawari might be described as a buzzing sound produced on the first string (lowest sounding string) of the shamisen. It is not only an inherent characteristic of the instrument, but functions as an important factor in determining the quality of the instrument. Musicians make value judgments on the shamisen by listening to the sawari it produces. The very fact that a shamisen produces this buzzing sound is not enough-an instrument may overemphasize sawari, or it may not produce enough. Yet, when asked to define the basis of their judgements, the musicians find it difficult to answer. It is the purpose of this paper to attempt to define sawari; to give its physical description and its acoustical description, and to determine the comparative properties within the sawari upon which musicians seem to base their judgments in determining the quality of a shamisen. The production of sawari is accomplished by two steps: first, the first string is removed from the top bridge, kamikoma (see Figs. 2 and 3 for the names of the parts), so that only strings two and three rest on the bridge and are free to vibrate (Fig. 4); secondly, the area just below the peg box, aze, is carved out slightly to form an indented area, tani, and a ridge, sawari no yama. The first string, being lower than the other two strings, rests lightly on the sawari no yama (Figs. 4 and 5). This interference causes the complex vibration which is termed sawari. There are three vibrating lengths of string which contribute to sawari (Figure 1):