This thesis explores the automatic extraction of musical information from live performances - with the intention of using that information to create novel, responsive and adaptive performance tools for musicians. We focus specifically on two forms of musical analysis - harmonic analysis and beat tracking. We present two harmonic analysis algorithms - specifically we present a novel chroma vector analysis technique which we later use as the input for a chord recognition algorithm. We also present a real-time beat tracker, based upon an extension of state of the art non-causal models, that is computationally efficient and capable of strong performance compared to other models. Furthermore, through a modular study of several beat tracking algorithms we attempt to establish methods to improve beat tracking and apply these lessons to our model. Building upon this work, we show that these analyses can be combined to create a beat-synchronous musical representation, with harmonic information segmented at the level of the beat. We present a number of ways of calculating these representations and discuss their relative merits. We proceed by introducing a technique, which we call Performance Following, for recognising repeated patterns in live musical performances. Through examining the real-time beat-synchronous musical representation, this technique makes predictions of future harmonic content in musical performances with no prior knowledge in the form of a score. Finally, we present a number of potential applications for live performances that incorporate the real-time musical analysis techniques outlined previously. The applications presented include audio effects informed by beat tracking, a technique for synchronising video to a live performance, the use of harmonic information to control visual displays and an automatic accompaniment system based upon our performance following technique.

Typescript (photocopy). / Digitized by Kansas Correctional Industries

The use of similar musical material from one work to another in Beat Furrer’s works is what unites them in an unmistakable identity. What makes each work unique, however, is the way new networks of meaning for the material become established as the composer reworks his material for a given work. I argue that in Furrer’s Hörtheater FAMA, composed in 2004-2005, the reworking of the glissando as a compositional resource is strongly influenced by the textual subject matter, Arthur Schnitzler’s monodrama Fräulein Else. Furrer’s presentation of the musical material acts as a musical staging of the title character. And like Schnitzler’s novel, FAMA can be viewed as a comment on political and cultural issues.

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Ce mémoire est constitué de deux parties distinctes. La première est un roman s'articulant autour d'un road book et qui s'échoue dans le fantastique. Changement constant de lieux, fréquentes rencontres et mise en place d'une écriture de l'immédiat visent ici à transmettre le vacarme intérieur qui anime Lesco et Aude, les deux protagonistes principaux. Leur vie en miettes ne trouvera un sens que dans le pulsionnel. Parfois apologie de la destruction physique, parfois dénigrement de l'enracinement dans la routine, l'écriture est, dans la première partie du roman, un chant tumultueux en l'honneur de la route. La seconde partie, elle, propose une cassure. Le défilement des jours est ébranlé par une condamnation injustifiée. Déporté sur une île où les habitants sont menacés de mort à chaque instant, Lesco est confronté à un impossible réel: son univers bascule dans le fantastique. Il devra accepter d'être le seul témoin de la manipulation scrupuleuse des autorités mexicaines, qu'il le veuille ou non. À partir de ce moment, Lesco n'a plus qu'une mémoire douloureuse comme point de repère dans ce nouveau monde hostile. Ici, l'alliage du road book et du fantastique ne propose aucune solution, il dévie plutôt si loin du problème qu'il en vient à le suggérer: le monde bâtit des ruines avec ses projets d'avenir. La partie réflexive est un éclat sans dispersion ; trois blocs éclaboussés en fragments se partagent la prise de parole. La partie intitulée Le road beat est une folle virée dans l'univers de l'écriture du vagabondage. La beat generation et le road beat s'y entremêlent de façon à tresser un sens au mouvement ondulatoire de l'écriture du vagabondage. La seconde partie, Les carnets de doutes, met en lumière l'aventure périlleuse d'une écriture romanesque, qui, grâce à la rédaction de carnets de route, se nourrit de trouvailles tout autant que de travail. Avec l'accumulation de départs et de déplacements, l'écriture en vient à se réfugier dans des carnets de route qui, inévitablement, s'inséreront dans une démarche plus sérieuse d'écriture. Les carnets de routes sont ici perçus comme les pourvoyeurs d'une force agissante et agitante d'un tourbillon d'écriture qui influe et nourrit la rédaction d'un projet romanesque. La dernière partie, La cassure fantastique, questionne la rigidité du genre romanesque du road book et retrace les particularités de mon cheminement d'écriture. Grâce à des incursions fantastiques dans l'actualité, le réel est ici perçu comme une matière malléable qui varie selon la forme qu'en donne l'esprit qui perçoit. L'illusion fantastique et la quête impossible du road book sont, en fait, issus d'un seul et même mirage d'écriture: le désir de rendre sensible un trajet. ______________________________________________________________________________ MOTS-CLÉS DE L’AUTEUR : Roman, Carnet, Road book, Fantastique, Beat Generation.

Diss.--Kiel--Christian-Albrechts-Universität, 2003. Titre de soutenance : Ästhetik der Grenzüberschreitung als Subversion dualistischer Denkmuster : die Amerikanisierung der deutschen Literatur durch die Beat-Generation. / Bibliogr. p. 305-326.

Texte remanié de: Dissertation--Hambourg, Allemagne--Institut für Anglistik und Amerikanistik der Universität Hamburg, 2005. / Bibliogr. p. 363-384.

Thesis (M.A.)--West Virginia University, 2002. / Title from document title page. Document formatted into pages; contains ix, 84 p. Includes abstract. Includes bibliographical references (p. 63-69).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--West Virginia University, 2001. / Title from document title page. Document formatted into pages; contains vii, 123 p. : ill. (some col.). Vita. Includes abstract. Includes bibliographical references (p. 59-66).

The objective of this thesis is to examine the possibility to determine the mechanical heart rate using intracardiac impedance in the time domain. Deducing the mechanical heartrate from the impedance could help improve the performance of implanted devices that today depend on the measurement of the heart’s electrical activity. Cardiogenic – also known as intracardiac – impedance is based on the difference in conductivity between heart muscle tissue and blood, making the impedance vary as the heart is filled and emptied. The data used in this thesis was acquired from three previous studies performed by St Jude Medical, two clinical and one preclinical. Two impedance measurement configurations were chosen from these studies, one bipolar and one quadropolar. To deduce the heart rate from the intracardiac impedance six algorithms were evaluated. Three using continuous peak detection and three evaluating small frames of the impedance signal.The peak detection algorithms were peak detection on the impedance signal itself, on its derivative  and on its integral. The three others were an Auto Correlation Function (ACF), an Average Magnutide Difference Function (AMDF) and an Average Wave Comparison Function (AWCF). In order to assess the heart rates deduced from the intracardiac impedance by the algorithms, these rates were compared to both the IEGM or the ECG (depending on which study was at hand) and the blood pressure. Several issues affected the performance of the algorithms. Impedance morphology can vary between patients. Some display so called “double peaks”, making it hard to decide whether a patient has for example a pulse of 80 bpm or of 160 bpm. The impedance morphology was also affected by amplitude modulation with the respiration frequency which in some patients cause difficulties to analyze the impedance signal. The results show that the two impedance measurement configurations perform equally well and that the ACF method was the overall best performing algorithm. They also show that individual patient impedance morphology has a large influence on the results and for future studies it should therefore be interesting to calibrate the algorithms for each patient, as this should improve performance.