Historical keyboard instruments have for many years been a valuable source of information regarding historical building techniques and performance practices. However, almost no attention has been paid to the evidence of wear present on these instruments. This physical trace documents the form in which an instrument has been used throughout time. Of particular interest is the evidence of wear found on the surface of the keys. An analysis of this physical trace might provide insight into a number of aspects which have defined the manner in which performers have approached their instruments. A survey of historical keyboard playing practices will help to visualise in a broader form the mechanical reasons behind the impact of the fingers on the surface of the key. However, it is important to consider that while the process behind the appearance of a trace of wear is primarily of a mechanical nature, the fact that both instrument and the performer‘s body are cultural objects calls for an examination of a number of issues which seem to influence the form in which the mechanical action is applied. Two important routes are thus taken in this study before the trace of wear is examined. First, a number of uses of the hand and the fingers seem to have originated in the interaction between the performer and the earliest keyboard designs that the medieval organ displayed. An analysis of these uses served as a starting point for the study here of a number of playing practices which remained in currency for long periods. Second, the forms in which the instrument is built and the body operates at it are the result of the socio-cultural and historico-geographical conditions in which both are submerged. Particular attention is thus given here to the potential effect the performer‘s socio-cultural background had on the mechanical action he or she was to use when performing. An experimental clavichord, whose tops were designed to reveal patterns of abrasion more rapidly than those commonly used to cover the keys, was used to aid in an examination of the particular effect of the fingers on the surface of the key. In this form, specific information concerning the various stages of the abrasion caused by the finger‘s contact with the surface of the keys could be gathered. The worn keys of this instrument also provided a much needed reference point to which historical traces of wear could be compared. This helped to establish a number of potential finger actions that might have been responsible for the traces of wear on some historical instruments. A reconstruction of J.S. Bach‘s playing approach was adopted for playing on the experimental clavichord. At the same time, a number of socio-cultural aspects which might have defined Bach‘s approach to the instrument were explored. In this form, a broader picture could be offered which is not limited to an understanding of the most likely mechanical causes behind the origin of the trace of wear.

Keystroke Dynamics enable biometric security systems by collecting and analyzing computer keyboard usage data. There are different approaches to classifying keystroke data and a method that has been gaining a lot of attention in the machine learning industry lately is the decision tree framework of XGBoost. XGBoost has won several Kaggle competitions in the last couple of years, but its capacity in the keystroke dynamics field has not yet been widely explored. Therefore, this thesis has attempted to classify the existing Beihang Keystroke Dynamics Database using XGBoost. To do this, keystroke features such as dwell time and flight time were extracted from the dataset, which contains 47 usernames and passwords. XGBoost was then applied to a binary classification problem, where the model attempts to distinguish keystroke feature sequences from genuine users from those of `impostors'. In this way, the ratio of inaccurately and accurately labeled password inputs can be analyzed. The result showed that, after tuning of the hyperparameters, the XGBoost yielded Equal Error Rates (EER) at best 0.31 percentage points better than the SVM used in the original study of the database at 11.52%, and a highest AUC of 0.9792. The scores achieved by this thesis are however significantly worse than a lot of others in the same field, but so were the results in the original study. The results varied greatly depending on user tested. These results suggests that XGBoost may be a useful tool, that should be tuned, but that a better dataset should be used to sufficiently benchmark the tool. Also, the quality of the model is greatly affected by variance among the users. For future research purposes, one should make sure that the database used is of good quality. To create a security system utilizing XGBoost, one should be careful of the setting and quality requirements when collecting training data

Au cours des 10 dernières années, les téléphones mobiles ont considérablement évolué~: l'apparition des écrans tactiles et la disparition des claviers physiques ont changé la façon dont nous interagissons au quotidien avec ces dispositifs. Pourtant, la saisie de texte demeure toujours une tâche importante avec des activités telles que la prise de notes, l'envoi de messages textuels ou la communication sur les réseaux sociaux. Cependant, bien que l'utilisation du tactile ait de grands avantages en termes de dynamicité de l'interface et de personnalisation, de tels dispositifs ne sont pas forcément accessibles pour tous. En effet, pour 39 millions de personnes dans le monde touchés par la cécité, les difficultés sont nombreuses avec ces dispositifs du fait que toutes les interactions se fassent au moyen de l'écran dépourvu de tout repère tactile : les interactions avec le dispositif sont possibles, mais elles sont souvent laborieuses et répétitives, ce qui implique alors une charge cognitive trop importante et des problèmes de précision, de mémorisation, et de fatigue. Dans ce travail de doctorat, nous nous sommes intéressés à l'accessibilité de la saisie de texte dans le contexte de la déficience visuelle. Dans un premier temps, nous avons étudié les différentes solutions actuellement existantes pour les utilisateurs en situation de déficience. La problématique principale de ces recherches était d'améliorer la saisie de texte pour permettre aux utilisateurs d'avoir de meilleures performances de saisie. Pour cela, nous avons conçu une solution déductive, appelée DUCK. Cette solution permet aux déficients visuels, de saisir rapidement du texte sans se soucier de la précision de leurs frappes. Un système à base de connaissances linguistiques permet à chaque fin de mot de déduire le mot que l'utilisateur a voulu saisir. Ce dispositif a ensuite été testé auprès d'un échantillon de déficients visuels afin de vérifier l'efficacité de notre solution. La suite des travaux s'est ensuite focalisée sur deux principales optimisations. La première concerne les listes de mots. Nous avons étudié et comparé différentes interactions pour permettre à l'utilisateur de naviguer et choisir des mots de façon efficace et simple lorsqu'il est face à une liste de mots proposée par un système de prédiction ou de déduction. La seconde se focalise sur la saisie des mots couramment utilisés. Nous avons également mené une étude comparative entre différentes propositions d'interaction permettant de saisir un mot court de façon efficace sans avoir recours au système de déduction, trop coûteux en temps pour ce type de mots. Enfin, nous terminons ce projet de doctorat par une étude longitudinale qui présente le clavier DUCK avec l'intégration de ces optimisations. Ce nouveau système a été utilisé par des déficients visuels sur une période de deux semaines afin d'étudier l'efficacité du clavier une fois ce dernier pris en main sur le long terme. / Over the past 10 years, mobile phones have evolved considerably : the advent of touch screens and the disappearance of physical keyboards have changed the way we interact with these devices in our daily lives. However, text input is still an important task though activities such as taking notes, sending text messages or communicating on social networks. However, while using touch screen has great advantages in terms of dynamical interfaces and customization, such devices are not necessarily accessible to all. Indeed, for 39 million people worldwide affected by blindness, there are many difficulties related to the devices that will make such interactions difficult due to the lack of tactile reference: interactions with the device are possible but they are often laborious and repetitive, which then implies a lot of cognitive load, accuracy, memory and fatigue related problems. In this PhD thesis, we focused on the accessibility of text input interactions in the context of visual impairment. First, we studied the currently existing solutions designed for impaired users. The main issue of this research was to improve text input so that users have a better typing experience. As such, we designed a deductive solution called DUCK. This solution allows visually impaired to quickly enter text without worrying about how accurate their input is. A basic language-based modelling system allows at the each end of a word what the user wanted to type. This device was then tested with a sample of visually impaired people to assess the effectiveness of our solution. Further work was subsequently focused on two main optimizations. The first work focused on word lists. We studied and compared different interactions to allow the user to navigate and choose words effectively and easily when faced with a list of words proposed by a predictive or deductive system. The second optimization focuses on entering commonly used words. We also conducted a comparative study of different interactions models to type a short word efficiently without using the deduction system, which would be too time consuming for such words. Finally, we finish this PhD project by a longitudinal study that shows the DUCK keyboard with the integration of these optimizations. This new system has been used by visually impaired over a period of two weeks to study the effectiveness of the keyboard over the long term.

This thesis is an examination about different keyboard instruments and how the pianist can use them in a groove context. All keyboard instruments have different attack, decay, release, overtones, and dynamics, as well as different opportunities to affect these parameters. Every instrument also involves various opportunities and challenges in an ensemble, in the way they affect and are affected by the playing of the fellow musicians. The examination involved that I played, recorded, and transcribed different keyboard patterns from different recordings. I played every pattern with four different instruments and explored how the groove changed based on the instruments I played and how I could use the parameters of every instrument to get variation. First, I did this playing to drum loops and later with real musicians.   My conclusions are that getting an overview of the overtones and how distinct the instruments can be is the key to improve your ability to play different keyboard instruments. To get to know instruments and their ways to express intensity is the essence of finding your way into the groove.

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The innovative compositions of Miloslav Ištvan (1928-1990) and his influential theoretical writings contributed to the creation of the modern composition school in Brno, capitol of Moravia in the present Czech Republic. Through the vehicle of his three piano sonatas (unpublished, but composed in 1954, 1959, and 1979), this monograph places Ištvan and his music against the political background of ideological repression in the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic. The unique blend of Moravian folk music and fierce pride in Czech culture are clearly evident throughout Ištvan’s compositional oeuvre and specifically in his piano music. In particular, his sheer creativity and courage to create his own voice under severe artistic deprivation combine to create a body of work that remains one of the most prominent influences in the present-day compositional scene in Brno. Each of the six chronological sections in this monograph employs a single year as a frame of reference. These years were selected both for their political significance and to represent an important event in Ištvan’s personal or musical life. In addition to the biographical details, political context and analysis of the piano sonatas, other significant compositions and contemporary writings are considered to trace the developmental thread of Moravian music. Ištvan’s search for artistic expression brings the lineage of his direct predecessor, Brno compositional giant Leoš Janáček, into the avant-garde New Music movement of the 1960s. Ištvan’s further work as a composition professor and writer of theoretical texts in the 1970s and 80s continues to influence the current generation of composers in the Czech Republic. This monograph calls attention to a composer and his rich body of work, created during politically turbulent times, that remains virtually unknown outside his country of origin. / Music Performance

Recently, many full-sized keyboards have been designed to fold in various ways in an attempt to make them more transportable. The flexible membrane keyboard, one type of full sized keyboard, is unique because it is made from silicon rubber, thus it is fully flexible and water resistant. Although a number of flexible keyboard characteristics are the same as standard keyboards (i.e. key size, shape and spacing), key-switch and key clicking mechanisms are inherently different. Since there is little or no existing research on flexible keyboards, there is a current need for data to facilitate design of such keyboards for use. Typing performance and perceived usability of several flexible keyboards that differed in terms of material hardness (hard, medium, or soft) and key contact point shape (circular or square) were studied. The results supported the hypothesis that both typing performance and usability of the flexible membrane keyboard were affected by material hardness and contact point shape. Square shaped contact points led to increased typing speed and decreased error rates, and medium or soft hardness led to increased typing speed. The best flexible keyboard (perceived by participants) in general received neutral usability ratings. However, ratings for mobility and design were much higher than neutral. Overall, subjective and objective measures of performance and usability indicated that flexible keyboards that are made of silicon of a soft or medium hardness and with a square shaped contact points are preferred. / Master of Science

胡麥爾(1778-1837)是一位奧地利鋼琴家、作曲家、教師及指揮家，生前與貝 多芬齊名，被譽爲是當時歐洲最重要的鋼琴作曲家之一。可是近代的學者和聽眾對他的評價甚低，認爲他的音樂作品守舊、媚俗、不能登大雅之堂。 / 本文借鑒胡麥爾創作時期的文化背景，重新評價這位被忽視的音樂家對於開 發十九世紀鋼琴音樂所作出的貢獻。十八世紀後期中產階級的興起令音樂會 不斷增加，鋼琴演奏家不但成爲音樂會中的主要角色，而且他們所演奏的 「流行音樂」對於後世鋼琴技巧及音樂創作的發展，有舉足輕重的影響。 / 胡麥爾的鋼琴作品顯露出嶄新的作曲手法，當中包括較自由的轉調和曲式結 構，以及特別的音形法等，均源自音樂會中常出現的即興演奏，亦即「幻想 曲風格」。胡麥爾在正統器樂體裁的語境中引入幻想曲的技法，展示出流行 曲風格與正統音樂的結合，並開創了混合體裁的先河。其中，幻想曲與奏鳴 曲的混合體裁，對於後世的浪漫派作曲家如簫邦和舒曼等的創作模式尤有啓發。 / Johann Nepomuk Hummel (1778-1837) was an Austrian pianist, composer,teacher, and conductor who was described in his time as one of Europe's greatestpianist-composers. However, his music has been neglected and underestimated inmodem times, and is not considered to have any lasting influence on later compositional developments in the 19th century. / The present study aims to demonstrate that, though identified as a conservative composer, Hummel played an important transitional role in the evolution between Classical and Romantic styles. I argue that the post-classicalpianism that he cultivated presaged many significant stylistic trends of later composers, and that these were stimulated by the rise of public concerts. The demand for virtuosic performances by middle-class concert audiences led pianistcomposers like Hummel to explore new modes of improvisation, which in turn had a profound impact not only on keyboard technique, but also on compositional practice. / A comprehensive study of Hummel's piano music reveals a new compositional practice featuring juxtaposition of different figurations, freedom of modulation, and new formal structures. The fantasy style derived from concert 11 improvisations came to be incorporated in different keyboard genres, resulting in generic mixture. In particular, the hybrid fantasy-sonata foreshadowed the later practice of Schumann and Chopin, and contributed towards the merging of serious and popular styles in Romantic piano music. / Detailed summary in vernacular field only. / Detailed summary in vernacular field only. / Detailed summary in vernacular field only. / Kam, Cheok Weng. / "December 2011." / Thesis (Ph.D.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2012. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 160-174). / Electronic reproduction. Hong Kong : Chinese University of Hong Kong, [2012] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web. / Abstract also in Chinese. / List of Figures --- p.vii / List of Music Examples --- p.ix / Chapter Chapter One --- Introduction --- p.1 / Chapter Chapter Two --- Cultural Contexts for Hummel's Post-Classical Keyboard Style / The Rise of Public Concerts --- p.10 / The Development of Piano Music --- p.11 / Technical Innovations in Post-Classical Pianism --- p.12 / The Viennese Piano Style --- p.17 / The English Piano Style --- p.21 / Hummel's Keyboard Writing: Viennese Features --- p.28 / The Influence of the English Style --- p.31 / Legato Touch and the Chopin Style --- p.36 / Technical Innovations --- p.40 / Chapter Chapter Three --- Generic Transformation in Hummel's Piano Sonatas --- p.48 / The Keyboard Sonata in Hummel' s Time --- p.51 / Changing Approaches to Sonata Form --- p.56 / Hummel's Early Piano Sonatas --- p.61 / Sonata in F minor, Op. 20 --- p.67 / Sonata in C major, Op. 38 --- p.77 / Sonata in F-sharp minor, Op. 81 --- p.82 / Sonata in D major, Op. 106 --- p.93 / Chapter Chapter 4 --- The Evolution of Fantasias and Generic Innovations --- p.107 / Improvisation and Fantasy Style in the Eighteenth Century --- p.108 / The Eighteenth-Century Free Fantasia --- p.111 / Changing Conceptions of the Fantasy From C.P.E. Bach to Mozart --- p.118 / Changing Role of Improvisation in Performance Practice --- p.124 / From Harmonic Thinking to Thematic Thinking --- p.129 / Hurnmel's Fantasy Op. 18: The Fantasy-Sonata Hybrid --- p.134 / Chapter Chapter 5 --- Other Types of Generic Mixture Prompted by Fantasy Style --- p.141 / Generic Mixture with Theme and Variations --- p.142 / Caprices --- p.148 / Potpourri --- p.150 / Rondo --- p.152 / Chapter Chapter 6 --- Conclusion --- p.156 / Bibliography --- p.160

(Jose Antonio) Carlos de Seixas (1704-1742) is an important figure in the European keyboard music of the beginning of the 18th-century. He composed around 700 sonatas for keyboard, of which only around 105 are known today. They demonstrate a high execution level that can be compared with J. P. Rameau (1683-1764), J. S. Bach (1685-1750), Domenico Scarlatti (1685-1757), Padre Antonio Soler (1729-1783) and other important composers of his time. Like Scarlatti and Soler, Carlos Seixas is positioned in an important transitional period in the history of music. He and his contemporaries are situated between true giants of Western Art Music: before and, in part, during Seixas's life time lived G. F. Haendel (1685-1759) and J. S. Bach (1685-1750); and after Seixas came F. J. Haydn (1732-1809), W. A. Mozart (1756-1791), and L. van Beethoven (1770-1827). During this transitional time in the first half of the eighteenth century, from the baroque to the classical eras, several stylistic trends coexisted--- the baroque, the new galant style, the empfindsamer Stil, and the pre-classical. This essay is divided into four chapters. In Chapter One I discuss the sources for Seixas scholarship followed by a historical overview of seventeenth- and eighteenth- century Portugal as well as a brief biographical sketch of Seixas's life. Chapter Two includes a discussion of Seixas's musical style and form. I examine various facets of his compositional style, including some commonalities found in many composers' works during the transitional period between the Baroque and pre-Classical. I also explore other facets of his keyboard writing such as the use of violin idioms, folkloric sounds, and symphonic textures. In Chapter Three I examine in greater detail Seixas's keyboard writing. I start with descriptions of the instruments that Seixas may have used and of his keyboard writing. I also examine available scholarship for guidelines on performing early eighteenth-century keyboard music in general--including specific approaches to ornaments, articulation, improvisation, rubato, and the like--before turning to Seixas's keyboard sonatas in particular. The last chapter, Chapter Four, includes elements for the analysis of Seixas's sonatas; I choose four of these sonatas for more in-depth analysis of formal and tonal structure. The four selected sonatas represent different formal schemes and stylistic characteristics, which demonstrate the variety within Seixas's solo keyboard pieces. They show great contrasts in form, relationship of movements, and thematic treatment: Sonata No. 16 in C minor presents only one movement in free binary form; Sonata No. 27 in D minor has three movements with no evident relationship among them and toccata elements in the first movement; Sonata No. 42 in F minor also has three movements but the last two movements relate thematically and the first movement presents imitative counterpoint; and Sonata No. 59 in A major represents pre-classical tendencies in texture and structure, presenting three movements connected as a whole through cyclical thematic ideas in the outer movements and a second movement, in A minor, that links to the last movement by means of an open ending. In addition, Chapter Four includes pedagogical insights from an analytical standpoint and annotations for the use of Seixas's sonatas as teaching resources. As part of this chapter's pedagogical resources, I also list additional sources for understanding performance practice of eighteenth-century music, review the available editions of Seixas's solo keyboard compositions, and list the primary performers of his keyboard works. Finally, the appendices to this essay include two cataloguing tables: the first (Appendix A) catalogues a selected group of Seixas's sonatas with detailed descriptions of their technical difficulties, and the second (Appendix B) catalogues all eighty sonatas according to level of difficulty. In addition, the scores of all four sonatas analyzed in Chapter Four are provided in two forms: Appendices C, D, E, and F contain the original Seixas score as edited by Seixas's preeminent scholar Santiago Macario Kastner; Appendices G, H, I, and J contain my performer's scores for the same four sonatas, that is, annotated versions of Kastner's editions.

Mobile devices gain increasing computational power and storage capabilities, and there are already mobile phones that can show movies, act as digital music players and offer full-scale web browsing. The bottleneck for information flow is however limited by the inefficient communication channel between the user and the small device. The small mobile phone form factor has proven to be surprisingly difficult to overcome and limited text entry capabilities are in effect crippling mobile devices’ use experience. The desktop keyboard is too large for mobile phones, and the keypad too limited. In recent years, advanced mobile phones have come equipped with touch-screens that enable new text entry solutions. This dissertation explores how software keyboards on touch-screens can be improved to provide an efficient and practical text and command entry experience on mobile devices. The central hypothesis is that it is possible to combine three elements: software keyboard, language redundancy and pattern recognition, and create new effective interfaces for text entry and control. These are collectively called “shape writing” interfaces. Words form shapes on the software keyboard layout. Users write words by articulating the shapes for words on the software keyboard. Two classes of shape writing interfaces are developed and analyzed: discrete and continuous shape writing. The former recognizes users’ pen or finger tapping motion as discrete patterns on the touch-screen. The latter recognizes users’ continuous motion patterns. Experimental results show that novice users can write text with an average entry rate of 25 wpm and an error rate of 1% after 35 minutes of practice. An accelerated novice learning experiment shows that users can exactly copy a single well-practiced phrase with an average entry rate of 46.5 wpm, with individual phrase entry rate measurements up to 99 wpm. When used as a control interface, users can send commands to applications 1.6 times faster than using de-facto standard linear pull-down menus. Visual command preview leads to significantly less errors and shorter gestures for unpracticed commands. Taken together, the quantitative results show that shape writing is among the fastest mobile interfaces for text entry and control, both initially and after practice, that are currently known.