Darbe aptariamas vienas iš universaliausių reiškinių – ritmas, pabrėžiant, jog jis pasirodo kūniškoje tikrovėje per judesį ir kitimą. Kūnas yra ne tik ritmo suvokimo tarpininkas, bet ir pats savyje turi tą pulsuojantį ir judantį ritmą, kuris jam įkvepia gyvybę. Per kūno gyvybę ritmas atsiskleidžia muzikos ir kalbos išraiškoje. Šiose išraiškose svarbiausia yra pasaulio reikšmių įtaigus ir emocionalus perdavimas garsu ir gestu arba dar tiksliau balsu ir kūno judesiu. Poezija, turėdama ritmingą skambesį, apjungia muziką ir kalbą. Įsiklausius kaip skamba poezija ar muzikos kūrinys galime daugiau suprasti kaip mes patyriame laiką. Šiuo atveju laiko patyrimą galima įvardinti kaip „sielos ištįsimą“ per jaučiamą kūniškai kitimą ir dinamiką. Ši patirtis galima tik dabarties momente, o dabarties laikas atskleidžia amžinybės, kuri yra dieviška, galimybę. Ritmas sujungia tokias priešybes kaip tylos ir garso, dieviškumo ir žmogiškumo, amžinybės ir laiko, statikos ir dinamikos, pradžios ir pabaigos. Ritmas gali pasirodyti tik tarp šių opozicijų, sukurdamas simetrišką jų atkartojimą. Per šiuos pasikartojimus ritmas sudaro sąlygas kūnui pažadinti bei pildyti atmintį. Greičiausiai todėl muzikos ir kalbos patyrimas žmogui yra malonus. Tuomet ritmo pajautimas įgalina pažinti savo ir kito kūniškumą per judesį. Ritualo metu transo būsenoje pereinama iš profaniško į sakralųjį pasaulį. Tokiu būdu susijungia dieviškumo ir žmogiškumo sferos, kurios atsiskleidžia nuolatinio sukimosi ratu patirtyje... [toliau žr. visą tekstą] / Rhythm as one of the most universal phenomenon emerges from corporeal reality through movement and changes. A body is not only a medium of perception, but itself has that pulsating and moving rhythm, which inspires its life. In this way rhythm uncloses itself in music and speech expression. The most important thing in this expression is forcible and emotional communication of meanings via sound and gesture, more precisely through voice and body movement. Poetry has rhythmical sound, so it is the result of music and language connection. When we attentively listen to poetry or music, we can discover how we experience time. In this case we can call time experience like the soul extension through changes and dynamics which we can feel with body. This feeling is only possible in the present moment, and present time uncovers the eternity which is sacred. Rhythm connects the oppositions like silence and sound, divinity and humanity, eternity and time, static and dynamics, beginning and end. Rhythm can appear only within these symmetries. Through this repetition rhythm creates conditions for body to wake up and fills memory. It is possible that for this reason music and language experience is pleasant. Feeling of rhythm gives an opportunity to know one’s own body and bodies of others through movement. During ritual time in trance state the one moves from profane to sacred world. Thus divinity and humanity spheres are connected, emerging as the experience of constant spinning in... [to full text]

This thesis looks to techno music, and subsequently to the DJ, as models for a way of understanding urban spatial ecology. In its compositional use of rhythm to create a sense of musical space punctuated by time, the DJ’s act of mixing audio in performance is akin to the design process: architects similarly do well to observe and acknowledge the rhythm of city life, history, climate, geology, and to mould their dynamic into an appropriate spatial interface. By aligning aspects of documentation and process with DJ methods, the thesis translates the city’s various rhythms to produce responsive, intuitive architecture. A proposal for a built intervention on a former rail yard in central Halifax, Canada, the architectural response seeks to mix aspects of the city into the site, creating a multivalent graft between military facilities and civilian neighborhoods.

Modelling a listener's perception of musical rhythm requires both an understanding of rhythm as a whole as well as a definition of its constituent elements. The hypothesis is that once we can adequately define rhythm, we can then begin to design and implement models to gain insight into the perceptual processes which occur when listening to rhythmic sequences. This research outlines studies which have attempted to define and outline both the structure and the perception of rhythm. Based on the conclusions of these investigations, a computer model is designed and implemented using connectionist techniques. The emphases on this model are to arrive at a viable solution for extracting rhythmic material from performed input, and to implement time-scale invariance. Time-scale invariance allows the system to recognize (categorize) similar patterns played at different tempos as being the same pattern. The performance of this model is evaluated against earlier models designed with similar neural network architectures as well as in relation to the conclusions drawn by music theorists and psychologists.

This thesis presents and analyzes tools and experiments that aim at achieving multiple yet related goals in the exploration and manipulation of musical cyclic rhythms. The work presented in this thesis may be viewed as a preliminary study for the ultimate future goal of developing a general computational theory of rhythm. Given a family of rhythms, how does one reconstruct its ancestral rhythms? How should one change a rhythm's cycle length while preserving its musicologically salient properties, and hence be able to confirm or disprove popular or historical beliefs regarding its origins and evolution? How should one compare musical rhythms? How should one automatically generate rhythmic patterns? All these questions are addressed and, to a certain extent, solved in our study, and serve as a basis for the development of novel general tools, implemented in Matlab, for the manipulation of rhythms.

In the first section of this thesis rhythmic theories of Leonard Meyer and Grosvenor Cooper, Wallace Berry, William Benjamin, Joel Lester, Fred Lerdahl and Ray Jackendoff, and Jonathan Kramer are discussed. Each theortician's treatment of meter and grouping is compared. The appropriateness of each theory as an analytic tool for the analysis of El Decameron Negro by Leo Brouwer is evaluated. / The analysis itself concerns a section of music in which written meter changes at almost every barline. Within the measures binary and ternary rhythmic groups occur in the context of a continuous pulse. The analysis explicates the metric organization of the section. Suggestions are given for a performance which will project the underlying organization of the section of music.

This thesis investigates the rhythm and mean pitch of the English of Māori speakers. Recordings are analysed from speakers who have varying degrees of fluency and socialisation in Māori. The rhythm and mean pitch of their English language recordings are measured and analysed in order to address two questions. The first part addresses the question, ‘Has the distinctive syllable-timed rhythm of modern Māori English developed from the mora-timed rhythm of the Māori language?’ Changes in the rhythm of the English of Māori speakers are measured over time. The rhythm of these speakers is then compared with age-matched Pākehā English speakers. The results show that the distinctive syllable-timed rhythm has indeed developed from the mora-timed rhythm of the Māori language and the use of this rhythm is related to the degree of Māori identity felt by the speaker. The second part is also concerned with prosody and addresses the question, ‘Are rhythm and mean pitch influenced by topic?’ This is investigated by topic tagging the recordings and comparing the rhythm and mean pitch of each tagged section of speech. Two sets of topic tags are used; Set One has tags representing five categories (Subject, Referent, Location, Time and Attitude) and Set Two has only one tag per topic. The results suggest that mean pitch is not influenced by topic but is higher in sections of quoted speech than in regular speech. The subtle variations observed in rhythm are highly individualised and are influenced most strongly by the referent of the topic and the degree of affinity felt towards that referent.

The circadian system provides animals with a means to adapt internal physiology to the constantly changing environmental stimuli that exists on a rotating planet. Light information is translated into molecular timing mechanisms within individual pacemaker cells of the mammalian hypothalamic suprachiasmatic nucleus (SCN) via transcriptionaltranslational feedback loops. Humoral and neural outputs from this master clock result in circadian rhythms of physiology and behavior. The hierarchy of the circadian system involves SCN synchronization of cellular clocks within peripheral tissues so that differential transcriptional profiles in individual organs reflect their specific function. The first step to investigating equine circadian regulation was to identify and isolate the core components of the molecular clock in the horse. Successful isolation and sequencing of equine Bmal1, Per2, Cry1 and Clock cDNAs revealed high sequence homology with their human counterparts. Real Time RT-PCR assays were subsequently designed to quantitatively assess clock gene expression in equine peripheral tissues. Synchronization of equine fibroblasts revealed temporal profiles of clock gene expression identical to those of the SCN and peripheral tissues of other species. However, while clock gene expression varies over time in equine adipose tissue, there was no observable oscillation of clock gene transcripts in equine blood. Spurred by recent reports of immune-circadian interactions, this novel finding prompted an investigation of clock gene expression in equine blood during a systemic inflammatory response. The results demonstrated that acute inflammation upregulates Per2 and Bmal1 in equine blood. Subsequent experiments identified neutrophils as the source of this upregulation and highlighted exciting new immunecircadian interplay during an innate immune response. Finally, the effect of a 6-h phase advance of the light/dark cycle, mimicking an easterly transmeridian journey, on circadian melatonin and core body temperature rhythms was investigated. In contrast to the gradual adaptation observed in other species, these markers of equine circadian phase adapt immediately to a time zone transition. Combined, the results of these experiments highlight important interspecies differences in circadian regulation with practical implications regarding the potential impact of jet lag on equine athletes. Furthermore, the results underline the relevance of chronobiological investigation in a large mammalian species such as the horse.

Marcus Antonius Muretus, the sixteenth century French and Italian Humanist orator and professor, employed, in his orations and, to a lesser degree, in his epistles, a system of metrical prose rhythm (numerus) consistent with Ciceronian practice. Muretus did not, however, seek to employ accentual prose rhythms (cursus) characteristic of medieval prose; nevertheless, such rhythms arose naturally in his work as a byproduct of metrical prose rhythm. These findings, confirmed by statistical analysis, are congruent with the assumption that Humanist authors preferred Ciceronian stylistics to those associated with the “middle ages,” in accord with the tripartite Humanist narrative of history, in which the Humanists usher in a Renaissance of learning and elegance lost by preceding centuries.

This thesis examines separately two rhythmic styles: Renaissance mensural proportions and Elliott Carter's metrical modulation. Some historical background for each style is discussed (including examples from Gafurius' fifteenth-century treatise Practica Musicae) and the musical results of each are enumerated, examined, and compared. Examples of fifteenth- and sixteenth-century compositions are drawn from the works of Guillaume Dufay, Johannes Ockeghem, and Heinrich Isaac, among others. Elliott Carter's first string quartet and Double Concerto provide most of the sources for the study of metrical modulation.Similarities and differences between the two styles are noted, and their significance discussed. / School of Music

This thesis contributes to critical theoretical interpretation of Sophocles' Antigone. Analyzing texts by Kelly Oliver, Jacques Lacan, and Judith Butler, the thesis demonstrates how the work of these writers re-installs oppositional binarism, the form of thought that undergirds the hierarchical structure of Western metaphysics as exemplified in the dialectical philosophy of G. W. F. Hegel. Focusing on texts by Carol Jacobs, Martin Heidegger, and Jacques Derrida, the thesis analyzes the performative effect of Antigone, as sister figure, in the graphics of these works. Employing a deconstructive and performative critical approach, the thesis explores the theoretical productivity of a "sororal" graphics, that, dispersing and subverting binarism, opens the texts and their interpretation to alterity. The thesis demonstrates how critical reading of the performativity of Antigone as sister figure implicates ethicological discussion on justice in relation to family, genre/gender, classification, and inheritance.