Thoughts on Music and Text

This isn't revolutionary, but I was thinking last night about the difficulties involved in music-scanning software. That is, software that scans an image of music (presumably that you scanned in from paper) and creates a representation of that music in a format that's understood by one or more music-writing programs, such as Lilypond or Sibelius.

Text-scanning software, as evidenced by the quality of the scans at Project Gutenburg's Distributed Proofreaders, is pretty good, at least if you have a nice, clean page. However, the last time I tried out music-scanning software, I was very sorely disappointed. So, I began thinking about what the difficulties were with music, and how these were different from text.

Humans can easily recognize and interpret words in all different fonts and sizes, and with a standard font, like Times, very little time is spent actually interpreting the symbols (letters, punctuation). Instead, many common words and phrases are recognized by their structure and form, and the mind replaces any missing words or lettrs as needed, giving a very powerful method of interpretation, even with relatively minimal data. Does music operate in the same way?

First, let's look at fonts and sizes. While it is true that there are some different fonts, sizes, and sometimes even different symbols for musical 'letters' (but then, think of 'A' and 'a'), the variation is relatively small. An eighth note, for instance, is almost always a small, filled oval, with a line attached (called the 'stem') that has one flag. But then we have to consider the equivalent of ligatures.

A ligature, in typography, is when two separate letters are set together as one character. For example, fl and fl. It's sometimes hard to see on a computer screen, but open up a professionally-printed book and you'll see them. Anyway, in music, ligatures can occur when flagged notes are next to one another. Two eighth notes, for example. The flags are joined, and instead a bar runs between the stems.

Musical ligatures are very useful. The composer, arranger or typesetter can change the interpretation of the music based upon how the notes are joined together. For instance, two sets of three eighth notes is different that three sets of two eighth notes, even if they occur in the same time signature.

Anyway, one of the problems involved in scanning music is the lack of semantic understanding by the software. With text, it is much simpler; not only can you improve the recognition of each character, but you can include a dictionary of common words, which can be referenced to check each word as it is scanned. I don't know if any software actually does this, but the human mind does, which leads to the correcting mechanism above.

I wondered whether musicians do this with music, too. The answer is yes. At least, I do. Many times, there is a passage that I have played before, even if it's only a few notes. I glance at the music, see the starting point and recognize the relationship between the notes, and my brain sends the sequence to my fingers. Of course, this doesn't always work perfectly, but it is very helpful in sightreading, and practice corrects the times when it doesn't help. Additionally, musicians, while playing, can understand the context of the passage. They are aware whether the key is minor or major, and can sometimes guess the structure of the music, even if they're playing alone.

This ability to understand the minute pieces of music in context helps musicians read it, which is something that a computer could probably not do. However, music-scanning software could include samples and compare the relationship between notes to the samples.

Another difficulty in scanning music is that it is much more cluttered than text. In text, each character stands by itself, and so the software can pick each one out separately. Of course, sometimes there are complications, such as spots of ink on the page or underlining, but in general text can be isolated.

This is not so with music. Each note is in relation to a staff, which determines its pitch, and usually other notes. For example, if we were to take a slurred, dotted eighth note connected to a staccato sixteenth note, we must consider first their pitches, then their durations (keeping in mind that there is a dot to the right of the eighth note that applies to it), their articulations (the slur passes from the eighth note to the sixteenth, but the staccato is only on the sixteenth--or is it a smudge?), and any text that might be connected to them, for example dynamic markings. Some software attempts to enforce duration constraints on the scanned music by making each measure have exactly the correct durations. Musicians do this, too, but they have the flexibility and intelligence to decide if one note is actually an over-sized grace note or where the extra needed rest should go. The software, free from context, has more difficulty doing this.

Anyway, that's all I have for the time being on that topic.

Jim Baen is dead

(No, not Jim Bean, Jim Baen.) He died on June 28, 2006 from a stroke on June 12.

From the notice at http://www.baen.com/:

Jim Baen was a founding partner of Baen Books, one of the largest independent publishers of popular fiction. Since its inception in 1984, Baen evolved to be one of the leading publishers of science fiction and fantasy, and in recent years a leader in electronic publishing and the fight against encrypted books.

Jim Baen started his career in publishing in the complaints department of Ace Books. He moved on to Galaxy magazine in 1973, where his editorial acumen turned the magazine into one of the leading short story venues of the day. He returned to Ace under publisher Tom Doherty to run the science fiction line. When Doherty left to found Tor Books, Jim went with him and established its science fiction line, purchasing its first 170 titles. In 1984 a deal with Simon and Schuster/Pocket Books gave Jim a chance to found his own independent company. S&S has distributed Baen Books ever since. Recently, Baen Books has enjoyed a string of New York Times bestsellers by such authors as David Weber, John Ringo and Eric Flint. Jim also personally worked with Jerry Pournelle, David Drake, Larry Niven, Charles Sheffield, Lois McMaster Bujold and many other authors who shaped the field of modern science fiction. In recent years Jim continued to develop a whole new generation of science fiction writers.

The Beginning Place

Ursula K. LeGuin

The Beginning Place is, essentially, a modern fairy tale. Hugh, a young man of about 20, finds escape from his dreary, everyday world as a supermarket checker when, one evening, he dashes from his house and finds a secluded, quiet stream where time seems to stop. Meanwhile, Irene, also about 20, who has been coming to the land beyond the stream for many years, discovers that Hugh has been using the spot for a reprieve from his life. Eventually, they must work together to save the land, called Tembreabrezi, from a growing fear that has crippled trade.

All in all, I enjoyed this book. It isn't the best book I've ever read, and it isn't the best of LeGuin's work. But, it has a certain charm that makes it worthwhile. The pace keeps up through the relatively short novel, but it has a dream-like quality to it (or, maybe it's just because I read it entirely on the plane, I dunno). Throughout, I couldn't help but think that it would be a perfect gay novel, trading Irene for another boy. It has just the perfect touch of sweetness and innocence to make it work, I think.

6-Player Cribbage

As played by the Lehr family

Sometimes, you really want to play a certain type of game, but you either have too many or too few players for the game. What do you do? Make up a variation, of course!

This variation is simple to execute, but can lead to different gameplay than usual.

Players: 6 (either three teams of two, two teams of three, or six players [try to find a board for that!])
Deal: Each player is dealt 5 cards, as with four players.
The Crib: Every player, except the dealer and the third player to the dealer's left (generally his partner, but not always) chooses one card from eir hand to put into the crib. The dealer and the 3rd player to his left each discard one card from eir hand.

Play then proceeds as normal with a turn card and the player to the dealer's left beginning play.

The biggest difference in gameplay is that the sixth player in the hand often doesn't have a chance to play in the first round of 31! Also, with three teams of two, you can't set your partner up for play after the next player, as in 4-player; instead, it is much more like three-player.

Two Things

Firstly, had a funny conversation with (what I presume to be) a spambot last night:

whotookallthegoodskreenames23423: feel like a little cyber fun with me ? pleaase please...

me: Umm.... I think you may be barking up the wrong tree, sweetie.

whotookallthegoodskreenames23423: alright :) how bout i get down on my knees in front or you and help you out of your pants?

me: Umm.... Are you going to become an attractive male first?

whotookallthegoodskreenames23423: tell me what you want me to do with you while i slip out of my pantirs

me: Leave.

whotookallthegoodskreenames23423: oh yeah babe.. dont stop. wile i slide my hand down between my legs and part my moist lips

Hehe. Ah, so many memories. I just love it when someone wears sexy pantirs! Seriously, as Steve points out, who makes a bot that just has cybersex? It didn't even advertise anything, or respond to anything I said. I theorize that a gracious nerd, tired of being refused for cybersex, created it so that he would never have to feel lonely again. Unfortunately, it escaped his benevolent clutches and now runs amok, spreading its legs across the internet for all to behold! That poor nerd. It's probably evolved so far that by the time it contacts him again, he won't even recognize it and will actually think it's a woman! Ah, how appropriate!

Actually, earlier in the conversation when it asked my age/sex/location, I almost said 53/intersex/Siberia, but Steve was like, "What if it's someone who really needs help? Some poor teenager just beginning to come out of the closet? You'll scare him and then he'll kill himself!" Ok, well I inferred the last sentence, but still. And I was like, "Come on, anyone who asks 'a/s/l?' is looking for cybersex, especially if I don't already know them." But I didn't do it anyway. So there. That's all for this story.

Second, gayprof has an interesting post on the lack of queer heroes in the media that you should read.

Books I've read but probably won't review

the telling, Ursula K. LeGuin
Thirty Years that Shook Physics, George Gamow
Parable of the Talents, Octavia E. Butler
Myth Alliances, Robert Asprin and Jody Lynn Nye
Seventh Son, Orson Scott Card
Common Sense, Thomas Paine
Mirror, Mirror, Gregory Maguire

Flatterland – like flatland, only more so

Ian Stewart

Flatterland, as Stewart points out in the introduction, is another sequel to Flatland: a Romance of Many Dimensions (note that this version has ASCII illustrations, which are no substitute for the real thing), Edwin A. Abbott's most famous work. Stewart also points out that Flatland was written as a satire and commentary on Victorian English society and customs. Stewart continues this in Flatterland, though how effectively or to what particular purpose I'm not sure.

The story tells of Victoria Line ("Vikki"), the great-great-granddaughter of A(lbert) Square, and her journeys through the "Mathiverse" with the Space Hopper (yes, that's really what it was based off of). Use a device called the "Virtual Unreality Engine," Vikki is able to experience the various realms of the Mathiverse in their full glory, instead of merely her natural two-dimensional viewpoint. Together, they explore the concept of dimensionality, discrete geometries, fractals (and thereby fractional dimensions), topology, hyperbolic geometry, and even some physics such as relativity and super symmetry before returning back to Flatland, where Vikki begins Flatland's version of a feminist revolution.

Overall, I enjoyed the book. I read it all on May 20, so it must've been at least decent. Most of the time, however, I already understood the concepts, so it was easy going. When I didn't understand, however, I didn't feel as if the book did much to clarify them. I enjoyed the more colloquial style of Vikki's journal, although it used what I guess is British slang like "BRILL". The book is not without obvious reference to Lewis Carroll: once the Space Hopper used "frabjous," a word from the poem Jabberwocky (and one that I also saw yesterday in Larry Niven's Tales of Known Space), and there is a 'doughmouse' and a 'harsh mare' and even a 'mud mutter' (sometimes the puns were almost too much). I also enjoyed how Vikki matured through the book, as shown in her journal. However, some of the commentary was, I felt, unneccesary. There was a large bit about the "Hawk King" that rather confused me, and the ending of the story, while it would make sense for a 1960s/70s book, seemed a bit out of date to me.

Ah, well. I would still recommend the book, particularly if you have an interest in science and mathematics. It's a worthwhile read and interesting subject matter.

Blogroll Down-Paring

I've removed a number of blogs that either: haven't been updated in a long long time (most of them) or suck (one or two). Or maybe for another reason, but I can't think of any that fit that description right now.

Also, you'll notice that there is now a link to Chris B's LJ. It's interesting to see what people write about.

Baby Incubators

It's good to know that the Washington Post thinks so highly of women that the best reason for them to be healthy is because they may someday bear children.

William Gillis, Radly Balko at the Agitator, and Echinde all protest the article better than I could. Also, see Echidne's later post.

As for the actual report... my take: healthy = good, but healthy solely for the purpose of bearing children = misguided and scary.

I wonder if you could found an anarchist commune on Mars.

Mozart's Fifth String Quartet, Movement 2

I've sent the Lilypond files for the second movement of Mozart's fifth string quartet to the Mutopia Project, Mutopia-2006/05/30-711. They're also available at my website. This release also includes Lilypond files for the seperate parts. Enjoy!

Even more blogginess!

BOULDER, CO -- Blog madness is sweeping the nation! In a breathtaking move, U56J shattered everyone's expectations by starting U56J takes on the world, a stunning commentary on the state of the nation and the world and the adventures of, well, U56J. Stay tuned for more exciting action!