154-487: Harry Partch (June 24, 1901 – September 3, 1974) was an American composer, music theorist , and creator of unique musical instruments . He composed using scales of unequal intervals in just intonation , and was one of the first 20th-century composers in the West to work systematically with microtonal scales, alongside Lou Harrison . He built his own instruments in these tunings on which to play his compositions, and described
308-603: A tram engine in the UK) at the head of a line of one or more carriages, similar to a small train. Systems with such steam trams included Christchurch , New Zealand; Sydney, Australia; other city systems in New South Wales ; Munich , Germany (from August 1883 on), British India (from 1885) and the Dublin & Blessington Steam Tramway (from 1888) in Ireland. Steam tramways also were used on
462-499: A Music (1947). He opens the book with an overview of music history, and argues that Western music began to suffer from the time of Bach , after which twelve-tone equal temperament was adopted to the exclusion of other tuning systems, and abstract, instrumental music became the norm. Partch sought to bring vocal music back to prominence, and adopted tunings and scales he believed more suitable to singing. Inspired by Sensations of Tone , Hermann von Helmholtz 's book on acoustics and
616-577: A Music . Genesis was completed in 1947 and published in 1949 by the University of Wisconsin Press . He left the university, as it never accepted him as a member of the permanent staff, and there was little space for his growing stock of instruments. In 1949, pianist Gunnar Johansen allowed Partch to convert a smithy on his ranch in Blue Mounds, Wisconsin into a studio. Partch worked there with support from
770-515: A Vermont blacksmith, had invented a battery-powered electric motor which he later patented. The following year he used it to operate a small model electric car on a short section of track four feet in diameter. Attempts to use batteries as a source of electricity were made from the 1880s and 1890s, with unsuccessful trials conducted in among other places Bendigo and Adelaide in Australia, and for about 14 years as The Hague accutram of HTM in
924-685: A biography of Partch. Partch was first cousins with gag cartoonist Virgil Partch (1916–1984). Partch believed he was sterile due to childhood mumps , and he had a romantic relationship with the film actor Ramon Novarro . Partch met Danlee Mitchell while he was at the University of Illinois; Partch made Mitchell his heir, and Mitchell serves as the executive director of the Harry Partch Foundation. Dean Drummond and his group Newband took charge of Partch's instruments, and performed his repertoire. After Drummond's death in 2013, Charles Corey,
1078-802: A cello. He used this instrument, dubbed the Adapted Viola, to write music using a scale with twenty-nine tones to the octave. Partch's earliest work to survive comes from this period, including works based on Biblical verse and Shakespeare, and Seventeen Lyrics of Li Po based on translations of the Chinese poetry of Li Bai . In 1932, Partch performed the music in San Francisco and Los Angeles with sopranos he had recruited. A February 9, 1932, performance at Henry Cowell 's New Music Society of California attracted reviews. A private group of sponsors sent Partch to New York in 1933, where he gave solo performances and won
1232-460: A context. Instead, he saw it as a return to pre-Classical Western musical roots, in particular to the music of the ancient Greeks. By taking the principles he found in Helmholtz's book, he expanded his tuning system until it allowed for a division of the octave into 43 tones based on ratios of small integers. Partch uses the terms Otonality and Utonality to describe chords whose pitch classes are
1386-710: A former doctoral student of Drummond, assumed responsibility for the instruments. The Sousa Archives and Center for American Music in Urbana, Illinois, holds the Harry Partch Estate Archive, 1918–1991, which consists of Partch's personal papers, musical scores, films, tapes and photographs documenting his career as a composer, writer, and producer. It also holds the Music and performing Arts Library Harry Partch Collection, 1914–2007, which consists of books, music, films, personal papers, artifacts and sound recordings collected by
1540-501: A given meter. Syncopated rhythms contradict those conventions by accenting unexpected parts of the beat. Playing simultaneous rhythms in more than one time signature is called polyrhythm . In recent years, rhythm and meter have become an important area of research among music scholars. The most highly cited of these recent scholars are Maury Yeston , Fred Lerdahl and Ray Jackendoff , Jonathan Kramer , and Justin London. A melody
1694-646: A greater or lesser degree. Context and many other aspects can affect apparent dissonance and consonance. For example, in a Debussy prelude, a major second may sound stable and consonant, while the same interval may sound dissonant in a Bach fugue. In the Common practice era , the perfect fourth is considered dissonant when not supported by a lower third or fifth. Since the early 20th century, Arnold Schoenberg 's concept of "emancipated" dissonance, in which traditionally dissonant intervals can be treated as "higher," more remote consonances, has become more widely accepted. Rhythm
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#17330853385251848-718: A particular composition. During the Baroque period, emotional associations with specific keys, known as the doctrine of the affections , were an important topic in music theory, but the unique tonal colorings of keys that gave rise to that doctrine were largely erased with the adoption of equal temperament. However, many musicians continue to feel that certain keys are more appropriate to certain emotions than others. Indian classical music theory continues to strongly associate keys with emotional states, times of day, and other extra-musical concepts and notably, does not employ equal temperament. Consonance and dissonance are subjective qualities of
2002-488: A pipe, he found its sound agreeable and named it huangzhong , the "Yellow Bell." He then heard phoenixes singing. The male and female phoenix each sang six tones. Ling Lun cut his bamboo pipes to match the pitches of the phoenixes, producing twelve pitch pipes in two sets: six from the male phoenix and six from the female: these were called the lülü or later the shierlü . Apart from technical and structural aspects, ancient Chinese music theory also discusses topics such as
2156-691: A planned recording was blocked by the Yeats estate, which refused to grant permission to use Yeats's translation of Sophocles's play. In February 1953, Partch founded a studio, named Gate 5 , in an abandoned shipyard in Sausalito , California, where he composed, built instruments and staged performances. Subscriptions to raise money for recordings were organized by the Harry Partch Trust Fund, an organization put together by friends and supporters. The recordings were sold via mail order, as were later releases on
2310-471: A romantic relationship with the actor Ramon Novarro , then known by his birth name Ramón Samaniego; Samaniego broke off the affair when he started to become successful in his acting career. By 1925, Partch was putting his theory into practice by developing paper coverings for violin and viola with fingerings in just intonation, and wrote a string quartet using such tunings. He put his theories in words in May 1928 in
2464-512: A science of sounds". One must deduce that music theory exists in all musical cultures of the world. Music theory is often concerned with abstract musical aspects such as tuning and tonal systems, scales , consonance and dissonance , and rhythmic relationships. There is also a body of theory concerning practical aspects, such as the creation or the performance of music, orchestration , ornamentation , improvisation, and electronic sound production. A person who researches or teaches music theory
2618-547: A seven-part Monophonic Cycle . On April 22, 1944, the first performance of his Americana series of compositions was given at Carnegie Chamber Music Hall put on by the League of Composers . Supported by Guggenheim and university grants, Partch took up residence at the University of Wisconsin from 1944 until 1947. This was a productive period, in which he lectured, trained an ensemble, staged performances, released his first recordings, and completed his book, now called Genesis of
2772-695: A similar technology, Pirotsky put into service the first public electric tramway in St. Petersburg, which operated only during September 1880. The second demonstration tramway was presented by Siemens & Halske at the 1879 Berlin Industrial Exposition. The first public electric tramway used for permanent service was the Gross-Lichterfelde tramway in Lichterfelde near Berlin in Germany, which opened in 1881. It
2926-779: A surging or "pushed" attack, or fortepiano ( fp ) for a loud attack with a sudden decrease to a soft level. The full span of these markings usually range from a nearly inaudible pianissississimo ( pppp ) to a loud-as-possible fortissississimo ( ffff ). Greater extremes of pppppp and fffff and nuances such as p+ or più piano are sometimes found. Other systems of indicating volume are also used in both notation and analysis: dB (decibels), numerical scales, colored or different sized notes, words in languages other than Italian, and symbols such as those for progressively increasing volume ( crescendo ) or decreasing volume ( diminuendo or decrescendo ), often called " hairpins " when indicated with diverging or converging lines as shown in
3080-463: A theoretical nature, mainly lists of intervals and tunings . The scholar Sam Mirelman reports that the earliest of these texts dates from before 1500 BCE, a millennium earlier than surviving evidence from any other culture of comparable musical thought. Further, "All the Mesopotamian texts [about music] are united by the use of a terminology for music that, according to the approximate dating of
3234-457: A tone comprises. Timbre is principally determined by two things: (1) the relative balance of overtones produced by a given instrument due its construction (e.g. shape, material), and (2) the envelope of the sound (including changes in the overtone structure over time). Timbre varies widely between different instruments, voices, and to lesser degree, between instruments of the same type due to variations in their construction, and significantly,
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#17330853385253388-678: A tradition of other treatises, which are cited regularly just as scholarly writing cites earlier research. In modern academia, music theory is a subfield of musicology , the wider study of musical cultures and history. Guido Adler , however, in one of the texts that founded musicology in the late 19th century, wrote that "the science of music originated at the same time as the art of sounds". , where "the science of music" ( Musikwissenschaft ) obviously meant "music theory". Adler added that music only could exist when one began measuring pitches and comparing them to each other. He concluded that "all people for which one can speak of an art of sounds also have
3542-911: A well-known tourist attraction . A single cable line also survives in Wellington (rebuilt in 1979 as a funicular but still called the " Wellington Cable Car "). Another system, with two separate cable lines and a shared power station in the middle, operates from the Welsh town of Llandudno up to the top of the Great Orme hill in North Wales , UK. Hastings and some other tramways, for example Stockholms Spårvägar in Sweden and some lines in Karachi , used petrol trams. Galveston Island Trolley in Texas operated diesel trams due to
3696-399: Is a balance between "tense" and "relaxed" moments. Timbre, sometimes called "color", or "tone color," is the principal phenomenon that allows us to distinguish one instrument from another when both play at the same pitch and volume, a quality of a voice or instrument often described in terms like bright, dull, shrill, etc. It is of considerable interest in music theory, especially because it
3850-410: Is a group of musical sounds in agreeable succession or arrangement. Because melody is such a prominent aspect in so much music, its construction and other qualities are a primary interest of music theory. The basic elements of melody are pitch, duration, rhythm, and tempo. The tones of a melody are usually drawn from pitch systems such as scales or modes . Melody may consist, to increasing degree, of
4004-789: Is a music theorist. University study, typically to the MA or PhD level, is required to teach as a tenure-track music theorist in a US or Canadian university. Methods of analysis include mathematics, graphic analysis, and especially analysis enabled by western music notation. Comparative, descriptive, statistical, and other methods are also used. Music theory textbooks , especially in the United States of America, often include elements of musical acoustics , considerations of musical notation , and techniques of tonal composition ( harmony and counterpoint ), among other topics. Several surviving Sumerian and Akkadian clay tablets include musical information of
4158-453: Is an additional chord member that creates a relatively dissonant interval in relation to the bass. It is part of a chord, but is not one of the chord tones (1 3 5 7). Typically, in the classical common practice period a dissonant chord (chord with tension) "resolves" to a consonant chord. Harmonization usually sounds pleasant to the ear when there is a balance between the consonant and dissonant sounds. In simple words, that occurs when there
4312-402: Is called an interval . The most basic interval is the unison , which is simply two notes of the same pitch. The octave interval is two pitches that are either double or half the frequency of one another. The unique characteristics of octaves gave rise to the concept of pitch class : pitches of the same letter name that occur in different octaves may be grouped into a single "class" by ignoring
4466-464: Is common in folk music and blues . Non-Western cultures often use scales that do not correspond with an equally divided twelve-tone division of the octave. For example, classical Ottoman , Persian , Indian and Arabic musical systems often make use of multiples of quarter tones (half the size of a semitone, as the name indicates), for instance in 'neutral' seconds (three quarter tones) or 'neutral' thirds (seven quarter tones)—they do not normally use
4620-587: Is derived from the Greek music scale, and that Arabic music is connected to certain features of Arabic culture, such as astrology. Music is composed of aural phenomena; "music theory" considers how those phenomena apply in music. Music theory considers melody, rhythm, counterpoint, harmony, form, tonal systems, scales, tuning, intervals, consonance, dissonance, durational proportions, the acoustics of pitch systems, composition, performance, orchestration, ornamentation, improvisation, electronic sound production, etc. Pitch
4774-399: Is frequently concerned with describing how musicians and composers make music, including tuning systems and composition methods among other topics. Because of the ever-expanding conception of what constitutes music , a more inclusive definition could be the consideration of any sonic phenomena, including silence. This is not an absolute guideline, however; for example, the study of "music" in
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4928-419: Is often referred to as "separated" or "detached" rather than having a defined or numbered amount by which to reduce the notated duration. Violin players use a variety of techniques to perform different qualities of staccato. The manner in which a performer decides to execute a given articulation is usually based on the context of the piece or phrase, but many articulation symbols and verbal instructions depend on
5082-427: Is one component of music that has as yet, no standardized nomenclature. It has been called "... the psychoacoustician's multidimensional waste-basket category for everything that cannot be labeled pitch or loudness," but can be accurately described and analyzed by Fourier analysis and other methods because it results from the combination of all sound frequencies , attack and release envelopes, and other qualities that
5236-521: Is produced by the sequential arrangement of sounds and silences in time. Meter measures music in regular pulse groupings, called measures or bars . The time signature or meter signature specifies how many beats are in a measure, and which value of written note is counted or felt as a single beat. Through increased stress, or variations in duration or articulation, particular tones may be accented. There are conventions in most musical traditions for regular and hierarchical accentuation of beats to reinforce
5390-622: Is still in operation in modernised form. The earliest tram system in Canada was built by John Joseph Wright , brother of the famous mining entrepreneur Whitaker Wright , in Toronto in 1883, introducing electric trams in 1892. In the US, multiple experimental electric trams were exhibited at the 1884 World Cotton Centennial World's Fair in New Orleans, Louisiana , but they were not deemed good enough to replace
5544-554: Is the lowness or highness of a tone , for example the difference between middle C and a higher C. The frequency of the sound waves producing a pitch can be measured precisely, but the perception of pitch is more complex because single notes from natural sources are usually a complex mix of many frequencies. Accordingly, theorists often describe pitch as a subjective sensation rather than an objective measurement of sound. Specific frequencies are often assigned letter names. Today most orchestras assign concert A (the A above middle C on
5698-729: Is the sole survivor of the fleet). In Italy, in Trieste , the Trieste–Opicina tramway was opened in 1902, with the steepest section of the route being negotiated with the help of a funicular and its cables. Cable cars suffered from high infrastructure costs, since an expensive system of cables , pulleys , stationary engines and lengthy underground vault structures beneath the rails had to be provided. They also required physical strength and skill to operate, and alert operators to avoid obstructions and other cable cars. The cable had to be disconnected ("dropped") at designated locations to allow
5852-473: The Quadrivium liberal arts university curriculum, that was common in medieval Europe , was an abstract system of proportions that was carefully studied at a distance from actual musical practice. But this medieval discipline became the basis for tuning systems in later centuries and is generally included in modern scholarship on the history of music theory. Music theory as a practical discipline encompasses
6006-688: The Bleecker Street Line until its closure in 1917. Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania , had its Sarah Street line drawn by horses until 1923. The last regular mule-drawn cars in the US ran in Sulphur Rock, Arkansas , until 1926 and were commemorated by a U.S. postage stamp issued in 1983. The last mule tram service in Mexico City ended in 1932, and a mule tram in Celaya, Mexico , survived until 1954. The last horse-drawn tram to be withdrawn from public service in
6160-801: The Boxer Rebellion . Partch moved with his family to Arizona for his mother's health. His father worked for the Immigration Service there, and they settled in the small town of Benson . It was still the Wild West there in the early twentieth century, and Partch recalled seeing outlaws in town. Nearby, there were native Yaqui people , whose music he would hear. His mother sang to him in Mandarin Chinese , and he heard and sang songs in Spanish. His mother encouraged her children to learn music, and he learned
6314-823: The Lamm fireless engines then propelling the St. Charles Avenue Streetcar in that city. The first commercial installation of an electric streetcar in the United States was built in 1884 in Cleveland, Ohio , and operated for a period of one year by the East Cleveland Street Railway Company. The first city-wide electric streetcar system was implemented in 1886 in Montgomery, Alabama , by the Capital City Street Railway Company, and ran for 50 years. In 1888,
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6468-692: The Richmond Union Passenger Railway began to operate trams in Richmond, Virginia , that Frank J. Sprague had built. Sprague later developed multiple unit control, first demonstrated in Chicago in 1897, allowing multiple cars to be coupled together and operated by a single motorman. This gave rise to the modern subway train. Following the improvement of an overhead "trolley" system on streetcars for collecting electricity from overhead wires by Sprague, electric tram systems were rapidly adopted across
6622-526: The University of Illinois ; Mitchell later became Partch's heir. In March 1957, with the help of Johnston and the Fromm Foundation , The Bewitched was performed at the University of Illinois, and later at Washington University in St. Louis , though Partch was displeased with choreographer Alwin Nikolais 's interpretation. Later in 1957, Partch provided the music for Madeline Tourtelot 's film Windsong ,
6776-457: The University of Washington, Seattle . They are currently under the care of Charles Corey, Drummond's former PhD student. In 2012 a complete set of replicas was built by Thomas Meixner under commission by Ensemble Musikfabrik and used in performances of Partch's work including Delusion of the Fury . Partch's later works were large-scale, integrated theater productions in which he expected each of
6930-785: The West Midlands Metro in Birmingham , England adopted battery-powered trams on sections through the city centre close to Grade I listed Birmingham Town Hall . Paris and Berne (Switzerland) operated trams that were powered by compressed air using the Mekarski system . Trials on street tramways in Britain, including by the North Metropolitan Tramway Company between Kings Cross and Holloway, London (1883), achieved acceptable results but were found not to be economic because of
7084-608: The harmonics or subharmonics of a given fixed tone . These six-tone chords function in Partch's music much the same that the three-tone major and minor chords (or triads ) do in classical music. The Otonalities are derived from the overtone series , and the Utonalities from the undertone series . Genesis of a Music has been influential on later generations of composers interested in new intonational systems, such Ben Johnston and James Tenney (both of whom worked with Partch in
7238-441: The mandolin , violin, piano, reed organ , and cornet . His mother taught him to read music . In 1913, the family moved to Albuquerque, New Mexico , where Partch began to study the piano seriously. He obtained work playing keyboards for silent films while he was in high school. By 14, he was composing for the piano. He developed an early interest in writing music for dramatic situations, and cited his lost composition Death and
7392-572: The "horizontal" aspect. Counterpoint , which refers to the interweaving of melodic lines, and polyphony , which refers to the relationship of separate independent voices, is thus sometimes distinguished from harmony. In popular and jazz harmony , chords are named by their root plus various terms and characters indicating their qualities. For example, a lead sheet may indicate chords such as C major, D minor, and G dominant seventh. In many types of music, notably Baroque, Romantic, modern, and jazz, chords are often augmented with "tensions". A tension
7546-1202: The 1850s, after which the "animal railway" became an increasingly common feature in the larger towns. The first permanent tram line in continental Europe was opened in Paris in 1855 by Alphonse Loubat who had previously worked on American streetcar lines. The tram was developed in numerous cities of Europe (some of the most extensive systems were found in Berlin, Budapest , Birmingham , Saint Petersburg , Lisbon , London , Manchester , Paris , Kyiv ). The first tram in South America opened in 1858 in Santiago, Chile . The first trams in Australia opened in 1860 in Sydney . Africa's first tram service started in Alexandria on 8 January 1863. The first trams in Asia opened in 1869 in Batavia (Jakarta), Netherlands East Indies (Indonesia) . Limitations of horsecars included
7700-692: The 1894-built horse tram at Victor Harbor in South Australia . New horse-drawn systems have been established at the Hokkaidō Museum in Japan and also in Disneyland . A horse-tram route in Polish gmina Mrozy , first built in 1902, was reopened in 2012. The first mechanical trams were powered by steam . Generally, there were two types of steam tram. The first and most common had a small steam locomotive (called
7854-458: The 1950s). The age of specialization has given us an art of sound that denies sound, and a science of sound that denies art. The age of specialization has given us a music drama that denies drama, and a drama that—contrary to the practices of all other peoples of the world—denies music. Partch rejected the Western concert music tradition, saying that the music of composers such as Beethoven "has only
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#17330853385258008-420: The 1980s. The history of passenger trams, streetcars and trolley systems, began in the early nineteenth century. It can be divided into several distinct periods defined by the principal means of power used. Precursors to the tramway included the wooden or stone wagonways that were used in central Europe to transport mine carts with unflanged wheels since the 1500s, and the paved limestone trackways designed by
8162-475: The Australian state of Queensland between 1909 and 1939. Stockholm , Sweden, had a steam tram line at the island of Södermalm between 1887 and 1901. Tram engines usually had modifications to make them suitable for street running in residential areas. The wheels, and other moving parts of the machinery, were usually enclosed for safety reasons and to make the engines quieter. Measures were often taken to prevent
8316-457: The British newspaper Newcastle Daily Chronicle reported that, "A large number of London's discarded horse tramcars have been sent to Lincolnshire where they are used as sleeping rooms for potato pickers ". Horses continued to be used for light shunting well into the 20th century, and many large metropolitan lines lasted into the early 20th century. New York City had a regular horsecar service on
8470-590: The Chromelodeon, the Quadrangularis Reversum, and the Zymo-Xyl. Partch described his music as corporeal, and distinguished it from abstract music , which he perceived as the dominant trend in Western music since the time of Bach . His earliest compositions were small-scale pieces to be intoned to instrumental backing; his later works were large-scale, integrated theater productions in which he expected each of
8624-524: The Courtyard Park (1960) used an unaltered small wind band, and Yankee Doodle Fantasy (1944) used unaltered oboe and flute. In 1991, Dean Drummond became the custodian of the original Harry Partch instrument collection until his death in 2013. In 1999 Drummond brought the instruments to Montclair State University in Montclair, New Jersey , where they resided until November 2014, when they were moved to
8778-493: The Desert (1916) as an early example. In 1919, Partch graduated from high school. The family moved to Los Angeles in 1919 following the death of Partch's father. There, his mother was killed in a trolley accident in 1920. He enrolled in the University of Southern California 's School of Music in 1920, but was dissatisfied with his teachers and left after the summer of 1922. He moved to San Francisco and studied books on music in
8932-744: The Entertainment Centre, and work is progressing on further extensions. Sydney re-introduced trams (or light rail) on 31 August 1997. A completely new system, known as G:link , was introduced on the Gold Coast, Queensland , on 20 July 2014. The Newcastle Light Rail opened in February 2019, while the Canberra light rail opened on 20 April 2019. This is the first time that there have been trams in Canberra, even though Walter Burley Griffin 's 1914–1920 plans for
9086-451: The Gate 5 Records label. The money raised from these recordings became his main source of income. Partch's three Plectra and Percussion Dances , Ring Around the Moon (1949–1950), Castor and Pollux , and Even Wild Horses , premiered on Berkeley's KPFA radio in November 1953. After completing The Bewitched in January 1955, Partch tried to find the means to put on a production of it. Ben Johnston introduced Danlee Mitchell to Partch at
9240-444: The Guggenheim Foundation, and made recordings, primarily of his Eleven Intrusions (1949–1950). He was assisted for six months by composer Ben Johnston , who performed on Partch's recordings. In early 1951, Partch moved to Oakland for health reasons, and prepared for a production of King Oedipus at Mills College , with the support of designer Arch Lauterer . Performances of King Oedipus in March were extensively reviewed, but
9394-416: The Irish coach builder John Stephenson , in New York City which began service in the year 1832. The New York and Harlem Railroad's Fourth Avenue Line ran along the Bowery and Fourth Avenue in New York City. It was followed in 1835 by the New Orleans and Carrollton Railroad in New Orleans, Louisiana , which still operates as the St. Charles Streetcar Line . Other American cities did not follow until
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#17330853385259548-415: The Kithara sketches he had made in England. After taking some woodworking courses in 1938, he built his first Kithara at Big Sur , California, at a scale of roughly twice the size of Schlesinger's. In 1942 in Chicago, he built his Chromelodeon—another 43-tone reed organ. He was staying on the eastern coast of the U.S. when he was awarded a Guggenheim grant in March 1943 to construct instruments and complete
9702-430: The Netherlands. The first trams in Bendigo, Australia, in 1892, were battery-powered, but within as little as three months they were replaced with horse-drawn trams. In New York City some minor lines also used storage batteries. Then, more recently during the 1950s, a longer battery-operated tramway line ran from Milan to Bergamo . In China there is a Nanjing battery Tram line and has been running since 2014. In 2019,
9856-436: The North Sydney line from 1886 to 1900, and the King Street line from 1892 to 1905. In Dresden , Germany, in 1901 an elevated suspended cable car following the Eugen Langen one-railed floating tram system started operating. Cable cars operated on Highgate Hill in North London and Kennington to Brixton Hill in South London. They also worked around "Upper Douglas" in the Isle of Man from 1897 to 1929 (cable car 72/73
10010-463: The Romans for heavy horse and ox-drawn transportation. By the 1700s, paved plateways with cast iron rails were introduced in England for transporting coal, stone or iron ore from the mines to the urban factories and docks. The world's first passenger train or tram was the Swansea and Mumbles Railway , in Wales , UK. The British Parliament passed the Mumbles Railway Act in 1804, and horse-drawn service started in 1807. The service closed in 1827, but
10164-413: The Second Street Cable Railroad, which operated from 1885 to 1889, and the Temple Street Cable Railway, which operated from 1886 to 1898. From 1885 to 1940, the city of Melbourne , Victoria, Australia operated one of the largest cable systems in the world, at its peak running 592 trams on 75 kilometres (47 mi) of track. There were also two isolated cable lines in Sydney , New South Wales, Australia;
10318-601: The U.S. in 1935 at the height of the Great Depression , and spent a transient nine years, often as a hobo , often picking up work or obtaining grants from organizations such as the Federal Writers' Project . For the first eight months of this period, he kept a journal which was published posthumously as Bitter Music . Partch included notation on the speech inflections of people he met in his travels. He continued to compose music, build instruments, and develop his book and theories, and make his first recordings. He had alterations made by sculptor and designer friend Gordon Newell to
10472-562: The UK at Lytham St Annes , Trafford Park , Manchester (1897–1908) and Neath , Wales (1896–1920). Comparatively little has been published about gas trams. However, research on the subject was carried out for an article in the October 2011 edition of "The Times", the historical journal of the Australian Association of Timetable Collectors, later renamed the Australian Timetable Association. The world's first electric tram line operated in Sestroretsk near Saint Petersburg invented and tested by inventor Fyodor Pirotsky in 1875. Later, using
10626-410: The UK took passengers from Fintona railway station to Fintona Junction one mile away on the main Omagh to Enniskillen railway in Northern Ireland. The tram made its last journey on 30 September 1957 when the Omagh to Enniskillen line closed. The "van" is preserved at the Ulster Transport Museum . Horse-drawn trams still operate on the 1876-built Douglas Bay Horse Tramway on the Isle of Man , and at
10780-601: The Western tradition. During the thirteenth century, a new rhythm system called mensural notation grew out of an earlier, more limited method of notating rhythms in terms of fixed repetitive patterns, the so-called rhythmic modes, which were developed in France around 1200. An early form of mensural notation was first described and codified in the treatise Ars cantus mensurabilis ("The art of measured chant") by Franco of Cologne (c. 1280). Mensural notation used different note shapes to specify different durations, allowing scribes to capture rhythms which varied instead of repeating
10934-508: The advantages over earlier forms of transit was the low rolling resistance of metal wheels on steel rails, allowing the trams to haul a greater load for a given effort. Another factor which contributed to the rise of trams was the high total cost of ownership of horses. Electric trams largely replaced animal power in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Improvements in other vehicles such as buses led to decline of trams in early to mid 20th century. However, trams have seen resurgence since
11088-613: The busiest tram line in Europe, with a tram running once per minute at rush hour. Bucharest and Belgrade ran a regular service from 1894. Ljubljana introduced its tram system in 1901 – it closed in 1958. Oslo had the first tramway in Scandinavia , starting operation on 2 March 1894. The first electric tramway in Australia was a Sprague system demonstrated at the 1888 Melbourne Centennial Exhibition in Melbourne ; afterwards, this
11242-496: The capital then in the planning stage did propose a Canberra tram system. In Japan, the Kyoto Electric railroad was the first tram system, starting operation in 1895. By 1932, the network had grown to 82 railway companies in 65 cities, with a total network length of 1,479 km (919 mi). By the 1960s the tram had generally died out in Japan. Two rare but significant alternatives were conduit current collection , which
11396-458: The car up the hill at a steady pace, unlike a low-powered steam or horse-drawn car. Cable cars do have wheel brakes and track brakes , but the cable also helps restrain the car to going downhill at a constant speed. Performance in steep terrain partially explains the survival of cable cars in San Francisco. The San Francisco cable cars , though significantly reduced in number, continue to provide regular transportation service, in addition to being
11550-402: The cars to coast by inertia, for example when crossing another cable line. The cable then had to be "picked up" to resume progress, the whole operation requiring precise timing to avoid damage to the cable and the grip mechanism. Breaks and frays in the cable, which occurred frequently, required the complete cessation of services over a cable route while the cable was repaired. Due to overall wear,
11704-470: The chord C major may be described as a triad of major quality built on the note C . Chords may also be classified by inversion , the order in which the notes are stacked. A series of chords is called a chord progression . Although any chord may in principle be followed by any other chord, certain patterns of chords have been accepted as establishing key in common-practice harmony . To describe this, chords are numbered, using Roman numerals (upward from
11858-409: The city's hurricane-prone location, which would have resulted in frequent damage to an electrical supply system. Although Portland, Victoria promotes its tourist tram as being a cable car it actually operates using a diesel motor. The tram, which runs on a circular route around the town of Portland, uses dummies and salons formerly used on the Melbourne cable tramway system and since restored. In
12012-416: The combined coal consumption of the stationary compressor and the onboard steam boiler. The Trieste–Opicina tramway in Trieste operates a hybrid funicular tramway system. Conventional electric trams are operated in street running and on reserved track for most of their route. However, on one steep segment of track, they are assisted by cable tractors, which push the trams uphill and act as brakes for
12166-402: The difference in octave. For example, a high C and a low C are members of the same pitch class—the class that contains all C's. Musical tuning systems, or temperaments, determine the precise size of intervals. Tuning systems vary widely within and between world cultures. In Western culture , there have long been several competing tuning systems, all with different qualities. Internationally,
12320-652: The downhill run. For safety, the cable tractors are always deployed on the downhill side of the tram vehicle. Similar systems were used elsewhere in the past, notably on the Queen Anne Counterbalance in Seattle and the Darling Street wharf line in Sydney. In the mid-20th century many tram systems were disbanded, replaced by buses, trolleybuses , automobiles or rapid transit . The General Motors streetcar conspiracy
12474-446: The engines from emitting visible smoke or steam. Usually the engines used coke rather than coal as fuel to avoid emitting smoke; condensers or superheating were used to avoid emitting visible steam. A major drawback of this style of tram was the limited space for the engine, so that these trams were usually underpowered. Steam trams faded out around the 1890s to 1900s, being replaced by electric trams. Another motive system for trams
12628-429: The entire length of cable (typically several kilometres) had to be replaced on a regular schedule. After the development of reliable electrically powered trams, the costly high-maintenance cable car systems were rapidly replaced in most locations. Cable cars remained especially effective in hilly cities, since their nondriven wheels did not lose traction as they climbed or descended a steep hill. The moving cable pulled
12782-439: The fact that any given animal could only work so many hours on a given day, had to be housed, groomed, fed and cared for day in and day out, and produced prodigious amounts of manure, which the streetcar company was charged with storing and then disposing. Since a typical horse pulled a streetcar for about a dozen miles a day and worked for four or five hours, many systems needed ten or more horses in stable for each horsecar. In 1905
12936-714: The feeblest roots" in Western culture . His non-Western orientation was particularly pronounced—sometimes explicitly, as when he set to music the poetry of Li Bai , or when he combined two Noh dramas with one from Ethiopia in The Delusion of the Fury . Partch believed that Western music of the 20th century suffered from over-specialization. He objected to the theatre of the day, which he believed had divorced music and drama, and he strove to create complete, integrated theatre works, in which he expected each performer to sing, dance, play instruments, and take on speaking parts. Partch used
13090-657: The figure, motive, semi-phrase, antecedent and consequent phrase, and period or sentence. The period may be considered the complete melody, however some examples combine two periods, or use other combinations of constituents to create larger form melodies. A chord, in music, is any harmonic set of three or more notes that is heard as if sounding simultaneously . These need not actually be played together: arpeggios and broken chords may, for many practical and theoretical purposes, constitute chords. Chords and sequences of chords are frequently used in modern Western, West African, and Oceanian music, whereas they are absent from
13244-467: The first draft for a book, then called Exposition of Monophony . He supported himself during this time doing a variety of jobs, including teaching piano, proofreading, and working as a sailor. In New Orleans in 1930, he resolved to break with the European tradition entirely, and burned all his earlier scores in a potbelly stove . Partch had a New Orleans violin maker build a viola with the fingerboard of
13398-525: The first of six film collaborations between the two. From 1959 to 1962, Partch received further appointments from the University of Illinois, and staged productions of Revelation in the Courthouse Park in 1961 and Water! Water! in 1962. Though these two works were based, as King Oedipus had been, on Greek mythology , they modernized the settings and incorporated elements of popular music. Partch had support from several departments and organizations at
13552-514: The first type (technical manuals) include More philosophical treatises of the second type include The pipa instrument carried with it a theory of musical modes that subsequently led to the Sui and Tang theory of 84 musical modes. Medieval Arabic music theorists include: The Latin treatise De institutione musica by the Roman philosopher Boethius (written c. 500, translated as Fundamentals of Music )
13706-406: The graphic above. Articulation is the way the performer sounds notes. For example, staccato is the shortening of duration compared to the written note value, legato performs the notes in a smoothly joined sequence with no separation. Articulation is often described rather than quantified, therefore there is room to interpret how to execute precisely each articulation. For example, staccato
13860-1002: The greatest music had no sounds. [...] Even the music of the qin zither , a genre closely affiliated with Confucian scholar-officials, includes many works with Daoist references, such as Tianfeng huanpei ("Heavenly Breeze and Sounds of Jade Pendants"). The Samaveda and Yajurveda (c. 1200 – 1000 BCE) are among the earliest testimonies of Indian music, but properly speaking, they contain no theory. The Natya Shastra , written between 200 BCE to 200 CE, discusses intervals ( Śrutis ), scales ( Grāmas ), consonances and dissonances, classes of melodic structure ( Mūrchanās , modes?), melodic types ( Jātis ), instruments, etc. Early preserved Greek writings on music theory include two types of works: Several names of theorists are known before these works, including Pythagoras ( c. 570 ~ c. 495 BCE ), Philolaus ( c. 470 ~ ( c. 385 BCE ), Archytas (428–347 BCE ), and others. Works of
14014-634: The instrument and musical period (e.g. viol, wind; classical, baroque; etc.). Trolleycar A tram (also known as a streetcar or trolley in the United States) is a type of urban rail transit consisting of either individual railcars or self-propelled multiple unit trains that run on tramway tracks on urban public streets; some include segments on segregated right-of-way . The tramlines or tram networks operated as public transport are called tramways or simply trams/streetcars. Because of their close similarities, trams are commonly included in
14168-426: The interval between adjacent tones is called a semitone , or half step. Selecting tones from this set of 12 and arranging them in patterns of semitones and whole tones creates other scales. The most commonly encountered scales are the seven-toned major , the harmonic minor , the melodic minor , and the natural minor . Other examples of scales are the octatonic scale and the pentatonic or five-tone scale, which
14322-476: The key-note), per their diatonic function . Common ways of notating or representing chords in western music other than conventional staff notation include Roman numerals , figured bass (much used in the Baroque era ), chord letters (sometimes used in modern musicology ), and various systems of chord charts typically found in the lead sheets used in popular music to lay out the sequence of chords so that
14476-472: The late 1930s. He published his recordings under the Gate 5 Records label beginning in 1953. On recordings such as the soundtrack to Windsong , he used multitrack recording , which allowed him to play all the instruments himself. He never used synthesized or computer-generated sounds, though he had access to such technology. Partch scored six films by Madeline Tourtelot, starting with 1957's Windsong . He has been
14630-542: The late 19th and early 20th centuries a number of systems in various parts of the world employed trams powered by gas, naphtha gas or coal gas in particular. Gas trams are known to have operated between Alphington and Clifton Hill in the northern suburbs of Melbourne , Australia (1886–1888); in Berlin and Dresden , Germany; in Estonia (1921–1951); between Jelenia Góra , Cieplice , and Sobieszów in Poland (from 1897); and in
14784-402: The late 19th and early 20th centuries. There was one particular hazard associated with trams powered from a trolley pole off an overhead line on the early electrified systems. Since the tram relies on contact with the rails for the current return path, a problem arises if the tram is derailed or (more usually) if it halts on a section of track that has been heavily sanded by a previous tram, and
14938-469: The libraries there and continued to compose. In 1923 he came to reject the standard twelve-tone equal temperament of Western concert music when he discovered a translation of Hermann von Helmholtz 's Sensations of Tone . The book pointed Partch towards just intonation as an acoustic basis for his music. Around this time, while working as an usher for the Los Angeles Philharmonic , he had
15092-425: The method behind his theory and practice in his book Genesis of a Music (1947). Partch composed with scales dividing the octave into 43 unequal tones derived from the natural harmonic series ; these scales allowed for more tones of smaller intervals than in standard Western tuning, which uses twelve equal intervals to the octave. To play his music, Partch built many unique instruments , with such names as
15246-428: The methods and concepts that composers and other musicians use in creating and performing music. The development, preservation, and transmission of music theory in this sense may be found in oral and written music-making traditions, musical instruments , and other artifacts . For example, ancient instruments from prehistoric sites around the world reveal details about the music they produced and potentially something of
15400-438: The moral character of particular modes. Several centuries later, treatises began to appear which dealt with the actual composition of pieces of music in the plainchant tradition. At the end of the ninth century, Hucbald worked towards more precise pitch notation for the neumes used to record plainchant. Guido d'Arezzo wrote a letter to Michael of Pomposa in 1028, entitled Epistola de ignoto cantu , in which he introduced
15554-725: The music is intended to sound like. Paul Simon used Partch's instruments in the creation of songs for his 2016 album Stranger to Stranger . In 1974, Partch was inducted into the Hall of Fame of the Percussive Arts Society , a music service organization promoting percussion education, research, performance and appreciation. In 2004, U.S. Highball was selected by the Library of Congress 's National Recording Preservation Board as "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant". Partch made public his theories in his book Genesis of
15708-572: The music of many other parts of the world. The most frequently encountered chords are triads , so called because they consist of three distinct notes: further notes may be added to give seventh chords , extended chords , or added tone chords . The most common chords are the major and minor triads and then the augmented and diminished triads . The descriptions major , minor , augmented , and diminished are sometimes referred to collectively as chordal quality . Chords are also commonly classed by their root note—so, for instance,
15862-447: The musical theory that might have been used by their makers. In ancient and living cultures around the world, the deep and long roots of music theory are visible in instruments, oral traditions, and current music-making. Many cultures have also considered music theory in more formal ways such as written treatises and music notation . Practical and scholarly traditions overlap, as many practical treatises about music place themselves within
16016-399: The musician may play accompaniment chords or improvise a solo. In music, harmony is the use of simultaneous pitches ( tones , notes ), or chords . The study of harmony involves chords and their construction and chord progressions and the principles of connection that govern them. Harmony is often said to refer to the "vertical" aspect of music, as distinguished from melodic line , or
16170-642: The natural rhythms of the poem." His rhythmic structures that were specified in Castor and Pollux were far more structured: "Each of the duets last 234 beats. In the first half (Castor) the music alternates between 4 and 5 beats to a bar, and there's usually a rest on the eighth of the nine beats. In the second half (Pollux) the rhythm's a bit more complicated, with six bars of 7 beats alternating with six bars of 9 beats until 234 beats are reached." Partch called himself "a philosophic music-man seduced into carpentry". The path towards Partch's use of various unique instruments
16324-497: The nature and functions of music. The Yueji ("Record of music", c1st and 2nd centuries BCE), for example, manifests Confucian moral theories of understanding music in its social context. Studied and implemented by Confucian scholar-officials [...], these theories helped form a musical Confucianism that overshadowed but did not erase rival approaches. These include the assertion of Mozi (c. 468 – c. 376 BCE) that music wasted human and material resources, and Laozi 's claim that
16478-475: The necessity of overhead wire and a trolley pole for street cars and railways. While at the University of Denver he conducted experiments which established that multiple unit powered cars were a better way to operate trains and trolleys. Electric tramways spread to many European cities in the 1890s, such as: Sarajevo built a citywide system of electric trams in 1895. Budapest established its tramway system in 1887, and its ring line has grown to be
16632-523: The oldest operating electric tramway in the world. Also in 1883, Mödling and Hinterbrühl Tram was opened near Vienna in Austria. It was the first tram in the world in regular service that was run with electricity served by an overhead line with pantograph current collectors . The Blackpool Tramway was opened in Blackpool, UK on 29 September 1885 using conduit collection along Blackpool Promenade. This system
16786-486: The perception of sound, Partch based his music strictly on just intonation . He tuned his instruments using the overtone series , and extended it up to the eleventh partial. This allowed for a larger number of smaller, unequal intervals than found in the Western classical music tradition's twelve-tone equal temperament . Partch's tuning is often classed as microtonality , as it allowed for intervals smaller than 100 cents , though Partch did not conceive his tuning in such
16940-444: The performance or perception of intensity, such as timbre, vibrato, and articulation. The conventional indications of dynamics are abbreviations for Italian words like forte ( f ) for loud and piano ( p ) for soft. These two basic notations are modified by indications including mezzo piano ( mp ) for moderately soft (literally "half soft") and mezzo forte ( mf ) for moderately loud, sforzando or sforzato ( sfz ) for
17094-598: The performer's technique. The timbre of most instruments can be changed by employing different techniques while playing. For example, the timbre of a trumpet changes when a mute is inserted into the bell, the player changes their embouchure, or volume. A voice can change its timbre by the way the performer manipulates their vocal apparatus, (e.g. the shape of the vocal cavity or mouth). Musical notation frequently specifies alteration in timbre by changes in sounding technique, volume, accent, and other means. These are indicated variously by symbolic and verbal instruction. For example,
17248-426: The performers to sing, dance, speak, and play instruments. Ancient Greek theatre and Japanese Noh and kabuki heavily influenced his music theatre . Encouraged by his mother, Partch learned several instruments at a young age. By fourteen, he was composing, and in particular took to setting dramatic situations. He dropped out of the University of Southern California 's School of Music in 1922, dissatisfied with
17402-429: The performers to sing, dance, speak, and play instruments. Partch described the theory and practice of his music in his book Genesis of a Music , which he had published first in 1947, and in an expanded edition in 1974. A collection of essays, journals, and librettos by Partch was published as posthumously as Bitter Music 1991. Partch partially supported himself with the sales of recordings, which he began making in
17556-584: The piano) to the frequency of 440 Hz. This assignment is somewhat arbitrary; for example, in 1859 France, the same A was tuned to 435 Hz. Such differences can have a noticeable effect on the timbre of instruments and other phenomena. Thus, in historically informed performance of older music, tuning is often set to match the tuning used in the period when it was written. Additionally, many cultures do not attempt to standardize pitch, often considering that it should be allowed to vary depending on genre, style, mood, etc. The difference in pitch between two notes
17710-617: The poor paving of the streets in American cities which made them unsuitable for horsebuses , which were then common on the well-paved streets of European cities. Running the horsecars on rails allowed for a much smoother ride. There are records of a street railway running in Baltimore as early as 1828, however the first authenticated streetcar in America, was the New York and Harlem Railroad developed by
17864-471: The practice of using syllables to describe notes and intervals. This was the source of the hexachordal solmization that was to be used until the end of the Middle Ages. Guido also wrote about emotional qualities of the modes, the phrase structure of plainchant, the temporal meaning of the neumes, etc.; his chapters on polyphony "come closer to describing and illustrating real music than any previous account" in
18018-406: The quality of his teachers. He took to self-study in San Francisco's libraries, where he discovered Hermann von Helmholtz 's Sensations of Tone , which convinced him to devote himself to music based on scales tuned in just intonation . In 1930, he burned all his previous compositions in a rejection of the European concert tradition. Partch frequently moved around the US. Early in his career, he
18172-404: The quarter tone itself as a direct interval. In traditional Western notation, the scale used for a composition is usually indicated by a key signature at the beginning to designate the pitches that make up that scale. As the music progresses, the pitches used may change and introduce a different scale. Music can be transposed from one scale to another for various purposes, often to accommodate
18326-457: The range of a vocalist. Such transposition raises or lowers the overall pitch range, but preserves the intervallic relationships of the original scale. For example, transposition from the key of C major to D major raises all pitches of the scale of C major equally by a whole tone . Since the interval relationships remain unchanged, transposition may be unnoticed by a listener, however other qualities may change noticeably because transposition changes
18480-408: The relationship of the overall pitch range compared to the range of the instruments or voices that perform the music. This often affects the music's overall sound, as well as having technical implications for the performers. The interrelationship of the keys most commonly used in Western tonal music is conveniently shown by the circle of fifths . Unique key signatures are also sometimes devised for
18634-556: The same fixed pattern; it is a proportional notation, in the sense that each note value is equal to two or three times the shorter value, or half or a third of the longer value. This same notation, transformed through various extensions and improvements during the Renaissance, forms the basis for rhythmic notation in European classical music today. D'Erlanger divulges that the Arabic music scale
18788-402: The second is learning scholars' views on music from antiquity to the present; the third is a sub-topic of musicology that "seeks to define processes and general principles in music". The musicological approach to theory differs from music analysis "in that it takes as its starting-point not the individual work or performance but the fundamental materials from which it is built." Music theory
18942-538: The sonority of intervals that vary widely in different cultures and over the ages. Consonance (or concord) is the quality of an interval or chord that seems stable and complete in itself. Dissonance (or discord) is the opposite in that it feels incomplete and "wants to" resolve to a consonant interval. Dissonant intervals seem to clash. Consonant intervals seem to sound comfortable together. Commonly, perfect fourths, fifths, and octaves and all major and minor thirds and sixths are considered consonant. All others are dissonant to
19096-601: The spoken inflection in Yeats's recitation of the text. He built a keyboard instrument, the Chromatic Organ, which used a scale with forty-three tones to the octave. He met musicologist Kathleen Schlesinger , who had recreated an ancient Greek kithara from images she found on a vase at the British Museum . Partch made sketches of the instrument in her home, and discussed ancient Greek music theory with her. Partch returned to
19250-447: The staff of the Music and Performing Arts Library and the University of Illinois School of Music documenting the life and career of Harry Partch, and those associated with him, throughout his career as a composer and writer. Partch's notation is an obstacle, as it mixes a sort of tablature with indications of pitch ratios. This makes it difficult for those trained in traditional Western notation, and gives no visual indication as to what
19404-427: The subject of a number of documentary films. Music theorist Music theory is the study of theoretical frameworks for understanding the practices and possibilities of music . The Oxford Companion to Music describes three interrelated uses of the term "music theory": The first is the " rudiments ", that are needed to understand music notation ( key signatures , time signatures , and rhythmic notation );
19558-529: The suburban tramway lines around Milan and Padua ; the last Gamba de Legn ("Peg-Leg") tramway ran on the Milan- Magenta -Castano Primo route in late 1957. The other style of steam tram had the steam engine in the body of the tram, referred to as a tram engine (UK) or steam dummy (US). The most notable system to adopt such trams was in Paris. French-designed steam trams also operated in Rockhampton , in
19712-556: The support of composers Roy Harris , Charles Seeger , Henry Cowell, Howard Hanson , Otto Luening , Walter Piston , and Aaron Copland . Partch unsuccessfully applied for Guggenheim grants in 1933 and 1934. The Carnegie Corporation of New York granted him $ 1500 so he could do research in England. He gave readings at the British Museum and traveled in Europe. He met W. B. Yeats in Dublin, whose translation of Sophocles ' King Oedipus he wanted to set to his music; he studied
19866-409: The system known as equal temperament is most commonly used today because it is considered the most satisfactory compromise that allows instruments of fixed tuning (e.g. the piano) to sound acceptably in tune in all keys. Notes can be arranged in a variety of scales and modes . Western music theory generally divides the octave into a series of twelve pitches, called a chromatic scale , within which
20020-545: The texts, was in use for over 1,000 years." Much of Chinese music history and theory remains unclear. Chinese theory starts from numbers, the main musical numbers being twelve, five and eight. Twelve refers to the number of pitches on which the scales can be constructed. The Lüshi chunqiu from about 238 BCE recalls the legend of Ling Lun . On order of the Yellow Emperor , Ling Lun collected twelve bamboo lengths with thick and even nodes. Blowing on one of these like
20174-545: The tracks. Siemens later designed his own version of overhead current collection, called the bow collector . One of the first systems to use it was in Thorold, Ontario , opened in 1887, and it was considered quite successful. While this line proved quite versatile as one of the earliest fully functional electric streetcar installations, it required horse-drawn support while climbing the Niagara Escarpment and for two months of
20328-416: The tram and completing the earth return circuit with their body could receive a serious electric shock. If "grounded", the driver was required to jump off the tram (avoiding simultaneous contact with the tram and the ground) and pull down the trolley pole, before allowing passengers off the tram. Unless derailed, the tram could usually be recovered by running water down the running rails from a point higher than
20482-460: The tram loses electrical contact with the rails. In this event, the underframe of the tram, by virtue of a circuit path through ancillary loads (such as interior lighting), is live at the full supply voltage, typically 600 volts DC. In British terminology, such a tram was said to be 'grounded'—not to be confused with the US English use of the term, which means the exact opposite. Any person stepping off
20636-427: The tram, the water providing a conducting bridge between the tram and the rails. With improved technology, this ceased to be an problem. In the 2000s, several companies introduced catenary-free designs: Alstom's Citadis line uses a third rail, Bombardier's PRIMOVE LRV is charged by contactless induction plates embedded in the trackway and CAF URBOS tram uses ultracaps technology As early as 1834, Thomas Davenport ,
20790-685: The university, but continuing hostility from the music department convinced him to leave and return to California. Partch set up a studio in late 1962 in Petaluma , California, in a former chick hatchery. There he composed And on the Seventh Day, Petals Fell in Petaluma . He left northern California in summer 1964, and spent his remaining decade in various cities in southern California. He rarely had university work during this period, and lived on grants, commissions, and record sales. A turning point in his popularity
20944-804: The wider term light rail , which also includes systems separated from other traffic. Tram vehicles are usually lighter and shorter than main line and rapid transit trains. Most trams use electrical power, usually fed by a pantograph sliding on an overhead line ; older systems may use a trolley pole or a bow collector . In some cases, a contact shoe on a third rail is used. If necessary, they may have dual power systems—electricity in city streets and diesel in more rural environments. Occasionally, trams also carry freight . Some trams, known as tram-trains , may have segments that run on mainline railway tracks, similar to interurban systems. The differences between these modes of rail transport are often indistinct, and systems may combine multiple features. One of
21098-409: The winter when hydroelectricity was not available. It continued in service in its original form into the 1950s. Sidney Howe Short designed and produced the first electric motor that operated a streetcar without gears. The motor had its armature direct-connected to the streetcar 's axle for the driving force. Short pioneered "use of a conduit system of concealed feed" thereby eliminating
21252-745: The word dolce (sweetly) indicates a non-specific, but commonly understood soft and "sweet" timbre. Sul tasto instructs a string player to bow near or over the fingerboard to produce a less brilliant sound. Cuivre instructs a brass player to produce a forced and stridently brassy sound. Accent symbols like marcato (^) and dynamic indications ( pp ) can also indicate changes in timbre. In music, " dynamics " normally refers to variations of intensity or volume, as may be measured by physicists and audio engineers in decibels or phons . In music notation, however, dynamics are not treated as absolute values, but as relative ones. Because they are usually measured subjectively, there are factors besides amplitude that affect
21406-404: The words "ritual" and "corporeal" to describe his theatre works—musicians and their instruments were not hidden in an orchestra pit or offstage, but were a visual part of the performance. Partch's approach to rhythm ranged from unspecified to complex. In Seventeen Lyrics of Li Po for the Adapted Viola, Partch "doesn't bother with rhythmic notation at all, but simply directs performers to follow
21560-524: The world's first hydrogen fuel cell vehicle tramcar at an assembly facility in Qingdao . The chief engineer of the CSR subsidiary CSR Sifang Co Ltd. , Liang Jianying, said that the company is studying how to reduce the running costs of the tram. Trams have been used for two main purposes: for carrying passengers and for carrying cargo. There are several types of passenger tram: There are two main types of tramways,
21714-401: The world. Earlier electric trains proved difficult or unreliable and experienced limited success until the second half of the 1880s, when new types of current collectors were developed. Siemens' line, for example, provided power through a live rail and a return rail, like a model train , limiting the voltage that could be used, and delivering electric shocks to people and animals crossing
21868-665: Was a case study of the decline of trams in the United States. In the 21st century, trams have been re-introduced in cities where they had been closed down for decades (such as Tramlink in London), or kept in heritage use (such as Spårväg City in Stockholm). Most trams made since the 1990s (such as the Bombardier Flexity series and Alstom Citadis ) are articulated low-floor trams with features such as regenerative braking . In March 2015, China South Rail Corporation (CSR) demonstrated
22022-419: Was a touchstone for other writings on music in medieval Europe. Boethius represented Classical authority on music during the Middle Ages, as the Greek writings on which he based his work were not read or translated by later Europeans until the 15th century. This treatise carefully maintains distance from the actual practice of music, focusing mostly on the mathematical proportions involved in tuning systems and on
22176-617: Was a transient worker, and sometimes a hobo ; later he depended on grants, university appointments, and record sales to support himself. In 1970, supporters created the Harry Partch Foundation to administer Partch's music and instruments. On June 24, 1901, Partch was born in Oakland, California . His parents were Virgil Franklin Partch (1860–1919) and Jennie (née Childers, 1863–1920). The Presbyterian couple were missionaries , serving in China from 1888 to 1893, and again from 1895 to 1900, when they fled
22330-486: Was built by Werner von Siemens who contacted Pirotsky. This was the world's first commercially successful electric tram. It drew current from the rails at first, with overhead wire being installed in 1883. In Britain, Volk's Electric Railway was opened in 1883 in Brighton. This two kilometer line along the seafront, re-gauged to 2 ft 8 + 1 ⁄ 2 in ( 825 mm ) in 1884, remains in service as
22484-418: Was gradual. He began in the 1920s using traditional instruments, and wrote a string quartet in just intonation (now lost). He had his first specialized instrument built for him in 1930—the Adapted Viola, a viola with a cello's neck fitted on it. Most of Partch's works exclusively used the instruments he had created. Some works made use of unaltered standard instruments such as clarinet or cello; Revelation in
22638-482: Was installed as a commercial venture operating between the outer Melbourne suburb of Box Hill and the then tourist-oriented country town Doncaster from 1889 to 1896. Electric systems were also built in Adelaide , Ballarat , Bendigo , Brisbane , Fremantle , Geelong , Hobart , Kalgoorlie , Launceston , Leonora , Newcastle , Perth , and Sydney . By the 1970s, the only full tramway system remaining in Australia
22792-548: Was restarted in 1860, again using horses. It was worked by steam from 1877, and then, from 1929, by very large (106-seat) electric tramcars, until closure in 1960. The Swansea and Mumbles Railway was something of a one-off however, and no street tramway appeared in Britain until 1860 when one was built in Birkenhead by the American George Francis Train . Street railways developed in America before Europe, due to
22946-616: Was tested in San Francisco , in 1873. Part of its success is attributed to the development of an effective and reliable cable grip mechanism, to grab and release the moving cable without damage. The second city to operate cable trams was Dunedin , from 1881 to 1957. The most extensive cable system in the US was built in Chicago in stages between 1859 and 1892. New York City developed multiple cable car lines, that operated from 1883 to 1909. Los Angeles also had several cable car lines, including
23100-450: Was the 1969 Columbia LP The World of Harry Partch , the first modern recording of Partch's music and his first release on a major record label. His final theater work was Delusion of the Fury , which incorporated music from Petaluma , and was first produced at the University of California in early 1969. In 1970, the Harry Partch Foundation was founded to handle the expenses and administration of Partch's work. His final completed work
23254-616: Was the Melbourne tram system. However, there were also a few single lines remaining elsewhere: the Glenelg tram line , connecting Adelaide to the beachside suburb of Glenelg , and tourist trams in the Victorian Goldfields cities of Bendigo and Ballarat. In recent years the Melbourne system, generally recognised as the largest urban tram network in the world, has been considerably modernised and expanded. The Adelaide line has been extended to
23408-411: Was the cable car, which was pulled along a fixed track by a moving steel cable, the cable usually running in a slot below the street level. The power to move the cable was normally provided at a "powerhouse" site a distance away from the actual vehicle. The London and Blackwall Railway , which opened for passengers in east London, England, in 1840 used such a system. The first practical cable car line
23562-538: Was the soundtrack to Betty Freeman 's The Dreamer that Remains . He retired to San Diego in 1973, where he died after suffering a heart attack on September 3, 1974. The same year, a second edition of Genesis of a Music was published with extra chapters about work and instruments Partch made since the book's original publication. In 1991, Partch's journals from June 1935 to February 1936 were discovered and published—journals that Partch had believed to have been lost or destroyed. In 1998, musicologist Bob Gilmore published
23716-802: Was widely used in London, Washington, D.C., and New York City, and the surface contact collection method, used in Wolverhampton (the Lorain system), Torquay and Hastings in the UK (the Dolter stud system), and in Bordeaux , France (the ground-level power supply system). The convenience and economy of electricity resulted in its rapid adoption once the technical problems of production and transmission of electricity were solved. Electric trams largely replaced animal power and other forms of motive power including cable and steam, in
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