Grammar: Boundaries Tool

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Use this tool to practice finding sentence boundaries: commas, dashes, colons, periods, parentheses, etc. Highlight text, then click a label to apply its color. Ensure that any boundaries belonging to a particular phrases stay within its own highlighted area. No punctuation should be left un-highlighted. Use Eraser, Undo, Reset, or Save as needed.

In 1948, Swiss chemist George de Mestral was impressed with the clinging power of burrs snagged in his dog's fur and on his pant legs after he returned from a hike. While examining the burrs under a microscope, he observed many hundreds of small fibers that grabbed like hooks. He experimented with replicas of the burrs and eventually invented Velcro, a synthetic clinging fabric that was first marketed as "the zipperless zipper." In the 1960s, NASA used de Mestral's invention on space suits, and now, of course, we see it everywhere. You might say that de Mestral was the father of biomimicry, an increasingly essential field that stud- ies nature, looking for efficiencies in materials and systems, and asks the question "How can our homes, our electronics, and our cities work better?" As one biomimetics company puts it: "Nature is the largest laboratory that ever existed and ever will." Architecture is one field that is constantly exploring new ways to incorporate biomimicry. Architects have studied everything from beehives to beaver dams to learn how to best use materials, geometry, and physics in buildings. Termite mounds, for example, very efficiently regulate temperature, humidity, and airflow, so architects in Zimbabwe are working to apply what they've learned from termite mounds to human-made structures. Says Michael Pawlyn, author of Biomimicry in Architecture, "If you look beyond the nice shapes in nature and understand the principles behind them, you can find some adaptations that can lead to new, innovative solutions that are radically more resource-efficient. It's the direction we need to take in the coming decades." Designers in various professional fields are draw- ing on biomimicry; for example, in optics, scientists have examined the surface of insect eyes in hopes of reducing glare on handheld device screens. Engi- neers in the field of robotics worked to replicate the property found in a gecko's feet that allows adhesion to smooth surfaces. Sometimes what scientists learn from nature isn't more advanced, but simpler. The abalone shrimp, for example, makes its shell out of calcium carbonate, the same material as soft chalk. It's not a rare or complex substance, but the unique arrangement of the material in the abalone's shell makes it extremely tough. The walls of the shell contain microscopic pieces of calcium carbonate stacked like bricks, which are bound together using proteins just as concrete mortar is used. The result is a shell three thousand times harder than chalk and as tough as Kevlar® (the material used in bullet-proof vests). Often it is necessary to look at the nanoscale structures of a living material's exceptional properties in order to re-create it synthetically. Andrew Parker, an evolutionary biologist, looked at the skin of the thorny devil (a type of lizard) under a scanning elec- tron microscope, in search of the features that let the animal channel water from its back to its mouth. Examples like this from the animal world abound. Scientists have learned that colorful birds don't always have pigment in their wings but are some- times completely brown; it's the layers of keratin in their wings that produce color. Different colors, which have varying wavelengths, reflect differently through keratin. The discovery of this phenomenon can be put to use in creating paints and cosmetics that won't fade or chip. At the same time, paint for outdoor surfaces can be made tougher by copying the structures found in antler bone. Hearing aids are being designed to capture sound as well as the ears of the Ormia fly do. And why can't we have a self-healing material like our own skin? Researchers at the Beckman Institute at the University of Illinois are creating just that; they call it an "autonomic materials system." A raptor's feathers, a whale's fluke, a mosquito's proboscis—all have functional features we can learn from. The driving force behind these innovations, aside from improved performance, is often improved energy efficiency. In a world where nonrenew- able energy resources are dwindling and carbon emissions threaten the planet's health, efficiency has never been more important. Pawlyn agrees: "For me, biomimicry is one of the best sources of inno- vation to get to a world of zero waste because those are the rules under which biological life has had to exist." Biomimicry is a radical field and one whose prac- titioners need to be radically optimistic, as Pawlyn is when he says, "We could use natural products such as cellulose, or even harvest carbon from the atmosphere to create bio-rock.

5. Londonderry Air

This song was already familiar to me from a childhood spent in church. Apparently someone had taken this Irish folk tune and set Christian lyrics to it. So this prior knowledge of the melody meant I was always acutely aware of any mistake I made while tackling this piece. The cross-hand playing we did in Nobody Knows made a come back, but for me the most interesting and novel aspect of the song was that the score's given on three staves. J. T. assures us that, rather than making things more complicated, it actually simplifies things. It certainly makes things less cluttered—and since clutter is actually an aspect of notation that bugs me, I definitely find this three-stave anomaly to be helpful. 

All in all, I think this song was good for me. I'm sort of conservative when it comes to flailing my arms all over the keyboard, and this song eases me into that. Apart from repeatedly crossing hands, a couple instances exist in which its necessary to walk arpeggios some distance down the keyboard—not too extreme, but graduated in a sense that makes it the perfect stepping stone for someone of my modest (but growing!) capabilities. 

I am utterly enamoured of the particular chord pictured above—the one the diminuendo sign seems to also find necessary to point out. It's located in one of the final phrases of the song and consists (as is apparent) of two flattened C's, one flattened G, an A, and an E. It was murderous to read when I first encountered it because just about every infernal note has an accidental against it! But I was more than rewarded at the end of that effort. (Turns out to be an inverted B7 chord when all the key-signature dust clears.) And, if I recall correctly, my response to the combination was to find it at first peculiar and unexpected, then almost in the same instant it became interesting, and finally it settled on just being really satisfying. 

4. Toreador Song

Georges Bizet, what can I say? I had him in the second grade book aeons ago when we played Habanera. That was fun—I really loved that syncopated rhythm. And the learning never stops. I have not perfected this bullfighter's anthem by any stretch of the imagination. My current weak spots are a couple small jumps in the 4th and 5th bars. I kinda realise I just need to isolate and work on them though, because they haven't always been my weakest spots. What happened, I think, is that the polishing that I've done to the other areas have caused what I might have previously considered strong areas to appear weak by comparison. This is good, of course. It means progress is being made... but the song, as I currently play it, still sounds pretty horrible.

The good news is that the above double-time, backhanded-F-major-scale-that-starts-on-C is looking and sounding a lot better as of yesterday! Molto crescendo! Also, that trill-esque passage in bar 9 (repeated in bar 21) is looking pretty okay too in the right hand; if I could only get my left hand to keep up, I'd be set. Oh yeah, and how 'bout those acciaccaturas? They're coming along... It's a work in progress though, and I'm learning to be patient and allow myself the time I need to grow.

3. Musette

Musette on the other hand is a perpetual stumbling block for me—so much so that about a decade ago when I first tried this piece, I gave it all up under the presumption that piano just wasn't my thing. (Dare I shake my fist at Bach?) Seriously though, I do like very much the modulation of volume and intensity prescribed in the piece: it's p  f  p  f alternating all throughout, and the contrast really works. Plus, that middle staccato section (below) is pretty sweet.

 

But... for the refrain with which the song begins and ends, I simply can't get both hands to simultaneously jump the measly octave and consistently land the middle fingers  on F# without at least one sliding off or hitting a neighbouring note. It seems to require a level of precision I haven't yet developed to perfectly balance my fingers on such a narrow perch while descending at the rate of however many feet per second is prescribed by the term giocoso. I've managed to do it a few times, of course. I've been practising it for almost 6 weeks, and I hit the right notes maybe 35% of the time (smh).

I could get discouraged—I have done—but I no longer am. Instead, I've determined to make everything into a learning experience. Therefore, my current approach to this piece is to play it as fast as I can. Speed runs. My hope is that after several weeks at this ridiculous pace, when I finally get it back down to giocoso, the jumps will seem like a breeze.

Thank you, Bach :)

Sincerely,

T

2. Melody

Luckily this time around, I found the courage to push past my incompetence in playing the first piece in order to tackle the second piece, (Robert) Schumann's Melody. For an intermediate player like myself (and one returning to the piano in adulthood after a long, loooong absence), I think this piece is a good exercise in developing hand independence.

The left hand notably doesn't just chip in with a harmonising note or chord now and then—once or twice a bar, or something. Rather, it plays continuously throughout, even more so than the right hand, and provides (as J.T. himself put it) "a subdued, but ever-moving background." I actually play this somewhat to my satisfaction, though I'm still working out some of the transitions. The legato "singing tone" required of the RH complements my style of playing, I'd say. And thank God it's not too fast: cantabile and moderato are just my "speed."

1. Nobody Knows De Trouble I've Seen

This song was arranged by John Thompson (J.T.) himself, and it is a pretty easy song, I'd say. I mean, it's in 4/4 time and it's all crotchets and minims, with a few semibreves thrown in here and there... and yet for the life of me, I can't seem to play it right! It just never feels right in my fingers, and my timing's all screwed up. Now, I'm a person who prides myself on my innate sense of timing, so (ahem!) I think I'm just gonna blame a huge chunk of this problem on those arpeggios sprinkled over the piece. (Two consecutive ones are pictured above.) I can never seem to get them perfect the first time. Every time I play them, I have to practice them once or twice before they sound right. What's the answer... finger drills you say?  No argument there. I'm working on those, too...

Beckett?

I have been doing some Beckett. Or Beckett has been doing me. There's really no difference in Einsteinian relativity. Either way, someone's getting cork-screwed right into the ground.

But there are elements of Beckett that are amenable to thought. Let's face it: I'm not that twisted, so as for any other "relatively" normal person out there, I struggle with Beckett.

But I like the score with the frogs in Watt. It (among many other things) has inspired me to combine my interests and rediscover some old ones. One of those is piano. I wonder what piano playing might add to my reading of Beckett. Piano learning, that is, since (like many other "relatively" normal persons, I quit piano somewhere between the second and third John Thompson books.)

Let's say it was the third book. What if I resume playing alongside reading Beckett. (And Stein). And alongside some rudimentary education in mathematics? If I resume all this and chronicle my progress, difficulties, moments of epiphany (however few), would you read it?

Would it matter?