Ned's narrative voice, too, is finely modulated.

The short play is fragile, but, buttressed by finely modulated performances from Mr. Jordan and Miss Nelligan, it is clearly the work of a writer moving confidently and impressively beyond the category of promising.

His "Too Cool" is an unfaltering, unflinching, piercing look into a tormented youthful heart; it is finely modulated both in style and moral tone and provokes a hard-won sort of compassion at the end.

The tone is often truculent and plain-spoken, but diction and style are wide-ranging and finely modulated.

Last year our reviewer, Michael Gorra, admired the "expansive yet finely modulated narrative" and called the book Ishiguro's "fullest achievement yet."

It illustrates the lessons that architects had to learn to move beyond the sweeping blank slate approach of modern urbanism, with its emphasis on abstract geometry, into a more finely modulated cityscape.

Clairol researchers said they had solved the problem by using comparatively new lasers that can be finely modulated.

The acting is finely modulated; Miss Andersson's flirtation with insanity is a ballet.

But Robert Lloyd, the Australian composer who has written an exciting percussion score that ranges from the very loud and textured to the finely modulated, takes his title ("Nullarbor") from a hot, barren region in his country.

Nine Inch Nails then backed Mr. Manson singing his own song, "The Beautiful People"; his growl and rasp sounded crude after Mr. Reznor's finely modulated despair.