Thursday, April 24, 2008

Mathematical Music: The Golden Ratio, The Amen Break and The Entire Fucking Universe



I am not a musician; I am not "into" music. I do not understand chords or keys or scales. I like clever lyrics and a good beat. I didn't know it until today, but one of the best beats in popular music actually has a name -- The Amen Break. Maybe all you bandidos and citizens of the Rhythm Nation have heard of it, but even if you haven't, you've definitely heard it. It's here: (here).

It's from a 1960's Wilson Brothers B-Side and artists as diverse as James Brown, NWA and NIN have all used it. [source] The crazy thing is that not only does it sound good, it fits a mathematical design principle called "the Golden ratio". Here are what the audio waves of The Amen Break look like:



If you haven't guessed already, the sound waves of the fucking Amen Break fit the Golden Ratio format perfectly. How do I know? Because this guy "used homemade Golden Ratio calipers to examine the peaks. Indeed, peaks pop up at Golden Ratio intervals." (I am Alchemy(TM)'ing Golden Ratio calipers right now).

This is where it starts getting Da Vinci Code-y. Other examples of the Golden Ratio include the Parthenon, the Pyramids, your fat face, Lee Harvey Oswald's assassination, nautilus shells, your paper and plastic, the distance from your shoulder to your elbow and your shoulder to your wrist, even the fucking fingers I am using to type this with have the Golden Ratio all over them.

Does this prove there is a God? That there is no God, just math? That aliens built the pyramids and probably ran Columbia records? I don't know. I'm not a math person.

10 comments:

YaYaYaDonTKnowMe said...

Um... no God? Just a guess!

JlikeBoB said...

Interesting...I recently got a bit of a tutorial on how DJ-ing works and it's quite interesting how video gamey it can be.

lucy lawless said...

i'm studying the very same idea in my art class. Also known as the golden section, the French architect Le Corbusier related the ratio to the entire human body with a tool called the Modular which he used to design his chapel of Notre-Dame-du-Haut. He acknowledges that there are no absolutes, only relationships. clever girl (clevahr guhrl)

lucy lawless said...

you better hold on to your butts!

RYAN! said...

I don't think we've got anything to worry about. Unless Lucas Laws has figured out how to open doors...

lucy lawless said...

speaking of girls, how about some weekend blogs on the ladies which seems to be a neglected subject as nat mentioned before

lucy lawless said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
YaYaYaDonTKnowMe said...

Lucas, I love your powerful knowledge!

"God creates dinosaurs. God destroys dinosaurs. God creates man. Man destroys God. Man creates dinosaurs..."

"Dinosaurs eat man. Woman inherits the earth..."

Todd S. said...

http://youtube.com/watch?v=kf4eu5y0418

This is the second greatest collection of notes that has ever been created.

JlikeBoB said...

I totally lost the train of thought here.