Slashdot Mirror
Hidden Music Claimed In Da Vinci Painting
snib sends us to CNN for coverage of an Italian musician and computer technician who claims to have uncovered a hidden musical score in Leonardo Da Vinci's "Last Supper." Giovanni Maria Pala published this and other findings about the 'Last Supper' painting in his book The Hidden Music, released in Italy Friday. "[This raises] the possibility that the Renaissance genius might have left behind a somber composition to accompany the scene depicted in the 15th-century wall painting. 'It sounds like a requiem,' Giovanni Maria Pala said. 'It's like a soundtrack that emphasizes the passion of Jesus.'"
This has to be one of the most creative promotional stunts ever. It's difficult enough to get anyone to listen to new music, but tying your piece to the last supper is truly a work of genius.
I still like to think it takes a truly open mind to discover the places technology can truly take us.
But as Richard Dawkins likes to say, not so open your brains fall out. I'm wondering how long it takes for people to find secret "music" in other paintings and photographs... parodists, start your engines...
It can't be music.
The RIAA hasn't tried to extort money for it.
"I've got more toys than Teruhisa Kitahara."
Link to sound clip: http://hosted.ap.org/specials/interactives/_audio/davinci_music.mp3
"Slapping lipstick on a pig does NOT make it Natalie Portman. Paris Hilton, maybe, but not Portman." - UncleTogie
Exactly. I just found the words "vote Romney" in ascii values in the value of Pi. My hands are tied...
I'm wondering how long it takes for people to find secret "music" in other paintings and photographs...
Absolutely. Da Vinci executed his paintings (actually, everything he did) with mathematical precision, and what is music but a mathematical language, Bach being the example that stands out in my mind right now? With sophisticated enough technology, we'll be finding musical notes in Jackson Pollock's paintings - scandinavian death metal, perhaps?
So Da Vinci was also a composer, yet hid it so well that only five centuries later it comes to light. He really kept that secret close to his breast! Typical MSM fodder, this bit of "news", in line with stories from a couple of years ago: "Coming up, ten ways you and your children are in danger of being killed tomorrow in a terrorist attack, but first, the Da Vinci Code - sinister cover-up or fiction?" All of it light years away from Occam's Razor.
As one of the members of The Society For Putting Things On Top Of Other Things said: The whole thing's rather silly, innit?
Lil' Thindime, lilting a lacrimose lament, krashes the kwaint konfines of Kokonino Kounty
We know that modern creators often include Easter Eggs in their products, everything from hidden bits of programming to images etched into the silicone hardware. Why do so many of slashdot readers find it impossible to accept that Leonardo might have done the same in his work?
We know he had the skill for it, we know he did it in other works, we know he loved tricks.
Yes, human beings have got a talent for seeing patterns where there aren't any, and slashdot readers got a talent for being a bunch of smartasses who think they know better.
Personally I would first want to see a picture of the painting, the overlayed musical score (how lenient do you have to be to see the scores, is it ALWAYS the center of the hand or is the note sometimes put at the fingernails and othertimes at the wrist?) and the music itself.
I am slightly suspicious because it seems all the be explained in a book. MONEY GRABBER! If it was science it would be a in a peer reviewed paper, not in a commercial book. Then their is the claim that this shows Leonardo was a religious person. Eh why? I don't see the connection between hiding a piece of music in a painting and the painters world vision.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Mormons don't use ASCII. Or Pi for that matter. Mormons got Unicode on the continent before it was invented - they found it on buried golden plates, and they gave them back.
You must be a real genius if you can call an Oxford professor who's written several bestselling books a cretin. I bow to your giant intellect.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
I ran this by my wife who is a professional musician with perfect pitch and a degree in music.
She says that the recording is in E-flat minor, but that organs at the time would have been in a different tuning standard, roughly one-half step different than the current standard.
E-flat minor is a very rare key for that time-period (like it wasn't used until Bach) but if you move the snippet a half step, it would have been E minor, a very common key during that period.
Furthermore, there are intervals in the snippet that weren't in common use in that time period. I couldn't keep my wife's interest long enough to determine if those intervals made more sense if the entire thing was 1/2 a step down.
Anyhow, my wife's summary: "very pretty, but probably not from DaVinci's time."
LineGrunt
PS I may have the exact note names and directions wrong as I'm _not_ a professional musician with perfect pitch... Musicians have their own undecypherable 'geek-speak.'