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Math Prof Uncovers Secret Chord

Posted by samzenpus on from the with-a-little-help-from-my-mathematician dept.

chebucto writes "The opening chord to A Hard Day's Night is famous because for 40 years, no one quite knew exactly what chord Harrison was playing. Musicians, scholars and amateur guitar players alike had all come up with their own theories, but it took a Dalhousie mathematician to figure out the exact formula. Dr. Brown used Fourier transforms to find the notes in the chord, and deduced that another George — George Martin, the Beatles producer — also played on the chord, adding a piano chord that included an F note impossible to play with the other notes on the guitar."

9 of 177 comments (clear)

  1. Well, this isn't total crap by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Decent idle story. Not completely retarded, though still generally meaningless. I can appreciate this kind of stuff, instead of the utter crap idle started out with. I guess it's getting better.

    1. Re:Well, this isn't total crap by stormguard2099 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      the problem is that /. designates idle to be full of crap. all of the good articles get shoehorned into other categories. For example, the article about how Heinlein responded to fans with a preformed checklist was under entertainment. Something like that is much better suited to idle and it would make the section worth reading.

      --
      http://greenobyl.com/ please.... think of the children!!
    2. Re:Well, this isn't total crap by hansamurai · · Score: 2, Insightful

      This is interesting, but the CSS used is still obnoxiously bad.

      --
      Reviewing just the first hour of video games.
    3. Re:Well, this isn't total crap by jd · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Not sure about meaningless - it says ensembles can play chords that either don't exist or cannot be reached on a single instrument. That's quite an interesting observation that has a practical application.

      --
      It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
  2. Umm... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Why didn't anyone just ask Harrison?

    1. Re:Umm... by capt.Hij · · Score: 4, Insightful

      They probably should have. Unfortunately the only way to ask him now involves a ouija (tm) board.

  3. Re:You've gotta be kidding me by zn0k · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I don't get it. Why did it take me less than 30 seconds to figure out how to make anything Idle related disappear from the index, even though I'd never tried before? Please, leave the pointless bitching out off the commends. You know it's lame, we know it's lame, since it is a complete waste of time. Why let it be a complete waste of disk space, cycles and bandwidth?

  4. Re:I've heard there was a secret chord by lordnabob · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Jeff Buckley was born to sing that song.
    Unfortunately, he died shortly after.
    Anyone else cringe when they heard that sublime work of Cohen used in a silly movie like Shrek?

  5. What about live performances? by brouski · · Score: 2, Insightful

    What did he play in concert?

    --
    Proud member of the American Non Sequitur Society. We might not make much sense, but boy do we love pizza!