Hidden Music Claimed In Da Vinci Painting 220
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.'"
I found Jar Jar Binks... (Score:4, Funny)
Re:I found Jar Jar Binks... (Score:5, Funny)
You must be confused (Score:5, Funny)
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Re: Found in Pi (Score:2, Interesting)
Obama, aka string 1521131 occurs at position 10,015,199.
Romney, aka 18151314525, is not anywhere in the early parts of Pi.
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This is nothing new. We all know that the real answer is a Rabbit. Hippitus Hoppitus domini
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/thread (Score:2)
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This is also called the "Infinite Monkey theorem" [wikipedia.org], which states that a monkey hitting keys at random on a typewriter keyboard for an infinite amount of time will almost surely type a particular chosen text, such as the complete works of William Shakespeare.
In other news...minuet found in hamburglar's lunch (Score:5, Interesting)
Who'll be the first to find XML in there too? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Who'll be the first to find XML in there too? (Score:5, Insightful)
[sarcasm]xml can be semantic, that's like asking if there's "objects" in the painting [/sarcasm]. Personally, I would let the artist's peers judge him, this is after all a field of professionals and if the music is a good it may simply prove that there is a rhythm to the painting.
after searching google [google.com] I found this:
http://www.newser.com/story/11396.html [newser.com]
Which apparently can be proven mathematically [google.com].
My theory: we can say that Leonardo Da Vinci was smart like Einstein with lots of wide ranging problems rather than a few concentrated ones, and his work will have both breadth AND depth by any typical genius' standards. We're talking people like Einstein, Beethoven, Shakespeare and few others. Now Da Vinci wasn't like any of them, he was a "typical" genius in several fields of study and is known "for" using math in his work http://www.google.com/search?&q=leonardo+da+vinci+math [google.com].
Heres an interesting quote:
http://www.hypatiamaze.org/leonardo/leo_vinci.html [hypatiamaze.org]
Actually, if he was fond of creating his own symbolism you might find something quite "like" xml in his work somewhere... far smarter than you or I. I wrote a phonetic substitution cipher [wikipedia.org] in fourth grade. It was unique in that you could "speak" encrypted English by most laws of the English language. "Peds oue" means "fuck you" that's all I remember, anyways I'm not far above average intelligence. Da Vinci and the others I mentioned are generally considered to be OFF the charts.
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Leonardo invented some of his own mathematical symbols and terms. Many scientists of his time did this because number notation was not standardized until after the invention of the printing press. This made it difficult for scientists and mathematicians to communicate their ideas to each other.
I'd be willing to bet that most creative, curious people do this in one form or another. Feynman did (and then mostly abandoned these schemes for the established ones, except for the revolutionary Feynman diagrams); I did (various "easier" symbols for polynomial terms, and oft-used functions; also a phonetic language, with some musical-like notation---I realized in high school that I'd just reinvented Fourier analysis applied to various phonemes); many of my friends did similar things.
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Why are slashdotters (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Why are slashdotters (Score:5, Insightful)
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...
Re:Why are slashdotters (Score:5, Funny)
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?
Re:Why are slashdotters (Score:5, Funny)
Anyway, I've used technology to determine what the lyrics to this piece of music are:-
But the very next day, you betrayed me and had me crucified.
This year, to save me from tears,
I'll give it to someone who's special.
Re:Why are slashdotters (Score:5, Funny)
But the very next day, you cheated on me and had me crucified
There, fixed that for you
Re:Why are slashdotters (Score:5, Interesting)
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There was even machine-printed music 20 years before The Last Supper.
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It would make sense that if he had drew half inch lines that represented larger spaced lines on the actual painting that a portion of it could be considered or appear as a music score. Everything else could be pure coincidental and even chance.
I would
Composition starters (Score:2)
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I must be hanging around here way too much, for I tried to imagine what music could be found in Goatse...
Alright, enough intertubes for me... gotta go and wash my eyes and ears with bleach.
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Re:Why are slashdotters (Score:5, Funny)
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That's just the point. Dawkins is so far away from scientific reason that he can't poke it with a long stick. The man is a religious fruitcake. He just happens to be fired up with holy zeal about one less god than most of the other religious fruitcakes.
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Re:Why are slashdotters (Score:5, Funny)
It can't be music.
The RIAA hasn't tried to extort money for it.
Re:Why are slashdotters (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Why are slashdotters (Score:5, Informative)
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The one about that serial killer?
Re:Why are slashdotters (Score:5, Funny)
So remix it. (Score:2)
Steve Ballmer http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ug4c2mqlE_0 [youtube.com]
this is music to the spheres.
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Or, maybe it was worth hiding...
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Why golden ratio pleases (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Why are slashdotters (Score:4, Insightful)
Besides, with the number of times that it was painted over, there's no way to definitively know whether he's even viewing what Da Vinci painted.
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Re:Why are slashdotters (Score:5, Interesting)
i don't dismiss it, but... (Score:4, Funny)
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Besides, half a dosen notes doesn't make a musical piece. Or else, I have a symphony hidden in my spaghetti.
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It is indeed possible for someone to be intelligent and still be stupid or idiotic for that matter.
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How is that an oxymoron?
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So I'll vote for #2
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No, I don't bite the heads off chickens at carnivals. I thought Slashdot was for nerds.
Sad story (Score:5, Funny)
True story.
Re:Sad story (Score:5, Interesting)
Although maybe not a dupe... (Score:3, Insightful)
http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/05/01/2047212 [slashdot.org]
I have two comments:
1) I guess people can interpret music in anything and get some recognition from it.
2) If there really isn't music intentionally hidden in these works I bet the artists wouldn't be too happy having people alleging that there is, and changing the interpretation of the piece. Honestly, if the artist had some reason to hide a message in a painting, perhaps because of the potential consequences of his speech, wouldn't he do it in a form where the message was intelligible later? Music seems a poor choice, and there really isn't any motive I can easily think of why you'd have to hide a musical score from view. After all, it's not like the RIAA was filing lawsuits back then
Hiding is the wrong word (Score:3, Insightful)
If there really isn't music intentionally hidden in these works I bet the artists wouldn't be too happy having people alleging that there is, and changing the interpretation of the piece. Honestly, if the artist had some reason to hide a message in a painting, perhaps because of the potential consequences of his speech, wouldn't he do it in a form where the message was intelligible later? Music seems a poor choice, and there really isn't any motive I can easily think of why you'd have to hide a musical sco
Sim Earth (Score:3, Interesting)
In Other News... (Score:4, Funny)
Old News In Roman Catholicism (Score:5, Insightful)
If you're determined to find hidden messages and keep trying different numerical values, you can pull spooky phrases out of the bible... or indeed the script for Animal House.
People have long been "composing" music from random number generators and fractals. If a random number generator can be forced in to a musical composition, by definition, any series of values can be.
I personally enjoy the following algorhythm: Break the image up in to inch squares. For any given inch if the dominant color is red, note the word "this", if it's green, note the word "is", and if it's blue, note the word "stupid". Amazingly, Da Vinci left a message encoded that appears to describe his views on musical analysis of his work.
Re:Old News In Roman Catholicism (Score:4, Funny)
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Try listening to SGU [theskepticsguide.org] for more examples.
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Now we're going to get a book and a movie about "The Animal House Code" to go along with the other nonsense.
The guy loved tricks, can you say Easter Egg? (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
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Known issues: Unfortunately Da Vinci, although a brilliant artist, wasn't so hot at embedded coding back in the day, and occasionally the hard copies will appear in greyscale only.
Sir, your sig (Score:2)
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
This is ridiculous... (Score:2, Interesting)
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Accidentals were sometimes written, sometimes not.
So, without explicit accidentals, to tell what the notes were meant to be they either knew the likely mode, or just guessed them, which is known as 'musica ficta'.
http://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Musica_ficta [wikipedia.org]
The good thing about modes is that any arrangement of notes from the mode will sound pretty much like music.
In this case, of finding modal music in the 'last supper', it would be hard to make
Wow (Score:2)
40-second music clip (Score:4, Funny)
FFT (Score:3, Interesting)
Although, to be fair, the image was made for the demo. Still, it was a fair likeness of Batman considering.
Skepticism has its place (Score:2)
Easter eggs? (Score:2)
Thing is, you can read stuff into anything. So if it is supposed to be musical notes, I'm sure it'll be bloody obvious, otherwise it'll sounds like crap.
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Putting him between a rock and hasrd place... (Score:2)
If he complains of copyright infringement then his book is a fraud.
And if you believe that... (Score:2)
(No, that's not a joke. That's exactly what Ignatius L. Donnelly claimed in an 1888 book entitled The Great Cryptogram [wikipedia.org])
Rip the music (Score:2, Funny)
Eureka! (Score:3, Funny)
There IS something there (Score:3, Funny)
Musical notes? I doubt it. A hidden message? emphatically yes. The most likely message: "DaVinci was really, really ANAL."
Re: MP3 Link (Score:2, Informative)
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Wrong key! (Score:5, Interesting)
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.'
anachronisms in the story (Score:2, Interesting)
detailed musical analysis of the article (Score:2)
M.C. Escher (Score:2)
qz
Natural beauty of music (Score:2, Insightful)
And if you play the score backwards... (Score:2, Funny)
Great, this is dumber than scientology (Score:2, Funny)
Dig that painter up and watch the RIAA sue his decomposed ass.
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Oh, he clearly was; you're just backwards. The Last Supper is actually the song, and the painting is the DRM. It lasted 500 years, which is pretty darn good for a DRM scheme too.
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