Ludwig Van's DNA story:Real or Hoax?

Subject: RE: Ludwig Van's DNA story:Real or Hoax?
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 15 Feb 12 - 04:01 PM

Kat -

Something like "his tinfoil hat received the thoughts of *** (any great composer)" might be easier to sell. Of course you'd need to include that he studied ancient petroglyphs to learn precisely how to shape the hat. Embellishment noting that he spent years studying the wrong ancient writings (they were from an illiterate society that gave all their stuff to Lehrer) before discovering the writings of the true mentors to the great composers.

You might want to throw in that both Bach and Stravinsky complained about the frequent bad interpretations of their compositions and point out that he's made the corrections they requested.

(Be sure to mention that unfortunately Igor couldn't tell it made a difference, and his elephants still won't dance.)

John

Subject: RE: Ludwig Van's DNA story:Real or Hoax?
From: katlaughing
Date: 15 Feb 12 - 12:50 PM

Gee, I've got to think up some silly notion like this to get my brother's music on the front pages! I tried "Composers don't have to be dead to be good," but it didn't do much. We thought about faking his death or changing his last name to Hudzinsky. Since Mozart is his hero, maybe we'll just have to claim he channels him through DNA picked up from Mozart's harpsichord which he saw in person...the same one on which Mozart's fingers played and probably sweated, leaving DNA for the "special" person to come along and translate into neo-classical music!

Subject: RE: Ludwig Van's DNA story:Real or Hoax?
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 15 Feb 12 - 12:09 PM

The article states numerous "pseudo-principles" that might be interpreted as indicating that "something was done," but it would be far easier to point out the errors than the truths, since the errors are actually much more numerous.

It is possible to extract DNA from very old samples of tissues that were once alive, but it is not generally possible to get anything other than random garbage from either bone or hair. The hair follicle that was actively growing at the time the animal died, or was removed while the animal was still alive, might contain detectable DNA, but all body parts that do contain recoverable DNA are subject to rapid decay under all but the most unusual conditions, and stuffing a few hairs up someone's ass would almost immediately obliterate any recoverable traces.

It also is quite suspect that the "recovered" music is in strict 4/4 time, and it would be nearly impossible to find a "modulo 4" sequence, in any DNA sample, that would continue the same "beat" for more than a very few notes.

It is common when bullshitting to proclaim a "new science," and this article does claim such a "new science" with "The technique of Cymatics was invented in the Sixties and …" This claim is illustrated with the "newly invented "chladni pattern" for a plate.

Chladni would not be amused.

From Wiki: "Ernst Florens Friedrich Chladni (German: 1756–1827) was a German physicist and musician. His important works include research on vibrating plates and the calculation of the speed of sound for different gases.
And:
Chladni repeated the pioneering experiments of Robert Hooke of Oxford University who, on July 8, 1680, had observed the nodal patterns associated with the vibrations of glass plates. Hooke ran a bow along the edge of a plate covered with flour, and saw the nodal patterns emerge

(Maybe the writer did mean the sixteen (or seventeen) sixties????)

Half truths, buried in obfuscations, to sell "the news.

The story brings to mind the class presentation by a professor who was involved in an early experiment (ca. 1938 or so?) to bounce a radar signal off the moon to determine the precise distance between the earth and the moon. He showed a "plot" from the radar/oscilloscope screen of the transmitted signal, simulated here as:

  ____________/\__________

And the trace of the returned signal:

   . . . . . . . . .|. . . . . . . . . . . .
  /\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\

The "|" is the mark he made showing when the return was "expected." Since there was a "wiggle" fairly near there, the students who assisted in the experiment wrote their report, suggesting that there "might have been an echo," (for which they may have gotten a decent enough grade); but their report was picked up by the news media (10 or so years later, since the experiment was "classified" at the time as "radar" hadn't been officially invented) and was trumpeted as a great success. The lab didn't bother publishing the report in any professional journals since all that was really "measured" was most likely just random noise.

(The prof didn't say whether he was one of the students then.)

John

Subject: RE: Ludwig Van's DNA story:Real or Hoax?
From: GUEST,999
Date: 15 Feb 12 - 09:23 AM

'"the idea that we are each a symphony within a symphony, singing to a song of life that is unstoppable and in constant development.'

I think the idea is true. It is possible to create beautiful music from pictures, structures, computer programs that extrapolate and explore. I see no reason why the double helix with its patterning based on the associations of elements would not supply a possible starting place for a piece of music. The sound made billions of years ago by the big bang is one case in point: it still lingers in the halls of the universe. The idea that an oak tree of huge proportions could be contained in an acorn is also preposterous. Imagine a painters palette
and then look at the Mona Lisa, or examine a chunk of marble and then look at The Hand of God by Rodin.

Subject: RE: Ludwig Van's DNA story:Real or Hoax?
From: Skivee
Date: 15 Feb 12 - 09:04 AM

Any Joe-clones that feel like it are now invited to move this down to BS are welcome to do that.

Subject: RE: Ludwig Van's DNA story:Real or Hoax?
From: Skivee
Date: 15 Feb 12 - 09:00 AM

Well, here's a quote for the supposed composer from a different article. He states that he's really excited by "the idea that we are each a symphony within a symphony, singing to a song of life that is unstoppable and in constant development.
I smell stinky hoax poo.

Subject: RE: Ludwig Van's DNA story:Real or Hoax?
From: Skivee
Date: 15 Feb 12 - 08:51 AM

John, sorry about that. I should have checked the link after reposting. It's about 2/3rds of the way down the right side and is titled ,"Beethoven's last movement: Composer creates song based on DNA from hair clippings that survived Auschwitz hidden inside prisoner's body."

Les, That was one of the things I'd hoped to get an opinion about from with the Mudcat braintrust British adjunct..I had a recollection that they were "one of those " papers.

Subject: RE: Ludwig Van's DNA story:Real or Hoax?
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 15 Feb 12 - 07:07 AM

Major Clue : The daily Mail

L in C#

Subject: RE: Ludwig Van's DNA story:Real or Hoax?
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 15 Feb 12 - 02:59 AM

I get the same page from both links, neither of which shows an obvious place to go for the article cited.

Just reading the headlines on the page that came up, I'd believe the site a little after I'd rotted my brain spending a week or two reading the US "National Inquirer."

I hope you're not serious about there being some question about finding something "informative" on the site(?).

John

Subject: RE: Ludwig Van's DNA story:Real or Hoax?
From: Skivee
Date: 15 Feb 12 - 01:19 AM

this is a more direct link
Another thing, the musical element of the story doesn't make sense in either suggested source or structure to me. Sounds like BS. ANNNND the music sounds less like it was structured on DNA, than somebody trying to write a tune that sounded Beethovonny.

Subject: Ludwig Van's DNA story:Real or Hoax?
From: Skivee
Date: 14 Feb 12 - 10:48 PM

I just saw this article from the Daily Mail

Really? a 200 year old clump of hair gives you a reliable DNA sample after being hidden in somebody's butt like the watch in that Tarentino? Then you play music through it which tells you what music to play?
The is either one of the most amazing stories in the history of music, or one of the biggest piles of manure.
Anybody else know about this story?