Truth Beauty Goodness March 3

A main focus of today's discussion concerned the impact language may have on the development of music. Do the tones in speech in different languages have an impact on the melodies we use to communicate emotion in song? This may even effect dialects as well. We laughed at Robin Williams immitating a Scottish accent for this. (By the way, I did not ask this but should have, what is the significance of taboo sounds and words? Why do they have the power they do? Why do comics use them so much?) We looked at a variety of cultural arts using music especially contrasting oriental music such as the Beijing Opera and Japanese Court music with pop music from Asia and wondered why pop music from the west would have such an impact on music with such a different tradition. We also re-discussed the idea of the Golden Ratio and what it might have to do with the way nature develops. If mathematical proportions have a bearing on what we find to be beautiful (perhaps because symetry and balance indicate health) then do the same sorts of mathematical proportions have an effect on what we find beautiful in music? In poetry? We also revisited the Dove Evolution commercial and spoofs on the same to think about the Golden Ratio in its use to remake faces to fit a mathematical ideal of beauty that real people cannot match.