Amen Break and the Golden Ratio in Music

It’s one of the most popular drum loops in music history.

The “Amen break” is one of the most frequently used drum loop samples in music.

It’s only four bars long.It only lasts about six or seven seconds. Even so,this short

sampled loop has been used in well over a thousand songs in a wide variety of music,

including hip hop, techno, breakbeat and digital. That’s pretty impressive, so why all

the attention and air play? Could it be the golden ratio at work?

https://www.goldennumber.net/amen-break-golden-ratio-music/

No.

So because it’s 4 bars long and lasts 7 seconds you think that’s the golden ratio …? rofl

Don’t pollute the forum with your wack theories and assumptions , you’ve got the flat earth thread for that .

Stay there .

Most of your posts are just new-age bull crap ,

p.s. Golden ratio is NOT , so don’t just cherry pick and apply these to your wack ideas …what most new-agers , flattards do .

…many thanks for your #attention, kind sir. :wink:

The golden ratio appears in many places, but this is not one of them.

So in the end, the Amen break is a great little drum solo that led to “Amen, Brother” being the most sampled track in the history of music, but it’s safe to assume that it did so without relying on the golden ratio to get there. Can I get an Amen, Brother?

So because it’s 4 bars long and lasts 7 seconds you think that’s the golden ratio …? rofl

Don’t pollute the forum with your wack theories and assumptions , you’ve got the flat earth thread for that .

Stay there .

Most of your posts are just new-age bull crap ,

p.s. Golden ratio is NOT , so don’t just cherry pick and apply these to your wack ideas …what most new-agers , flattards do .

I am perfectly aware what the golden ratio is , you’re not .

You start a thread : amen break —>golden ratio .?

What makes you think there a relation between those two .?

-Rhytm …?

-popularity , succes ? .

-Nr of downloads … :wink: ? compression ratio ?

WHAT ?

Maybe you should try to answer these questions yourself before starting a thread …

You have heard of something ( in this case the golden ratio ) …and apply it to your own belief system = new age wack

@gentleclock don’t be so paranoid of imagining superstition everywhere.

Actually read the article, it will demystify the idea of the break being special because of the golden ratio. It shows how some people seem to believe there is a correlation in rhythm shift, though it presents that as rather arbitrary chosen, and comes to the conclusion that the whole idea is arbitrary in itself.

Yeh the amen break is about coleman’s ants, in his pants, enough to make him dance…it is actually a certain, nearly chaotic, deviation from perfect measure that makes it so appealing and groovy I believe.

Though I found interest to see, if the golden ratio maybe will have interesting properties when applied to harmonic ratios or beat subdivision properties? I mean I think it is an interesting idea to do…golden ration corresponds (at least when it comes to visual proportions) to a certain impression of boldness and naturalness I find - at least that is how images using the ration in buildup work with me when I watch them closely. This is no superstition but repeatable subjective experience, and will also work with ratios close to the golden number. Why not try to see if that sweet spot value will work for being used as parameter in music in similar ways? I find it is a bit overrated in itself, and maybe for harmonic relationships generally whole number releationships and relationships designed to cycle against each other in certain ways are more interesting to research, because music is more about harmony and not about proportion.

I ain’t paranoid at all …too sane for that

But there’s a recent trend here on the forum , started by the flat earth thread and which involves the same people .’…the enlighted ones ’ …

I am just providing some counter weight , before this forum turns into complete garbage .( spirit talk, flat earth , summoning demons , )

Flat earth thread should be the place to adress and discuss these subjects .,

Five Classical Pieces with the Golden Ratio

During the fifth century BC, the Greeks determined that there was a proportion that recurred in geometry, nature and architecture, that embodied the quintessential concept of harmony. The Parthenon was built according to that principle.

Two centuries later, Euclid provided us with the first definition of that proportion, explaining to us how to calculate what is now commonly known as “the golden ratio”.

“A straight line is said to have been cut in extreme and mean ratio when, as the whole line is to the greater segment, so is the greater to the lesser.” The result is an irrational number that roughly corresponds to 1.618 and, expressed by a decimal fraction, the golden ratio amounts to 0.618. The formula can be written asx/(1-x)= (1-x)/1.

https://www.cmuse.org/classical-pieces-with-the-golden-ratio/

I never really got my head around how it actually relates to the harmonic series but it would be cool to work it out.

[edit] I just had a look around and it seems like they are not really related.

The harmonic series is still a system of proportions, just a different one.

fibonacci-golden-rectangle.jpg

375px-Harmonic_partials_on_strings.svg.p

1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55, ….
1/1,
2/1,
3/2,
5/3,
8/5,
13/8,
21/13

Simple example load a kick drum in renoise ( set to loop ) , we’ll use the pitch of the samples to actually distinguish the ratio

The perfect fifth has a ratio of 3:2 to the fundamental .

If you play the sample at root position and at the perfect fifth , it will cycle 3 times , the root will cycle 2 times ;;iow the fifth is 1.5 faster .

It will have the same effect as a triplet 8th played against 2 eigth notes .

The fourth 4:3 …wil cycle 1.33333 faster the the root .

The golden ratio based on phi =1.6180339887498948482…

The major sixth is a ratio of 5/3 …which equals 1.666666666

Minor sixth = 8:5 = 1.6

The augmented fifth is 25:16 = 1.56

…the closest to te golden ratio is the minor sixth …

it not a perfect interval

#music

#golden mean

#sacred geometry

Here’s an interesting read

http://sevish.com/2017/golden-ratio-music-interval/

That was interesting but I dont know, I still think normal, non-phi based music sounds better.

I get it as a symbolic thing to use the golden ratio in an FM instruments carrier and modulator values I guess.

Another thing is that people think the nautilus shell is a manifestation of the golden spiral in nature but it is not at all. Apparently it is a logarithmic spiral and not a golden spiral.

shell.jpg

On the subject of nautilus…The evolution of cephlapods is an interesting thing too…I would definitely have an early cephlapod in my fish tank.

img-2.jpg

Well, depends on the different kinds of Music people are listening to then, I guess:

https://roelhollander.eu/en/blog-saxophone/Coltrane-Geometry/

What specific advantages does that kind of ‘scales wheel’ have over the cycle of fifths?

being able to transport more complex feelings, if used right?

The funny thing is, that until this day nobody really knows; this #wheel is a drawing by coltrane himself, the sacred geometry then later added by someone else. Coltrane was deep into complex & abstract music theory & Roel Hollander only gives his explenation of what he thinks it is - Amazing Site Btw. - very worth to spent some time on.

What specific advantages does that kind of ‘scales wheel’ have over the cycle of fifths?

That was interesting but I dont know, I still think normal, non-phi based music sounds better.

I get it as a symbolic thing to use the golden ratio in an FM instruments carrier and modulator values I guess.

Another thing is that people think the nautilus shell is a manifestation of the golden spiral in nature but it is not at all. Apparently it is a logarithmic spiral and not a golden spiral.

On the subject of nautilus…The evolution of cephlapods is an interesting thing too…I would definitely have an early cephlapod in my fish tank.

img-2.jpg

If you have read my article , you would have noticed that the golden ratio doesn’t yield good results in FM synthesis

An interesting startingpoint & good read on this topic (Beside from the blatantly presented profane disinfo in this #thread).

http://www.sonicstate.com/news/2018/02/08/john-chowning-speaks-to-elektron-on-fm-synthesis/

His opinion of FM synthesis is that he discovered it rather than invented it.

“I want to point out that I don’t call FM synthesis an invention; rather I call it a discovery. We received a patent for it, but the DX7, that was not really my work. That was the work of maybe a hundred really good Japanese engineers at Yamaha.”

The relationship of mathematics, music and FM synthesis was alsoan interesting discovery for Chowning.

“I was certainly influenced byEuclid’swork on the golden section, when I made these early tones. As you know there are many, many tones that can produce harmonic spectra, and many more that can produce inharmonic spectra.”

"I became interested in the golden ratio as a way of producing inharmonic partials with FM. I explored that domain, and how the Fibonacci sequence is related to the golden ratio, and at some point I realized that by producing spectra, with a carrier/modulator ratio of powers of the golden ratio, four of the low order side-band components were also powers of the golden ratio.

That was kind of a Eureka moment, when I was in Berlin in 1974-75. Now, to a mathematician that may be obvious, but it certainly was not to me! Besides, mathematicians aren’t usually interested in FM tones."

That was interesting but I dont know, I still think normal, non-phi based music sounds better.

I get it as a symbolic thing to use the golden ratio in an FM instruments carrier and modulator values I guess.

Another thing is that people think the nautilus shell is a manifestation of the golden spiral in nature but it is not at all. Apparently it is a logarithmic spiral and not a golden spiral.

On the subject of nautilus…The evolution of cephlapods is an interesting thing too…I would definitely have an early cephlapod in my fish tank.

img-2.jpg