Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Entertainment/2016 April 12

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April 12

End of vinyl records playback quality

One aspect of vinyl record playback I've never, ever seen addressed when one is comparing LP audio quality to any other format whatsoever is this: when the needle is at the beginning of the record the radius it travels is a far greater distance in inches than the playback radius towards the center of the LP. The turntable is travelling at 33 rpm no matter what, on the inside diameter or outside, therefore the needle is travelling further on the outside at of the disc in the same amount of time. Now if vinyl is anything like tape, where 30 ips obtains higher fidelity than 15 ips and 15 ips higher quality than 7 1/2 because the greater distance traveled yields a higher definition in the audio reproduction because there's simply more room to store the information, therefore the info gets compressed in a sense at the center and the fidelity at the center is inferior to the outside. No? 108.54.90.60 (talk) 12:30, 12 April 2016 (UTC)

It certainly does get discussed. It's mentioned in the Wikipedia article Gramophone record#Vinyl and there's a discussion of it here. --Viennese Waltz 12:42, 12 April 2016 (UTC)

As a record collector I can say: yes, the sound quality gets worse during playbayk towards the center of the record and exactly because the explaination you gave. Still, there are people who say that the sound quality of a record is superior to a CD because it's analog. A CD "cuts" the audio into 44100 "frames" per second, where a record plays audio continously. OXYGENE 7-13 (TALKPAGE) 13:35, 12 April 2016 (UTC)

A little tangential, but all this business of analog encoding and sample rate is very interesting stuff. Here [1] is a nice discussion about how the human ear resolves different sample rates, and here [2] is a nice video that demonstrates various things about how we hear A/D and D/A conversion, and clears up many myths/misunderstandings. SemanticMantis (talk) 14:21, 12 April 2016 (UTC)

That's a great video. -- BenRG (talk) 06:53, 13 April 2016 (UTC)

The 44kHz sampling rate of a CD only limits the maximum frequency to ~20kHz. It doesn't at all limit the wave to changing at discrete points 1/44100 of a second apart. Watch the video SemanticMantis linked, or at least the very end (starting at around 21:30) where he shows that the rising edge of a square wave can be placed with much higher precision than the sampling frequency. -- BenRG (talk) 06:53, 13 April 2016 (UTC)

Sherlock Holmes cocaine habit in movies

What movies, if any at all, depict Sherlock Holmes consuming cocaine or morphine? --Scicurious (talk) 16:06, 12 April 2016 (UTC)

I thought it was opium he used in the books. Note that many US movies would have been discouraged from showing that, under the Production Code. StuRat (talk) 16:08, 12 April 2016 (UTC)

It was mostly cocaine in the novels (which was perfectly legal in Victorian Britain), though there is also a description of him smoking opium, Morphine is one of the active ingredients in raw opium. http://www.victorianweb.org/authors/doyle/addiction.html 81.132.106.10 (talk) 16:21, 12 April 2016 (UTC)

Based on that article and my memory of the stories, I don't think it was ever suggested that Holmes used opium. He once went undercover at an opium den and pretended to be drugged out. He never used morphine in a story, but it was once implied that he used it (Watson asked "Which is it today, morphine or cocaine?", and it was cocaine). -- BenRG (talk) 20:23, 12 April 2016 (UTC)

See Sherlock Holmes (2009 film) --Jayron32 16:59, 12 April 2016 (UTC)

The Seven-Per-Cent Solution (film). -- BenRG (talk) 17:52, 12 April 2016 (UTC)

I think the Granada Television series has a scene where Watson expresses dismay that Holmes is using cocaïne again. —Tamfang (talk) 08:09, 13 April 2016 (UTC)

Yes (this is the series), and I recall scenes where a desk drawer gets opened, and you catch a glimpse of his gear (a syringe carrying case, conveniently propped open within the drawer, showing the syringe), and of course Jeremy Brett acts out some of the effects of the drug, but I couldn't come up with a scene where you see him actually consuming it. ---Sluzzelin talk 11:11, 13 April 2016 (UTC)

Time period of "traditional church music"

Amazing Grace, Jesus Loves Me This I Know, Holy Holy Holy, Joyful Joyful We Adore Thee, and All Creatures of Our God and King all were created prior to 1920. Was that the era of Traditional Church Music? Also, aside from Jesus Loves Me, the songs all seem to be about praising God. Jesus Loves Me seems to focus on personal relationship with God. (By the way, what passage is this song citing? Where in the Bible does it say that Jesus loves children?) A modern song called "God Shaped Hole" seems to be about theology. It's not explicitly praising God at all, and it has a very upbeat melody. 140.254.77.186 (talk) 16:52, 12 April 2016 (UTC)

The Little Children covers your parenthetical question. --Jayron32 16:57, 12 April 2016 (UTC)

Regarding the historical development of church music, the Wikipedia article titled hymn has some good information. --Jayron32 16:58, 12 April 2016 (UTC)

I don't see how this question can have a correct answer since it depends entirely on how you define "traditional". My first thought on hearing that phrase was the Liber Usualis. -- BenRG (talk) 20:37, 12 April 2016 (UTC)

Church music has developed gradually over many centuries, and has always been strongly influenced by contemporary music. The hymns that many people are familiar with became fairly common from the Protestant Reformation in the 16th century, as many protestant churches did away with the sung liturgy of the Catholic Church. Hymn tunes have generally reflected similar styles to those of the music of their days - which we now tend to call classical, but which was obviously contemporary at the time. Tow 19th century developments led to significant changes. The Sunday School movement introduced simpler melodies for children to sing (often referred to as choruses, rather than hymns). "Jesus loves me" comes from that movement. Then the Salvation Army started setting religious words to popular melodies ("Why should the devil have all the best tunes?"). Over the past 100 years a very wide range of religious songs have been written, some continuing in the classical tradition, while others used folk or pop styles to try and make them seem more relevant to the modern generation. Today, in different churches, you can hear everything from mediaeval plainsong chants to very modern pop ballads: each new style has simply added to the diversity of church music, rather than replacing what came before. 81.132.106.10 (talk) 11:50, 13 April 2016 (UTC)

Bandy in Somalia

How can they play bandy in Somalia? Is'nt it too hot climate there? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.218.245.60 (talk) 17:09, 12 April 2016 (UTC)

Presumably the same way they do bobsleigh in Jamaica or alpine skiing in Morocco. Note that athletes do not need to train within their home countries. Even among nations with a tradition of doing well in a sport, the athletes don't always train at home. Many former Soviet states had huge successes in Figure skating, and even have locally cold weather, but their athletes do train in other places, i.e. Oksana Baiul, the Ukrainian figure skating champion, trained at the Fred Rust Ice Arena in Delaware, as did Russians Irina Lobacheva and Ilia Averbukh among many others. So, it seems odd for Somalia to have a Bandy team. But not impossible. Indeed, for a fringe sport like Bandy, it is more explainable, especially when you read the background of the Somalia national bandy team, which explains how they came to play Bandy. --Jayron32 19:37, 12 April 2016 (UTC)

They don't play bandy in Somalia - but some Somali refugees living in colder parts of Europe apparently do play. 81.132.106.10 (talk) 22:07, 12 April 2016 (UTC)

There's nothing mysterious about alpine skiing in Morocco - it happens at Moroccan ski resorts like Oukaïmeden. Hayttom (talk) 00:19, 16 April 2016 (UTC)

Do adults generally learn piano faster than young children?

When I was a child, I took piano lessons, but I don't think I progressed very quickly. Then, more than a decade passed, I returned. After years of no practice, it seemed that I'd forgotten everything except the C-E-G chord and the C major scale. But apparently, within 6 weeks time, I quickly rebounded, playing with both hands simultaneously, and taught myself all the major scales and some minor scales. 140.254.77.186 (talk) 17:30, 12 April 2016 (UTC)

i think adults may be more dedicated to the learning. After many Yeats in school, you havet also learnt how to learn things. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.218.245.60 (talk) 17:43, 12 April 2016 (UTC)

I would not assume that you forgot everything everything. It was probably on the back of your brain somewhere. --Scicurious (talk) 20:11, 12 April 2016 (UTC)

Motivation is key. If you were forced to take lessons as a kid, you may have not been interested in learning it. I'm reminded of the "Is it live or is it Memorex ?" TV ad showing a boy practicing piano, with the mother encouraging him from the other room, when the boy turns on a tape recorder, and escapes out the window to play football with his friends. StuRat (talk) 20:31, 12 April 2016 (UTC)

It's the received wisdom that children learn music and language more quickly than adults do. With language, children learn it more completely than most adults ever can. A baby will begin to learn its native language, and within a few years will be able to speak it fluently. All children achieve this. But it's rare that an adult learning a new language will be able to speak it as fluently as a native, or to speak it without any trace of their own accent.

With music, accent isn't an issue, but manual dexterity and maturity of interpretation are. Children can learn technical skills more quickly and more permanently than adults can, which is why they often need to be encouraged/pushed to practise when they'd rather be outside playing, because they're too young to hear the inner beauties of the music, which can take decades to reveal themselves, and so they get bored easily; but if they don't get the manual side of it ingrained early into muscle memory, it will be much harder to tackle it later. Style and depth of interpretation often only come in adulthood, long after the acquisition of the necessary manual skills. Artur Schnabel said "Mozart's sonatas: too easy for children, and too difficult for artists". Work that out. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 22:17, 12 April 2016 (UTC)

I think it's a bit more than just "received wisdom" on language acquisition, I think that's scientific finding. See e.g. Language_acquisition#Sensitive_period, and Second-language_acquisition#Age. On the other hand, Critical_period_hypothesis says there is still some debate and lack of evidence (albeit for a somewhat different claim). For music it's a little less clear, so received wisdom may well be the best term. We do have a brief comment on absolute pitch at Critical_period#Musical_ability. Also e.g. Suzuki_method does stress starting young, and there are some interesting age-related refs in that article. Anecdotally, I still remember some music drills and fingerings from when I was 12, and I feel rather slow learning keys as an adult, even though my interest, focus, and music theory are all much stronger now. SemanticMantis (talk) 20:22, 13 April 2016 (UTC)

Play it, Baby, One More Time

The article refrain suggests the following theory:

While the terms 'refrain' and 'chorus' often are used synonymously, it has been suggested to use 'refrain' exclusively for a recurring line of identical text and melody which is part of a formal section—an A section in an AABA form (as in I Got Rhythm: "...who could ask for anything more?") or a verse (as in Blowing in the Wind: "...the answer my friend is blowing in the wind")—whereas 'chorus' shall refer to a discrete form part (as in Yellow Submarine: "We all live in a...").

What would be the result if you apply this theory to Britney Spears' debut hit Me Baby One More Time? While the follow-up hit Oops!... I Did It Again, according to this theory, clearly has a chorus, I think the former rather has a refrain? Now does this mean that these two all-too-similar songs indeed have a formally different structure? And a more general question: Which songs are around with a refrain and a chorus (this, I think, is another possible way to interpret the song in question)? --KnightMove (talk) 17:59, 12 April 2016 (UTC)

if I remember, the line "I'm not that innocent" from "Oops" works almost exactly the same way musically as the line "hit me baby one more time" does from "hit me"...68.48.241.158 (talk) 19:51, 12 April 2016 (UTC)

There's a clear chorus in "...Baby One More Time". I would say the song has a "Verse-Prechorus-Chorus" lyrical structure with three units:

• The verses begin "Oh baby baby" each time.
• The prechorus is the part that begins "Show me how you want it to be..."
• The chorus is the part after that beginning with "My loneliness is killing me..." and ending with the tagline "hit me baby one more time".

Of course, these distinctions are a bit arbitrary, but generally the chorus is the part that returns for the coda of the song, which that part clearly does. If you want a pop song with a refrain but not a chorus from the same time period, may I suggest "Short Skirt/Long Jacket" by the band Cake, which lacks a formal chorus section, and instead features just the closing refrain line for each section "I want a girl with a short skirt and a long jacket" --Jayron32 20:05, 12 April 2016 (UTC)

Prechorus is indeed the concept to understand the situation (and now I even see that the two songs indeed have the same structure, albeit Oops! I did it again has a clearer separation between the corus and the rest. Thx. --KnightMove (talk) 22:01, 13 April 2016 (UTC)

Cool. We don't have an article on prechorus but it redirects to the section Song_structure#Pre-chorus, which has some brief description, saying that prechoruses are "often harmonically probing", and are also referred to as "build", "channel," or "transitional bridge." SemanticMantis (talk) 22:35, 13 April 2016 (UTC)

The harmonic and dynamic building purposes of a prechorus are often used in pop music song structure. A song that's been on my local radio a lot lately (and thus constantly stuck in my head, despite being about 10 years old) and has a VERY distinct prechorus that serves its purpose well is "Sugar, We're Going Down" by Fall Out Boy. You'll spot it right away. --Jayron32 08:10, 14 April 2016 (UTC)