DNA and Music (General)

by dhw, Sunday, July 04, 2010, 14:14 (5068 days ago) @ BBella

Many thanks to BBella, who has introduced us to some fascinating websites on the subject of DNA and music. We've discussed music on several occasions, but this is a brand new approach. One of the websites mentioned a video link which would enable us to hear Dr Ohno's DNA music, but I couldn't find it. Very frustrating. Could you possibly give us instructions?-You mentioned that during your own healing process, you wrote poetry, often about music. For me, great poetry is a marriage of music and language, and the impact is very similar. One of the websites mentions the fact that certain types of music have the opposite effect from healing, and of course no-one can proclaim that the object of art is to heal. I do wonder, though, whether trends in modern art, poetry and music haven't gone too far in their efforts to expunge subjectivity, emotion, harmony etc. How often do we need to be reminded that life is disorderly? These articles are a welcome reminder that there is also order underlying the disorder, because otherwise we wouldn't be here. -You probably already know the famous lines in Act V Sc. 1 of The Merchant of Venice, in which Shakespeare captures music in poetry, but perhaps not everyone does. I think I quoted the following in an earlier post on the subject:
LORENZO: There's not the smallest orb which thou behold'st
 But in his motion like an angel sings,
 Still quiring to the young-eye'd cherubins;
 Such harmony is in immortal souls,
 For whilst this muddy vesture of decay
 Doth grossly close it in, we cannot hear it.-The continuation of this scene could easily be viewed as a parallel to the healing effect described on the websites. Just take the colts as a symbol.-JESSICA: I am never merry when I hear sweet music.
LORENZO: The reason is your spirits are attentive:
 For do but note a wild and wanton herd
 Or race of youthful and unhandled colts
 Fetching mad bounds, bellowing and neighing loud,
 Which is the hot condition of their blood, -
 If they but hear perchance a trumpet sound,
 Or any air of music touch their ears,
 You shall perceive them make a mutual stand,
 Their savage eyes turn'd to a modest gaze
 By the sweet power of music: therefore the poet
 Did feign that Orpheus drew trees, stones and floods,
 Since naught so stockish, hard, and full of rage,
 But music for the time doth change his nature.
 The man that hath no music in himself,
 Nor is not moved with concord of sweet sounds,
 Is fit for treasons, stratagems and spoils,
 The motions of his spirit are dull as night,
 And his affections dark as Erebus:
 Let no such man be trusted.-And all this written 200 years before Beethoven!