Five golden means!
Four pep band games,
Three French horns,
A two-headed turtle,
And a piccolo in the key of C.
Ah, the golden mean! This is a fascinating mathematical ratio that is found in numerous art forms, from architecture to music. It is based on an irrational number called "phi" that is approximately 1.618. (The symbol is the Greek letter you see to above.) It is found by solving the equation x-1=1/x. By using it in different combinations, you can create what many artists believe to be pleasing ratios for various shapes like rectangles. It also appears in nature, as seen in pine cones and nautilus shells. When used in music, it means that the composer places an important event (like the return of a main theme) 61.8% of the way through a piece. Some theorists have shown this to be true in the music of Mozart, who was fascinated by numbers. The piece that SB and WE played last year, Spring Festival by Chen Yi, made use of this ratio three times.
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