Jacquard Causeway structural thumbprint

JESUSANDHOES · Post by **JESUSANDHOES** » Mon Feb 17, 2014 4:57 pm

EDIT: *** Just to be clear, I created this graphic, and it has no direct connection to anything expressed by BoC. It correlates to certain properties of the song, as I have heard and counted it. Here's a video that more clearly explains exactly how the song is 234.4 bars long: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-RXNtK0kULI COOL ***

Hey guys and gals, I've been mapping and analyzing the structural components of Jacquard Causeway, and I think I found an interesting pattern.

If you count out the synth part before the beat drops (the 'intro'), there are 39 eighth note counts. The 39 counts are broken into three bars:

Bar 1: 1 e + 2 e + 3 e + 4 + 5 e + // fourteen eighth notes
Bar 2: 1 e + 2 e + 3 e + 4 + 5 e + // fourteen eighth notes
Bar 3: 1 e + 2 e + 3 e + 4 + // eleven eighth notes

So, imagine that each eighth note represents a hexagon. The intro structure can then be translated into a hexagonal isormorphism:

Once the beat comes in, the time signature is 3/4. There are 210 bars of 3/4 in the body of the song. It gets a bit complicated, but basically the intro and outro combine to make 24 more bars of 3/4.

That brings the total number of bars of 3/4 in Jacquard Causeway to 234. And, 234 / 6 = 39

In other words, there are 39 groups of 6 bars of 3/4.

What do people think of this? Here are my conclusions thus far:

1. It seems there's a 'thumbprint' of the song within the song. Or following the analogy of a Jacquard loom, the intro 'thumbprint' could be viewed as the 'card sequence' of a Jacquard loom, while the song (paradoxically including the intro) is the finished textile.

2. 39 is 36 plus 3, so it's six 6's and half a 6. This could relate to the "I overflow man" text on the Japanese CDs.

3. The image is beautiful, symmetrical on 3 axes, and manifests all the numbers 1-9 in some way. It is also the most "geometrically regular" to fill in the space. Who knows if the particular image I designed is exactly what BoC had in mind, but the pattern on a more abstract level seems too clear to be a mistake.

4. This is more fun trivia, but the piano card was a part of the Jacquard loom that allowed the "engineer" to "press down or not" on 8 punches per press, as you punched holes into a card. So, things were grouped in 8s, like bytes. the analogy of choosing specific groups of 8 (bytes) would extend to the computer-using musician. And of course one of the clues from that old youtube video of "Julie and Candy" was "computing".

-=-=-=

I've been analyzing other songs in Tomorrow's Harvest in a similar manner, but this one really seemed to be speaking to me, so I decided to post it. If people are interested in hearing more of my thoughts on how the song's structures and properties relate to the semantic content brought up by song titles, album imagery, etc, let me know; I'd be happy to contribute.

Mexicola · Post by **Mexicola** » Mon Feb 17, 2014 5:34 pm

If this is even 1% correct then let me be the first to congratulate you.

jcnporter · Post by **jcnporter** » Mon Feb 17, 2014 5:45 pm

Nice.

Reminds me of - the causeway part of Jacquard Causeway?

frank chipboard · Post by **frank chipboard** » Mon Feb 17, 2014 7:39 pm

I want this on a t shirt.

naicob · Post by **naicob** » Mon Feb 17, 2014 7:49 pm

I really don't understand too much of this, but it's pretty awesome.

nick47 · Post by **nick47** » Mon Feb 17, 2014 7:55 pm

frank chipboard wrote:I want this on a t shirt.

YES!

Can we get a high res version without the text on it? that would make a good desktop background

I am quite impressed with OP

northernlite · Post by **northernlite** » Mon Feb 17, 2014 7:57 pm

this is pretty cool

EDIT:
also, yes more please

chronical · Post by **chronical** » Mon Feb 17, 2014 8:24 pm

sweet baby jesus

JESUSANDHOES · Post by **JESUSANDHOES** » Mon Feb 17, 2014 9:17 pm

nick47 wrote:
frank chipboard wrote:I want this on a t shirt.
YES!

Can we get a high res version without the text on it? that would make a good desktop background

I am quite impressed with OP

Thanks! Here's a link to the high resolution image:

http://i.imgur.com/2Z6vQjV.png

frank chipboard · Post by **frank chipboard** » Mon Feb 17, 2014 9:25 pm

JESUSANDHOES wrote:
nick47 wrote:
frank chipboard wrote:I want this on a t shirt.
YES!

Can we get a high res version without the text on it? that would make a good desktop background

I am quite impressed with OP
Thanks! Here's a link to the high resolution image:

http://i.imgur.com/2Z6vQjV.png

Awesome. Like a hexagonal Mandlebrot set.

arvy · Post by **arvy** » Mon Feb 17, 2014 9:29 pm

Impressive analysis ! Lately was thinking on this track.. have nothing to add tho, great read, thanks !

Kure · Post by **Kure** » Mon Feb 17, 2014 11:10 pm

This analysis is so impressive, deep and well done, I am afraid to ask how long you've been working on this analysis...

solsafari · Post by **solsafari** » Tue Feb 18, 2014 12:47 am

Please do tell us about your other observations.

JESUSANDHOES · Post by **JESUSANDHOES** » Tue Feb 18, 2014 12:55 am

Also, I noticed one more thing: the factors add up to 70!

In the below image is every unique, infinitely-tesselatable sub-pattern within the broadest-level pattern:

Here's a link to the high-resolution image: http://i.imgur.com/lT4VCTN.png

If my theory is on the right track, then it seems like the structure of Jacquard Causeway is not only self-referential (and possibly recursive), but in addition, the pattern used for the self-referentiality, when inscribed into a hexagonal latticework or a Causeway, has pattern-factors whose sum is the smallest weird number.

zeoevil · Post by **zeoevil** » Tue Feb 18, 2014 1:05 am

How in the world did they think of that let alone implement it? Cheers, OP.

thepastinsidepressant · Tue Feb 18, 2014 1:11 am

this would not surprise me, what with the palindromic structure of Collapse.

I think you may be onto something, though its nuts yet...

hmm

does remind me of the giants causeway.

imagine what they'd do for a video of this track.

panic button · Post by **panic button** » Tue Feb 18, 2014 2:39 am

Amazing work, OP.

This kind of thing is what makes Twoism so great.

bkillsb · Post by **bkillsb** » Tue Feb 18, 2014 3:10 am

are you single Jesusandhoes? your brain is turning me on.

JESUSANDHOES · Post by **JESUSANDHOES** » Tue Feb 18, 2014 3:55 am

panic button wrote:Amazing work, OP.

This kind of thing is what makes Twoism so great.

Thank you very much!

bkillsb wrote:are you single Jesusandhoes? your brain is turning me on.

Haha, I'm glad you enjoyed it!

apriorion · Post by **apriorion** » Tue Feb 18, 2014 5:12 am

I'm sorry to be the only naysayer in here, but I can't see where you're coming from. I mean, I like Jaquard Causeway, and I'll be prepared to admit that there's interesting mathematical shit going on in there, but some things about your picture don't make any sense to me. For example, why is your picture going around in a circle? I get that BOC is all about looking at song structures in different ways (I remember an interview where one of them say something about branches spiraling off of a stem, or something like that), but given that we are finite temporal beings who are locked in a progression from past-to-present-to-future, songs are typically represented according to the flow of time, right? So I don't follow that aspect of your picture. I mean, I get why you picked hexagons as the monads in this diagram, since that's BOC's thing and all, but how it makes up a larger hexagon seems like a bit of a projection on your part more than anything inherent to the track. Also, you drew some colored lines in various patterns across the hexagons and proclaimed that the sums for each are 69 and 70, respectively. I can't see where you're coming from with that at all. If you could explain the steps in between to show how this analysis relates to the track I'm hearing, that would help me a bit. Because when I hear this track, I hear some very emotional melodies running through a delay/echo thingy, and a percussion that runs in a slightly weird time signature. I cant see how a cyclical hexagon pattern can be made from that. I would like to, though.