Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Entertainment/2022 July 20

Welcome to the Wikipedia Entertainment Reference Desk Archives
The page you are currently viewing is a transcluded archive page. While you can leave answers for any questions shown below, please ask new questions on one of the current reference desk pages.

July 20

Cameo appearance in Blazing Saddles

In the Blazing Saddles scene where Hedley Lamarr is signing up the desperadoes to destroy Rock Ridge, the camera pans down the line of disparate applicants. Towards the end, a figure dressed vaguely like Obi-Wan Kenobi (though this predates Star Wars by 3 years) is very briefly seen before he disappears behind a camel rider. I'm guessing that this was a cameo appearance, maybe by someone associated with the production (Mel Brooks is also in the line), since there seems no other reason for his presence, but I don't recognise him. Does anybody know who he is? {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 90.199.169.199 (talk) 03:55, 20 July 2022 (UTC)

At about 40 seconds of this clip:[1] Hard to tell. I don't think he looks that much like Obi-Wan, but others may see it differently. --←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 04:04, 20 July 2022 (UTC)

It looks like just a stereotypical Arab in a burnoose. This isn't the Jedi you're looking for. You can go about your business. Move along. Clarityfiend (talk) 07:51, 20 July 2022 (UTC)

At exactly 42 seconds – he's in light brown robes with a hood, I meant no more than that with the OWK comparison. He's not the guy in a white and blue-striped burnoose whom the camera reaches just before. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 90.199.169.199 (talk) 08:00, 20 July 2022 (UTC)

I was talking about the beige one. How would anybody mistake a guy wearing a brightly striped garment for Obi Wan? Nobody has ever claimed the latter was a clothes horse. Clarityfiend (talk) 07:14, 21 July 2022 (UTC)

Mr. Kenobi is dressed like an Arab because he's on a desert planet. (And his stillsuit was at the cleaners.) Clarityfiend (talk) 07:28, 21 July 2022 (UTC)

Can we please drop the discussions of the Star Wars character and address (if possible) my actual query, which was "Who is this actor in this Blazing Saddles crowd scene?" {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 90.201.73.20 (talk) 08:23, 22 July 2022 (UTC)

IF the person is the Arab, then it could be Victor Romito who is listed as "Arabian (uncredited)" on IMDB. Lugnuts ^{Fire Walk with Me} 17:46, 22 July 2022 (UTC)

Although Victor Romito played one of the Arab outlaws , he's not the man. Modocc (talk) 18:31, 22 July 2022 (UTC)

Ahh, right. I guess the IP can work through the list of uncredited cast on IMDB. Lugnuts ^{Fire Walk with Me} 19:49, 22 July 2022 (UTC)

Relationship between development of piano and early music theory

What's the relationship in time between the development of piano and early music theory? Many concepts like half steps are enforced and designed more rigidly in piano than in other instruments (e.g. guitar). Were the piano and music theory concepts developed at the same time, or one after another? Thanks! 🐶 EpicPupper ^{(he/him | talk)} 05:42, 20 July 2022 (UTC)

The theory came first. The piano was an advance in technology, enabling greater ranges and subtleties of dynamics (loudness), but it was preceded by older keyboard instruments that treated scales in exactly the same way, and the scales were in turn based on fundamental physics that were studied in plucked stringed instruments as far back as Pythagoras, some 2,300 years before the piano's introduction. Doubtless others will be able to give much more informed and detailed answers than I. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 90.199.169.199 (talk) 08:11, 20 July 2022 (UTC)

As noted, the rudiments of western music theory go back millenia, Pythagorean tuning dates back to the ancient Greeks. However, much of what is taught in modern western music theory classes dates to the kinds of analysis developed in the 18th-19th century Europe to codify (mostly German) composers of the time. Functional harmony, the system which most students of western music (even those for which the system was NOT developed to analyze) was developed by Gottfried Weber and later Hugo Riemann. Notions like tuning systems and temerapements predate the widespread use of the piano, however notions like modern chord functions (tonic-mediant-dominant, etc.) come after the piano. --Jayron32 11:10, 20 July 2022 (UTC)

The earliest scales, obtained by Pythagorean tuning or just tuning, were enharmonic scales, meaning that enharmonic equivalents like D♭ and C♯ were not exactly the same; their frequencies had a ratio of 524288 : 531441, off by 1.4% or about 1/6th of a semitone – not much, but enough to be an audible difference. It severely limited the possibilities of modulation. A practical improvement was quarter-comma meantone tuning; however, a particularly awkward aspect was the wolf fifth, which composers had to avoid if this tuning was used. All this was radically resolved by the invention of equal temperament in which everything is a bit off (except for the octave), but the pain is equally divided and nowhere severe: one gets used to it and doesn't even notice that the intervals are all slightly out of tune. It is not quite clear when this system came to be used in practice in Western music, but Bach's The Well-Tempered Clavier, published in 1722, explores it to its utmost, using all 24 major and minor keys. Bach wrote this music for harpsichord. At the time pianos were still quite rare; it would take another ten years before Bach even saw a piano.  --Lambiam 11:44, 20 July 2022 (UTC)

The pain is equally divided among keys, but not among intervals: factors of 5 (thirds, sixths) fare much worse in equal temperament than factors of 3 (fifths, fourths). — Surely the title of The Well-Tempered Clavier refers to well temperament rather than the later equal? —Tamfang (talk) 02:38, 22 July 2022 (UTC)