de
Borglie wavesby Thomas Váczy Hightower
In the first part of The Sound of Silence we have mainly investigated the broaden concept of motion, the pendulum and its strange behavior at the quantum level. Now we will explore other meta physical aspects of music and sounds.
Standing waves is an
essential phenomenon in the creation of the musical tone. In my page
The Creation of the Musical Scale there is a description of standing
waves.
Here we will just state, that standing waves
automatically divide the length of a string or an air column into an
integral
number of half wave-lengths.
It is only then, a standing wave can be sustained. That pattern is
the most energy effective form nature can provide. (A similar pattern
is the rhythm entrainment, where random oscillation after a while
begin to oscillate in unison).
Standing waves can not exist
unless they divide their medium into an integral numbers of half
waves with its nodes. A standing waves having a fractional wavelength
can not be sustained.
The same standing waves pattern can be preformed in a plate or a
3 dimensional box too. This pattern will look just like a highly
enlarged crystal, if we assume that the aggregated particles or
grains in the box fluid are analogous to the atoms in a crystal.
The key word in standing waves is order. In short, by using sound we have introduced order where previously there was none.
de
Borglie wavesOn the quantum level sound does not have meaning, but standing wave does still perform order, when we are looking at the orbiting electrons in an atom. In the early 20th. Century spectrum analysis showed 7 levels or series for the orbiting electrons, but it was unclear how the electrons was able to maintain they fixed orbits. The quantum physicist de Borglie came up with an explanation, when he in 1923 proposed, that the electrons not only existed as particles, but also behaved as waves of matter, which interfered with themselves as standing waves. By this order the numbers of electrons are maintained in their orbits. de Borglie's theory was later proved by experiments.
The orbit is only stable if it meets the condition
for standing waves.
The circumference had to be an integer number of the wavelength. The
consequence is that only special values of radius and energy is
allowed for the electrons, if they stay stable and do not emit
energy. They are quantized.
Niels
Bohr's atom theory stated in contrary to the classical law of
electrodynamics, that the electrons do not emits energy, photons, as
long as they energy integers are in accordance with the properties of
standing waves.
Table of the Elements
The
periodic tables of Elements
reflexes the wave pattern of atoms. Usually the table is
displayed with 7 series of quantized atoms, where the first level
contains the lightest atoms, Hydrogen and Helium. The atomic
weight depends mainly of the number
of neutrons and protons in the nucleus and is increasing down the
diagram. I have changed the periodic, vertical level with octaves.
If
we look at the atomic weight, which is not indicated in this table of
elements due to clarity, we will notice, that the law of octaves
to a great extent is displayed by the double atomic
weight for each descending octave. In addition, each main octave
contains inner octaves on the horizontal, group level, so we can view
the Table of Elements as a square
of octaves.
This way of viewing the table of elements
as a square of octaves does not have a scientific value. The atomic
weight numbers do not in many cases show a strict octave behavior.
However, I find in the general
display of the table of elements too many coincidences
of octave patterns, that I dare bring this point of view. Nature does
not reveals itself as a finished, perfect framework. There are flaws
everywhere, cracks for the light to enter and space for the
continuous creation.
Just think
about is: the universe as we at the present time can observe: it is
only a fraction of what really is out there. Literally speaking only
the top of the iceberg. The empty space is loaded with invisible
matter and energy, the "dark matter", which only
indirectly can be detected and calculated by the rotation of
galaxies. It is mind shaking, that science still have to figure out
what kind of matter, that occupied most of the Universe.
In accordance with the cosmogony and the
theory of the Big Bang for about 13,5 billion years ago, only
Hydrogen and Helium existed in the new born Universe. The
gravitational pull in clouds of those two elements shaped the stars,
and the creations of the following elements slowly began under heat
and pressure in the plasma. By the dead of a star, the new elements
was and is continuously released into the inter stellar space.
Some of the heavy elements can only be produced by Super Nova's.
I
like to view the on going creation as a big descending cosmic octave,
where the first notes was Hydrogen and Helium.
In western tradition the legendary Orpheus, the Greek
inventor of the 7 tone scale about 1200 BC, created the music in
order to open the hearts of men for the divine 7 Rays. How the music
actually was played in ancient Greek is speculation other than it was
a sacred ritual, as in the East. They played the music differently,
but the aim was the same.
It was first in the end of the 15th
Century, when the change in the Western society with the Renaissance,
the alteration in the focus became prominent. The close attachment to
the church became more detached as the need or demand for music
serving kings and the rise of rich business dynasties. The music
changed more and more to the honor of man and to the glory of his
outward manifestations.
The development in musical practice
from monophonic to polyphonic and after the Renaissance to fully
"harmonious" music, made it necessary to have
especially the third harmonized.
The Pythagorean third (81:64) is a syntonic comma larger than the
harmonic third (5:4). The need for harmonizing the third in the
part-songs became imperative as the polyphonic music became
predominant.
New musical scales was developed to serve that
requirement, such as the Just Intonation.
In the East the music remained as a tool for letting
the heart sing its praise for the sublime God, the one inside as well
as for the Universe.
The question remains: does music have a power
that is above cultural differences? Does
objective music exist?
Reijo Elsner has written an
interesting article about Russian Icons: "Are
Icons a form of Objective art?"
It is general knowledge, that the notion of harmony
comes from the ancient Greeks word, harmonia.
It was a key word of the Pythagoreanism
and meant primarily the joining or fitting of things together.
Originally it was connected to the concept of cosmos. Its musical
meaning was established by the early fifth Century B.C. according to
professor Guthrie ("A
History of Greek Philosophy", Vol. I,) first seen from
Pindar.
The numerical explanation of the universe was a
generalization from the discovery made by Pythagoras himself and
revealed the numerical ratios which determine the concordant
intervals of the scale. We find it clearly in Aristotle's explanation
of Pythagoras' harmony of the spheres and also in Plato's statements.
(see my page The Harmony of
the Spheres)
However, as Burnet notes, there was no such
things as harmony in our sense. Harmonia meant tuning, or scale or
octave. Classic Greek music was melodic, modal, without use of
harmonious chords as we are used to.
Plutarch (44-120 B.C.) stats
that for Pythagoras and his disciples, the word harmonia meant
"octave" in the sense of an attunement which manifests
within its limits both the proper fitting together of the concordant
intervals, fourth and fifth, and the difference between them, the
whole tone.
Moreover, Pythagoras proved that whatever can be
said of one octave can be said of all octaves.
The essential point was, that the three intervals, the octave, the fourth and the fifth, were regarded as primary and fixed; as the element out of which any musical scale or composition was build. The other notes was not fixed and could move accordingly to the different modes.
Order
and beauty - the concept of cosmos - was imposed by the three
fixed notes with the ratio of 1:2, 2:3 and 3:4 on the chaotic range
of sounds from the other untied notes.
This is for me a
graphic display of hamonia; an integration of order and chaos.
Harmony does not in my interpretation means pure harmonious tones,
but permitting dissonance between the column of consonance creating
harmony.
In our time there is a tendency to disregard the
dissonance in the harmony concept making it to a sentimental,
sweetish stuff. This is an unhealthy denial of real life consisting
of chaos and order - dissonance and consonance.
The ancient Greeks had a
profound understanding of balance and proper proportions. It was not
accidental that they chose words on the temple of Apollo as "Nothing
too much" or "Observe limit".
Chaos meant for
the Greeks unlimited - evil. Limit stood for order, moderation -
beauty.
The Greek genius in thought and art, represented the
triumph of ratio, meaning on one hand the intelligible, determinate,
measurable, as opposed to the fantastic, vague and shapeless. There
had to be a proportion of things both in themselves and as related to
the whole.
The integers 1,2,3 and 4
add up to 10, which was considered perfect and contained in itself
the whole nature of numbers. This number was graphically represented
by the figure known as the Tetratys, which became a sacred symbol for
the Pythagoreans.
One
have to notice, that already the ancient Greeks had observed the
number 10 as prominent, about 2000 years before the introduction of
the decimal system by the Muslims, who imported it from India.
Numbers was responsible
for "harmony", the divine principle that governed the
structure of the whole world. For the Pythagoreans the numbers had
and retained, a mystical significance, an independent reality.
Phenomena were secondary, for the only significant thing about
phenomena was the way in which they reflected numbers.
That
attitude was utterly different from that of a mathematician of today.
Mathematics had for the Pythagoreans and also later for Plato a
metaphysical as well as a purely mathematical significance. See
Lambdoma or the
Pythagorean Table and Barbara
Hero.
Mathematics and art has since Pythagoras discovery of
the connection between numbers and tones had a deep relationship. The
golden section, the Phi ratio, was considered by the ancient
Greek as the most superb proportion and a cornerstone in art. Plato
considered this proportion as a part of creation. In the Middle Age
it was called the divine proportion and associate with the Trinity.
The Golden section combine nature, mathematics and art in a wholesome
unit with transcendental and eternal properties.
The
outstanding feature of the golden section is the unique way, it can
decrease or increases by keeping its exact
proportions. The grow pattern in Nature
reflexes this fixed proportion, which also is common in five-sided,
pentagonal symmetries, that also contain Phi ratios.
The Golden Section has a geometric as well as an arithmetical expression, and basically it can be define as a specific way of dividing a line. When the whole line (a+b) relates to biggest section (a) as the biggest section relates to the smallest section (b), we have a Golden Section. The arithmetical expression is a mean proportional: a+b/a = a/b. It is a quadratic equation, where the roots of the ratio a/b = 1+5½ /2 = Phi = 1.618034....
Calculations of the quadratic equation: a+b/a = a/b ↔ ab + b2 = a2 ↔ a2 - ab - b2 = 0. Since it is the ratio a/b, we shall calculate, we have to divide the last equation with b2 which is: a2 /b2 - ab/b2 - b2 /b2 = 0; paraphrase as (a/b)2 - a/b - 1 = 0; the square roots of a/b = 1 ± 5½ /2. Since a and b is positive lines only the positive value is used. The approximate value of Phi ratio is 1.618034... The negative value is - 0.618034...The reciprocal value of the decimal is the same, or a/b - 1 = b/a.
There is a lot to tell about the Golden
Section. The practical application in art and architecture is well
known, e.g. Leonardo
da Vinci. An example in our time was the architect le Corbusier,
who developed a system of modules based on the golden section.
In
music the Phi ratio does not show importance properly due to the
intangible nature of music. (The Golden Section for an octave lays
close to a diminished sixth.)
One of my readers, John Pritchard, has kindly made me aware of the special relationship The Golden Section and its Phi ratio has to our Solar System. The ratio that separates the 9 planets plus Ceres (in the Asteroid belt ) is nearly an exact match with the Phi ratio. The calculation can be made in different ways, but they come to the same conclusion. Their mean distance from the Sun follows the grow spiral from the Golden Section. http://solargeometry.com/DistCalc.htm ; http://www.goldenmuseum.com/index_engl.html
It is astonishing, that astronomers, who dedicated so much effort in studying the Harmony of the Spheres, such as Kepler, did not see the Phi ratio. (More details in my page The Harmony of the Spheres.)
I will leave the awesome Phi ratio, and move to the Fibonacci numbers, which also reflex's the growth patterns in Nature, and in a strange way is connected to the Golden Section.
A famous Italian mathematician, Leonardo of Pisa,
also called Fibonacci, issued in 1202 BC a book, "Liber Abaci",
which at that time contained the knowledge of mathematics using only
the new Arabian number system. It was here he presented a series of
numbers which was a solution of a problem dealing with theoretic
rabbits breeding.
It was first later, that the magnitude of
Fibonacci number sequence became known by great mathematicians as
Euler and Bernoulli and later by Binets in his formula for Fibonacci
numbers.
The peculiar thing in Binets' formula is the irrational
number - square root 5 - where Fibonacci numbers only are whole
numbers. We remember square root 5 in the Phi ratio, the Golden
Section, and the awesome fact is, that the limiting value of the
coefficient series (progression) of Fibonacci numbers is the Phi
ratio: 1.6180341.... or Fn / Fn-1 when n is
going towards eternity.
It is thought-provoking, that nature has chosen the
Fibonacci progression for its principle of growth among the
innumerable. However, it is a very simple additive progression: one
number is the sum of the two previous numbers, and it possess
the characteristic of approaching the Phi ratio most swiftly. The two
first numbers is the same, namely 1, them starts the addition.
By
displaceing the Fibonacci sequence with the nearest previous number,
a sequence of ratios are produced. You can see for yourself, how
farst the ratio of Fibonacci numbers are approaching the Phi
ratio:
1/1, 2/1, 3/2, 5/3, 8/5, 13/8, 21/13, 34/21....Fn
/Fn-1 ....Phi.
1, 2, 1.5, 1.66... 1.6,
1.625, 1.615..1.619...Fn /Fn-1....Phi.
The sequence of Fibonacci numbers are displayed in
Nature in numerous ways, whether it is the position of leaves and
seeds or the spiral of growth in a snail shell, which is similar to
the Golden Section spiral. What is more surprising is the
Fibonacci numbers appearance in probability calculation and Pascal's
triad, which was discovered by a theorist of numbers, Edoward Lucas,
in the 19th Century.
The use of Fibonacci numbers can be seen in
architecture, a few times in modern literature and especially in
modern dodecaphonic music, where the tonal order has been
disintegrated and occasionally a new order was formed by Fibonacci
numbers in the sequence of tones.
(I
have seen web pages, which claim that the Fibonacci numbers produce a
musical scale by repeating the beginning numbers. I am not able to
see such scale fits the practical needs in common music)
A
famous example in modern music was the Hungarian composer, Béla
Bartók, who searched for "principles which can be
serve as a law" (le Corbusier) by using the golden section and
Fibonacci series as the underplaying principle in all the musical
elements and especially the proportion of duration of movement in
music.
The voice is an indication of the developmental level
of a human being. It carries the signature of the being, who is
speaking.
The voice is our breath, the essence of our very life;
our being, with sound added to it. The voice is therefore a true
mirror of inner health and mental stability, or lack of it. It reflex
the full range of emotional excitement or disinterest. For those who
can hear, the voice resonant the spiritual attainment of the speaker.
The same can be said about the way we laugh.
The tonal quality
of our speech has more significance, on a subtle level, than what we
actually say. Words are idle, if they are pronounced without the
resonance of internal concord. The voice reflexes our whole being and
our true intent. Any child can hear that, when we are scolding them.
Sound has the property of affecting the listener more direct and emotionally than sight, which is process in the brain as an distant object. Sound influences the receiver in a closer, more subjective way. It attains deeper emotional levels other places in the ancient brain. Smells have even a more instinctive, (sexual) impact. Sounds and smells are received as a molecular input, while sight is an electronically transmission.
Chanting, intoning or singing is therefore a part in
rituals or ceremonies of any culture through time. Singing together
is a old and simple way of tuning the hearts and minds to a common
aim.
There are also
highly personal songs, belonging only to the individual through whom
they come. Healing Songs, Life songs, mantra are examples of
such.
Soul song is another personal sound therapy, which Andrea
Arrowsmith, Inner Sounds of Light Institute
so kindly have
made me aware of.
She
states, that almost deaf she have all her life heard and played music
on inner realms. Nature and all living things have keynotes and soul
songs from inner realms, that she is able to "hear".
Keynotes resonates from the soul level, always intertwined with
angelic choirs and music of the spheres.
The most important is the intention that is conveyed in the sounds. Although we might not verbalize our true thoughts, they emanate from our unconscious mind as we sing, and our own feeling are often purified in the process. This has been experienced by keen overtone singers.
Both these practices are ancient and have been incorporated in one form or another into the songs of major religions. The call to prayer heard five-times daily in Muslim cultures is a type of chanting combined with Toning.
Toning is a system of healing that utilizes vowel sounds to alter vibrations in every molecule and cell in the body. I have read it is simple to learn and extremely powerful. Toning fills the atmosphere with sounds that reverberate long after the singer has quit. People find themselves inwardly silent and often unable to speak once the Toning process has been directed at them. When they do return from the mild trance the sound has placed them in, they are quiet and at peace and restored to balance internally and externally. They say the sound excites them, releases emotional trauma and physical discomfort, at the same time instilling mental unity and spiritual love.
The
word Overtones originates from the German word, Obertone, which
refers to the various numbers of partials or harmonics that are
produced by the strongest and lowest fundamental tone and fused into
a compound or complex tone.
In the 19th
Century the German
physicist Ohm was the first to formulate this scientifically in his
acoustic law, and Herman von Helmholz did a thorough research in the
field of harmonics and issued the first consistent body of theories
in musical acoustics. About hundred years later his beat theory was
replaced by the Consonant theory containing the Critical Band notion.
See more in The Creation of
Musical Scales.
The chanting of Tibetan monks is replete with harmonics in a highly rare manner that affect and stimulate the chakras.
In the western world Throat singing is also called overtone singing, harmonic singing, or harmonic chant. The most known Throat singing is the Tibetan and Mongolian chanting, but also many other regions in the World are practicing a similar type of singing, that manipulates the harmonics resonance's created as air travels through the human vocal folds and out the lips.
The harmonic frequencies created by the human vocal apparatus are harnessed in throat singing to select overtones by tuning the resonance in the mouth. The result of tuning allows the singer to create more than one pitch at the same time, with the capability of creating six pitches at once. Generally the sounds created by throat singing are low droning hums and high pitched flute like melodies.
The Tibetan monks believe, that in the creation of the 'One Voice Chord', they do not 'make' the sound themselves. Rather, they become a vehicle through which the sacred sound may manifest. This is a basic principle contained in the Tibetan Buddhist teachings of sacred sound. The chanting of the Gyuto and Gyume monks embodies this understanding of sound and their powerful multi-phonic chanting exemplifies the application of this principle. The harmonics which they create are a result of their becoming one with sacred sound.
Since I wrote about the Tibetan "One
voice chord" and Mongolian chanting, Hoomi singing, I have
received several mails from Westerner practicing singers, who teach
and perform throat singing, and they all tell me, that the technique
actually is easy and do not require deep studies of Buddhism, still
less spiritual enlightment, in order to perform the deep chordal
chanting.
They point out that Western musicologists and
scholars in their research of Tibetan chanting are infatuated by a
well meaning but often incorrect fascination of the mysticism of the
chanting monks.
Concerning the widespread propensity to mysticism among Western scholars of Tibetan chanting, I will quote a mail from a well known practician, Steve Sklar, who is a longtime student, performer and teacher of Tuvan Throat-Singing and Tibetan voice. He has a much more down to earth approach. He has even made on-line lessons in Throat Singing. Steve Sklar wrote:
"Since our earlier
correspondence, I've tried to further investigate this issue of the
monks' voice. I have indeed received some criticism for saying that
there is indeed a technical basis for their peculiar chant voice. My
point is that the voice can be understood and that there is no need
to perpetuate myths about it. The Tibetan voice is a powerful and
beautiful thing, valid in its own right, and not in need of
romanticizing.
The actual technique simply involves the use of
the ventricular folds in addition to the vocal folds, and often a
lowering of the larynx / trachea, enhancing the deep sound by
lengthening the air column of the vocal system.
Conversations
with Tibetan monks and ex-monks still point to learning by exposure
to and imitation of the elder monks. Some can produce the sounds as
young boys, prior to joining the monasteries. Some, including some
very highly regarded monks, cannot chant in the low chordal
voice.
The Tibetans DO sometimes mention a reincarnational
propensity towards various practices, such as memorizing texts or
being good at chanting. Some have mentioned a belief, that I may have
been a monk in a prior life, hence my skill at producing the tones
and teaching."
Healing by sound has become a growing field, which already Edgar Cayce predicted a half century ago as the "the medicine of the future". This do not mean, that I overlook thousands of years practice of healing by music and sounds. There are multitude of cases in any culture, where music was applied to ease the distress or release the pain. I am referring to the many electronic devices that have been developed to heal with much more precision and direct effect.
Before we start the intangible topic of healing by
sound, the placebo effect has to be mentioned, since it actually is
in the domain of alternative medicine with its mobilization of mental
energy.
It started in 1955, when
H.K.Beecher was testing new medicaments and made a control group with
plain chock tablets and discovered surprisingly, that on average 35%
of the patients reacted positive to the "useless" tablets.
He published an article, "Is the placebo powerless?, and caused
a lot of turmoil. He concluded, that the power of imagination had an
significant effect and the placebo effect became soon a factor in
modern medicine.
Placebo is Latin meaning "want to
please" and the interest for placebo has historical roots. In a
medical connection it appeared first time in 1772. The physician
William Cullen described in a lecture, how he as a last resort
prescribed a placebo for a doomed patient to please him, and as a
scientist to see what might happen.
I modern medicine the pleasing function of placebo is considered un-ethical. The testing function is carried out as a double blind test to eliminate possible, suggestive influence by the doctor. However, the New Age holistic paradigm has opened the interest of the medical establishment in the mental power of spontaneous healing. It recognizes the psychic regeneration of the immune systems and do not rule out unknown factors in microbiology.
When a doctor is able to make a diagnosis,
the patient has a disease, and a treatment can commence. However, in
this post-industrial age a astonishing amount of disorders or
ailments, which are not able to be diagnose by regular medical
findings. The symptoms are complex and un-specific: Chronic fatigue,
back pain, despondency or weak depression, whip-lash, fibromyalgi or
chronic pain syndrome, unaccountable paralysis.
We
are talking about ailments, where the social circumstance is the
major factor in producing the psychic, somatic disorders. This is
still surround by taboo, since the side effect of modern, high
effective work is considered as an acceptable price for the common
good. Especially women has been hit by this new "diagnosis".
(Infants families where both parents are full time working are
under inhuman strain, especially in Countries, where the wage of
maids is high and homework is considered low status.)
A century
ago a common "diagnosis" for such disorder was hysteria,
and the treatment was hysterectomy. To day this kind of fashion
diagnosis mainly apply to women with work injury. They need a
diagnosis for their insurance case or the early retirement pension.
In Scandinavia about 40 % of the workforce, mainly women, has been
labeled unfit for full time work.
In short, when we are talking
about disorders, we have to face the social circumstance.
Now we can start the brief introduction to healing sound. A more in depth account can be found in The Power of Harmonics.
Ono of the pioneers in using sound to heal was an English osteopath, Dr. Peter Guy Manners, MD. He became aware of Dr. Jenny's cymatic experiments, a Swiss scientist, who spent ten years observing and photographing the effects of sound upon inorganic matter. He himself was inspired by work of Ernest Chladni, an eighteenth-century scientist, who put sand on a glass plate and vibrated them with a violin bow creating harmonic patterns.
Dr. Manners, working under the premise, that disease is an "out of tune ness" of some aspects of the body, created a cymatic therapy and utilizes the Cymatic instrument, which contains thousands of different composite harmonics designed to place the body back into alignment and health.
An other example among many is
an American MEd, Sherry Edwards, who has developed a bio acoustics
healing system called "Signature Sound Works".
The human
voice is in fact unique in its sound pattern, as good as a "finger
print". Sherry Edwards used this feature to analyze voices
of sick and healthy people by advanced electronic devices in order to
find a correlation between voices in disease and physiological and
psychological disorders. After having found particular frequencies in
distress or simply missing, she chose those frequencies, generated
them and loaded them on tape. Those frequencies are by earphones sent
into the hearing system of the brain in order to manipulate brain
waves and seemingly trick the brain to simulate dormant brain waves
so the delinquent frequencies can be canceled or modified in the
body/mind integration process and reconditioning. Brain
waves as octaves
Robert Monroe,
known for his books and research about out-of-body-experiences, has
used specific low frequencies in a two-channel mode in order to
produce "difference
tones" (which means 2 sound waves that are subtracted from each
other, and the result is a low frequency) in the brain, evoking
synchronization of the brain’s two hemispheres.
Most solids can be affected to oscillate. The wave it produces, its frequency and shape, depends on the form of the body, the weight, and the material. A string e.g. swings in certain standing modes depending of the length of the string, its thickness and kind of material. The same applies to the sounding board of musical instruments that resonates and amplifies the oscillation of the string. With wind instruments the standing waves in the air pipe is the resonator.
A solid has also its own natural oscillation, which
frequencies can be in a narrow or broader band depending on material
and construction. The soundboard of many musical instruments has a
broad bandwidth, e.g. the piano, in order to resonate and amplify the
wide number of octaves.
The violin has a smaller bandwidth, which
produces a stronger resonance, though especially with bad violins the
frequencies of its own natural oscillation will be re-enforced by
resonance and a strong howling tone will be made. The vibration of
the string has hit the sound boxes own vibration and a resonance is
made.
If
a resonator has a its own resonance at f Hz it will begin to vibrate
when it is affected by waves with f Hz, but also affected by waves in
an interval around f Hz. The width of that interval is the bandwidth
of the resonator.
Another important factor for resonance is
the resistance of the material - its damping of the waves. Any
vibration decays exponentially in time. The amplitude of the
vibration is the expression of the damping.
Bandwidth and damping
is in direct ratio, so a resonator with a wide bandwidth will also
perform a strong damping, while a resonator with a small bandwidth
will have little damping and consequently a strong resonance.
There
are mechanical, electrical and acoustic resonators, including the
human voice box.
The heart and aorta formed a special resonant system
when breathing is ceased for a while. Then the heart beat seems to
wait until the echo returns from the bifurcation (where the aorta
forks out in the lower abdomen). Then the next heart beat sets in. In
this synchronous way a resonant, standing wave of blood is
established with a frequency about seven times a second. This
harmonious mode requires for its sustenance a minimum amount of
energy, which is an intelligent response from the body. In deep
meditation a similar mode is established.
It is interesting
to notice that this mode of 7 Hz is closed to the Schumann
resonance.
The reason I introduce the resonance phenomena is to extend its scale to our Earth in order to introduce the Schumann resonance.
The
space between the Earth and the Ionosphere forms a cavity, which can
support electromagnetic standing waves with wavelengths that are
comparable to the planetary dimensions. Within the lower atmosphere
to a height of 60 – 70 km above the Earth’s surface the
finite electrical conductivity of the atmosphere is maintained
primarily by cosmic rays.
The combination of the nearly perfectly conducting terrestrial surface boundary and the highly conducting, but dissipate, ionospheric outer boundary separated by an insulating layer of non conducting air, creates an approximately spherical concentric cavity, the "Earth-ionosphere cavity" with electrically conducting walls.
These resonance's, called Schumann resonance's, have been observed at many different locations and can, in principle, be detected from any place on the planet with a radio receiver tuned for extremely low frequency (ELF) range of frequencies 3 – 300 Hz.
The resonance's are very weak and are easily obscured by nearby lightning and numerous other unrelated sources of man-made noise. However, away from these unrelated disturbances, the Schumann resonance's constitute the principal component of the natural background of the electromagnetic spectrum over the frequency range 6 – 50 Hz.
Resonance properties of the Earth's ionosphere cavity were first predicted and discussed theoretically by W.O.Schumann in 1952. Schumann and König made the earliest experimental detection of the resonance in 1954.
In the following decades, extensive studies and
development of advanced electronic devices have displayed slight
variations of the Schumann resonance due to the time span it is
monitored and where and how the antenna is constructed and
placed.
Mark Barner has kindly send me updated information about
Schumann Wave:
"There
has been a lot of misleading information regarding the value of the
"Schumann Wave". There is no one specific value for it, due
to the ever-changing nature of the Earth's ionosphere. Conclusion:
Any modal frequency of the "Schumann Wave" phenomenon may
vary by as much as 22.5% (or more) over an arbitrary span of time.
This is due to changes in the minimum and maximum height of the
ionosphere, it's composition and it's thickness. Note also that
beyond the 4th modal harmonic, all wavebands will increasingly
overlap. Therefore, to declare the value of 7.83 Hz as the "absolute,
correct and only "Schumann Wave" frequency is to commit an
error."
http://www.bwgen.com/presets/desc45.htm
The most common order of the Schumann resonance is in
Hz: 7.8, 14, 20, 26, 33, 39, 45… n,
where 7.8 Hz is the
fundamental frequency and the following frequencies are the squeezed
or overlaping harmonics of the standing wave.
These non-hertzial
electromagnetic standing waves of terrestrial resonance's are
interesting, if we look into the human brain wave pattern, EEG, and
the human heartbeat displayed on ECG.
Scientists who want to
incorporate spirituality and consciousness into their science have
found, that harmonic geometry and the frequency window of heart
coherence during meditation, is to be in a similar
bandwidth (1-30 Hz), which characterized not only
transcendence in brain EEG and heart/aorta resonance, but also the
Earth's natural electro-magnetic resonance frequencies (Schumann
resonance).
Maybe Mother Nature has not chosen this as a mild coincidence. The Heart, the Brain, and the Earth all have their key information broadcasting on the same channel!
As far back as I can remember, I have had a special comfort in sitting under a tree, especially out in the forest. It has nothing to do with the cool shadow, but intuitively I have chosen that place in order to find myself and the tranquility, that is needed to be in tune and unification with Nature and Earth. I felt myself much alone in those days of childhood, and sitting for hours under a tree gave me comfort and peace of mind.
Now we have devices to test and measure the Earth's magnetic ELF frequencies actually falling into resonant alignment with a powerful and coherent human heart intention.
Nikola
Tesla, who died mysteriously in 1944, had already discovered the
electromagnetic standing waves (Schumann waves) in the
"Earth-ionosphere cavity" in the late 19th
century. Tesla’s wireless power system is well
documented - both in patents and available literature. The idea, as I
understand it, was to treat the Earth as a spherical capacitor, and
to charge the ground with standing electric waves. Tesla tested this
system at his Colorado Springs lab in 1898-1899. He then designed a
full blown functional and complete system to be built at Wardenclyff
on Long Island.
Marconi's theft of his radio, the refusal of JP
Morgan to finance something he couldn't charge everybody for, and the
advent of the World War I, prevented the completion of the project.
It is difficult to know to which extend the
scientific establishment really understands Tesla's "free
energy" system. Some are of the opinion that the "Magnifying
Transmitter" would tap energy out of the electrical field of the
atmosphere, thereby "becoming" a "free energy"
device. However, J.P. Morgan's refusal to continue financing was
based on the fact, that any fool could receive the power without
having to pay for anything more than an antenna.
Tesla was the
most famous, but not the only one, who struggled against hostile
condition, when the development of real unconventional energy sources
began to be possible.
More
about vortex energy -
multi dimensional, "free" energy machines and the pioneer
work.
All sorts of bizarre claims have coalesced around
Tesla, probably as a result of his unique combination of brilliance
and eccentricity. He was the closest thing to a stereotypical mad
scientist this century has known. The stories about his discovery of
amazing suppressed inventions only obscure his genuine legacy.
He
invented: AC power, induction motors, generators, transformers and
transmission; HFAC power, radio and wireless communication &
transmission; automobile ignition systems, capacitors, neon &
fluorescent lighting, arc lighting, blade less turbines, air-core
resonant transformers ("Tesla coils"), oscillating shuttle
circuits...
The different rhythms of the body may also be
changed by sound. This is known as entrainment and involves the
ability of the more powerful rhythmic vibrations of one object to
change the less powerful rhythmic vibration of another object and
cause them to synchronize their rhythms with the first object.
Through sound, especially chanting or overtone singing, it is
possible to change the rhythmic pattern of our brain waves, as well
as our heart beat and respiration.
Different brain wave rates
have been equated to different state of consciousness. There are four
basic categories of brain waves:
1. Beta waves, from 14 to 20 Hz, which are found in our normal waking state of mind.
2. Alpha waves, from 8 to 13 Hz, which occur when we daydream or meditate.
3. Theta waves, from 4 to 7 Hz, which are found in states of deep meditation and sleep, as well in shamanic activity.
4. Delta waves, from 0,5 to 3 Hz, which occur in deep sleep and have been found in very propound states of meditation and healing.
How the brain really works is not figured out by science since there are many basic unsolved questions. Brain Research index
An independent researcher, Steven
Lehar, former Professor of Cognitive Psychology, presents on his
webpage a harmonic resonance theory, that could explane the spatial
brain problem: "the harmonic resonance theory of spatial
representation finally offers a plausible solution to the profound
spatial problem in the brain, that circumvents the combinatorial
problems inherent in a neural network or spatial template solution to
this problem, a spatial standing wave pattern".
In a mail he
wrote:
"I have a theory that the
patterns of our experience are expressed in the brain in the form of
standing waves. In other words, the operational principle of the
brain is more like a musical instrument than a computer, and the
"input" to that instrument is the same as the input to a
musical instrument, i.e. it is like the damping of fingers on strings
or over holes that control the pattern of resonance in the
instrument, and the "output" is both a musical tone, and a
spatial standing wave pattern in the body of the instrument."
Every organ, bone and tissue in the human body has its own separate resonant frequency. Together they made up a composite frequency, a harmonic, that is your own personal vibratory signature. This signature encircle the body with a field, which some gifted people can see as an aura and it can be recorded by means of Kirlian photography.
There are different names for those fields around the body, that could serve as a connection or an intermediary to higher worlds, such as Auras, Astral bodies, "the higher bodies of Man" or chakras above the 7th.
But we can turn to a more scientific terminology by
looking into the oscillating fields,
that surround our body.
The electromagnetic and
electrostatic fields making op and shaping our body are relative
strong and serve to hold our atoms and molecules together. They
weaken as they move outside our body. There is a relative strong
field about 4 inches outside the body. Then it weaken strongly and
fade slowly out to 20 inches. The strengths of the field depends
much on the vitality of the person. If the vitality is low by
sickness or depression, there will be practically no field at
all.
Actually, it is a electro dynamic field caused by the motion
of the body. The heart/aorta system is the main supplier of the
pulsing motion of the body. It is between 6.8 and 7.5 Hz. This motion
is spread to the whole body. Even the brain oscillate a little.
Looking at the hearing faculties of a human being, we
know, that the input to the hearing center in the brain is around 1
million bits per second. One bit is the smallest piece of information
there is, namely 1 or 0, yes or no, first formulated by the Hungarian
scientist, Leo Szilard.
The input from the 5 senses is about
11 million bits per second. No wonder the head is so warm! What an
enormous work to process and get rid of all the unnecessary
information from that huge input. So the big question that has
puzzled scientists for many decades is, how can the brain handle all
this information so only relevant messages reach the conscious part?
In this context consciousness means the ordinary state of mind where
the necessary information for maintaining orientation in life is
taking place.
Sophisticated laboratory tests performed by many
different scientists has shown, that normal consciousness can process
only around 16-20 bits per second. Depending on what kind of
intellectual work they are testing, the number of bits differs a
little but the upper limit is 50 bits/sec.
Especially the American
scientist Benjamin Lebet (German origin) has done pioneer work in
that field. Even during open surgery in the brain he has performed
many tests while the patients are awake and communicating.
Professor Helmar Frank’s approach differs from
the general empirical method by looking at the central maximum stream
of consciousness as a subjective time quantum (Subjective Zeit Quant,
SZQ), the smallest moment of perception. That quantum fits well with
humans' capacity of hearing and seeing. Sound impulses up to 16 beats
per sec. are heard separately, but over 16 beats it's merged into a
continuous sound. The same applies to the speed of pictures. Over
16-18 frames per sec. will compose a smooth movement.
It is an
astonishingly small capacity - about 16 bits per sec. the conscious
mind can process. On the other hand, it has access to a large memory
bank.
As it has been pointed out about great story tellers such as H.C.Andersen and tales collected by the Grimm Brothers, that their writing, though containing little information in bits, is able to access the long path to the memory bank so a huge amount of information can be released. Their words are pregnant so they can release and create many associations.
Please note that the above mentioned tests are limited to one channel at a time. The tests do not reflect the many other channels of information, we receive simultaneously. Though they may not be noted, they still "color" the few bits of information.
The sub-limit perception - meaning all the input from our senses the consciousness is not aware of, are enormous; about 11 millions bits/sec. As it is stated in the theory of information-entropy: the more information the more entropy. So the big work of the brain is to throw away information - to forget, which is done by heat. About a million times less information is allowed to enter the consciousness.
What is interesting is also the delay in real time (0.5 sec) and the simulation of data the brain performs. The most surprising for me is the simulation of referring the events back in time to the moment, where the actual registration of the event occurs. EEG can record that as "the readiness potential" 0.02 seconds after the action or simulation.
I do not of course refer to the instinctive or moving parts, that react almost instantly, but to the intellectual part that interprets those few bits, that are made available, when the millions of bits are thrown away as heat.
When one thinks about it, it makes sense. It takes
time to process the 11 million bits/sec and only make the
intellectual part aware of what is relevant
for orientation in life. When a tiger is after you, the
information about a beautiful flower you are passing, cannot in that
situation be considered worth paying attention to!
We
have to bear in mind that the above-mentioned small numbers of bits
apply only to the intellectual capacities of the brain. The sub-limit
perception from all our senses and the processing from the other
centers of intelligence - instinctive, moving and emotional –
add enormously to the small amount of intellectual data.
A
more extensive account of man as a cybernetic system:
Information theory.
In an ordinarily state of mind humans perceive the
world as 3 dimensional, the 3 space dimensions. The 4th
dimension manifest it selves as an entirely new
direction giving space to a new realm. In mathematics the imaginary
numbers containing the negative square root can be regarded as
such.
The 4th dimension
is called time, and can usually not be seen or directly detected.
(see the 4th
dimension and Möbius tape).
The
mathematician Minkovski officially pronounced it as a physical fact
in 1904 and the physical constants have to be 4th
dimensional, e.g. Planck's constant in quantum physics.
Later Albert Einstein made good use of the 4th
dimension in his Theory of Relativity.
Due to our particular size we can observe movements
of a certain magnitude or speed, e.g. the hand of a clock showing
seconds can be seen, but not hours, or watching the clouds move but
not be able to see the grass grow. The perception of time must change
due to size or cosmos. A May fly will perceive a thunderstorm
entirely different than a human, which life span for the sun will be
detected as a spark!
Time seems to be very unlike in different
cosmos' unless we look at the amount of breath
a being makes in a lifetime. It mounts up to be about the same
for every being, while the duration of breath differ enormously. In
Genesis it is said, that God created the world in 7 days. To
comprehend this timetable the human time perception is not useable.
"Time is breath", as Gurdjieff pronounced for his students in Moscow during WW1.
The reason I have presented some logical deductions of the nature of the 4th dimension is to establish an idea of higher Dimensions inserted into lower Dimensions. In doing so I want to expand the notion of worlds within worlds, and further on to consider a human as a multidimensional body beyond the third and fourth Dimensions. Several traditions refer to such realm as the astral and mental body.
In the Western culture we traditionally discard, what
we are unable to measure physically and what we are not able to
repeat in controlled environments. Although that method surely
establish a solid foundation in science and have had an immense
success, it eliminates other more intangible phenomena such as
consciousness and the whole being of man.
History shows that
scientists first had an intuitive grasp of what is going to unfold,
when a major breakthrough in science was made.
Dean Radin, PhD. has in his book, "The Conscious Universe"- the scientific truth of psychic phenomena, made a strictly scientific account on mind over matter cases. As a Bell Labs researcher he began to study ESP and Para psychological phenomena as it was a cutting edge science, and on bases of empirical science, he found so many evidences of focused mind interference with physical matter, that he consider Phi research as a whole new field for modern science.
Technology has provided humans with extra capacities
by means of devices and at the same time diminish human's own by
birth abilities. The mechanical clock, e.g. withers away ones own
faculty to estimate time, or electronic tools substitute human's own
hidden abilities to communicate, e.g. telepathy.Aboriginal
populations and native tribes over the world have in many cases
demonstrated "miracles" such as shape shifting, moving the
"body" to another location in an instant, clairvoyance and
remote seeing, time traveling, etc.
I
have myself looked into that subject. The Australian Aborigine’s
ancient culture had a long tradition of what we will call magic. A
highly valuable book on that matter is "Aboriginal Men of High
Degree" by the Australian professor in anthropology, A.P.Elkin.
Higher vibrations - a misleading new age concept.
In the East the Tone Zodiacs is much older than in the West. The oldest Western Tone Zodiacs is that of Ptolemy’s ”Harmonics ”(2. Century AD), in which the circle corresponds to the Greek two-octave system. He did several books about the synthesis between music, the psyche and the cosmos. The Tone – Zodiacs signs was one of his many analogies, properly rooted in the Babylonians tradition of astronomy and numerology. (The Babylonians divided the circle into 360 degrees and placed the Zodiac on the circumference.)
The different Tone Zodiacs was actually correlated with the whole tone scale in circular temperament. The problem is, that the many non circular temperaments had to be modified to fit the circle. The ancient Chinese e.g. eliminated the ”Pythagorean Comma”, the 12th Fifths produce, in order to fit the notes to the circumference.
Since music theory in most cultures are one octave
base, Tone-Zodiacs generally correlate the twelve signs with the
twelve notes of the tempered chromatic scale, where the half notes
are the same frequency either they are sharp or flat e.g. F# = Gb.
An
interesting correlation between musical intervals and the
astrological aspects was already pointed out by Kepler, who was an
astrologer as well as an astronomer. Omitting the geometrical
matter, his observation is basically that one can regard the zodiacal
circle as a length to be divided as one would stop a monochord
string. Comparison of the whole length to the greater portion
remaining will then give the interval corresponding to the aspect.
Here is three primary divisions:
Opposition (planets 180 degrees
apart). Ratio of whole circle to half: 360: 180 = 2:1. Interval:
Octave.
Trine (planets 120 degrees apart), ratio to
whole to greater part, 360:240 degrees = 3:2. Interval: Perfect
Fifth.
Square (planets 90 degrees apart), ratio of whole to
greater part, 360: 270 degrees = 4:3. Interval: Perfect Fourth.
The three most powerful aspect are expressed by the same ratio as the three perfect consonance’s in music. One can amplify this to make a complete table of aspects in modern astrological use and find the musical intervals corresponding to them.
Comma means in Greek, incision. It alludes to the little rest that arises from the 7 octaves and the 12 fifths in the acoustic, mathematical calculation of the 12 chromatic notes in an octave. In the 7 octaves span the 12 fifth's does not fit completely, they are about 23.5 cents bigger. (Cents is a logarithmic unit common used in acoustic) The ratios in vibrations are stated in dictionaries as 524288 : 531441 or approximately 80 : 81.
We can quickly see how these numbers are made: 7 octaves are (2:1)7 = 128. 12 fifth's are (3:2)12 = 129.74634… ; 128 < 312 /212 ; 212 = 4096; by multiplying with 4096 on both sides of the < we have: 128 x 4096 = 524288 < 312 = 531441.
The ancient Greeks believed in simple small numbers.
Their holy tetractys expressed among other relationships the 3 sacred
ratios 1:2, 2:3, 3:4 in a triad symbolizing the realm of Nature, the
world of Humans and the realm of the Divine. The square symbolized
the reunion of humans and the divine.
These 3 ratios were
considered holy intervals. Music is derived from a Greek word, which
means "Any art over which the Muses presided." A muse was
any one of the 9 sister goddesses, daughters of Zeus and
Mnemosyne.
The discrepancy between divine music and earthly ears,
called a Pythagorean comma, was deeply understood by the ancient
Greeks.
Pythagoras is said to be the first who formulated
this schism between pure mathematical divine intervals and the
practical, human need to have a scale available in musical
practice.
(See also the page The
Calendar and the Pythagorean comma.
Music was a cornerstone in ancient religions and was considered as an important tool to educate and tune the human mind and heart for the divine, thereby shaping the civilization.
The Pythagoras Comma was an indication that there IS
more than humans are able to conceive. For the comma was not a slight
interval less than 7 octaves, but in excess of them. In the ancient
world this fact was widely conceived of as a symbol of renewal.
The cycle of twelve perfect fifths did not close and finish a cycle
of seven octaves, but exceeded it, and thus, as it were, spiraled
upward in the cycle of fifths.
Pythagoras' comma, then, can be
seen as being God's own anagram written into the very laws of the
universe and physics. It is by the name of this anagram that man is
heir to the promise of eventual resurrection and ascension out of the
dim caverns of mortality.
The audible music was imperfect and low in vibrations
compared to the divine, the music of the Spheres - though a faint
echo of the divine music was able to reach the earthly world.
The
Comma could indicate a beginning of a new and higher realm, a gate to
the spiritual world, or a seed of the divine in humans.
In
Christian tradition it could refer to the dormant seed of Christ
planted in every human.
The cycle of fifths can
continue much further than the twelfth fifth (note 13), where we are
back to the fundamental but it is 23.5 cent higher (5.88 savarts)
than the fundamental, a Pythagorean Comma higher. The following 12
fifths will place themselves one comma above the former ones, so the
24th fifth (note 25) will be one comma above note 13, or 2 commas,
11.74 savarts, above the fundamental, C++.
In this way
successive series of twelve fifths will be placed one above the other
at one comma intervals, up to the 52en fifth (note 53).
At
this stage, after the 52nd fifth, the octave is filled up (52 x 5.88
savarts) and the 53rd fifth, (note 54) comes out of the octave and
inserts itself between the fundamental and the 12th fifths,
thus forming, above the fundamental a small interval of 0,84 savarts.
Thus begins a new cycle, which in its turn, with a period of 53
fifths, will divide the octave into small intervals of 0,84 savarts
The next cycle will appear during the seventh series of 53
fifths, when the 359 fifths (note 360) comes out of the octave and
forms with the fundamental, a new even smaller interval of 0.47
savarts.(since the comma of 0.88 savarts is 7 times smaller, 7 series
of 53 fifths is needed to fill the octave).
Then there is a cycle
of 666 notes with a basis interval of 0.035 savarts.
When
we come to the cycle of 25,524 notes with a basic interval of
0.002174 savarts, it begins to be interesting, since this cycle is
near the precession of equinoxes or the
Pythagorean Great Year, which is 25,920 solar years. (The
numbers of fifths are based on Alain Daniélou's calculations
in "Music and the Power of Sounds").
I
have been tempted to make a comparison with the cycle of fifths
and the Platonic Year in spite of the differences in unite. It is in
conflict with basic scientific principle to mix different set of
units such as years and notes. This bold assumption have caused some
legitimate reaction from readers. Dennis Rossi writes, that
precession of the equinoxes was discovered in China at a later date.
It is attributed to Yu Xi in 320 CE. He found a value of about 72 arc
seconds per year or two times the value found by Hipparchus, the
Greek astronomer. However, "astronomers as early as the Han era
noted that winter solstice shifted with respect to lunar lodges".
I did tried to calculate the cycle of fifths with a lunar year
instead of solar year but the numbers did not fit anyway. So far I am
not able to produce a valid explanation of how the ancient Chinese
did tuned their fundamental tone, Kung, to the Platonic Year.
Cousto has in his book, The Cosmic Octave, an interesting observation on this matter. He relates the Kung to the frequency of the Platonic Year. The duration of the Platonic Year, (The Pythagorean Great Year) is about 25,920 years and it represents the amount of time the axis of the Earth takes to complete a full rotation. The vernal equinox is the point at which the equator (of Earth) intersects the ecliptic (or zodiac), which is the position of the sun at the beginning of spring - March 21st.
The vernal equinox takes an average of 2,160 years to
travel through one sign of zodiac. This period of time is known as an
age. It is not possible to state exactly when one age is ending and a
new beginning, because the signs overlap to a certain degree.
The
journey of the vernal equinox through each of the 12 signs of the
Zodiac equals one great year of approx, 25,920 years.
(Presently we are on the cusp of Aquarius as the age of Pisces is
ending.)
The precession of
equinoxes cause in the span of millenniums do not only change the
fixed stars inter related position, but there have to be a shift of
sign in regard to the equinoxes as well as Solstices.
Since the
(vernal) equinox takes an average of 2,160 years to travel through
one sign of zodiac, means that for 2,160 years ago, when the ancient
Chinese looked at the zodiac, the "beginning" sign in the
vernal equinox was one sign away from that it is now. Or two signs
away for nearly 4,500 years ago, when the Egyptian ISIS was
known.
As I mentioned previously it is
most likely a coincidence, that the Platonic Year is close to the
high number of generating fifths, when we come into a cycle of 25,524
notes.
It is however a wonder for
me, how the ancient Chinese could tuned their sacred fundamental
tone, Kung, so it could be in accordance with the Platonic Year and
choose the great rhythm of the Earth. So far, I choose to think,
that the Chinese manifested a great awareness and intuition in cosmic
influences.
Cousto calculates the note of the Platonic year to be
F in the Western Equal Temperament pitch, which is found in the 48th
octave with a frequency of 344.12 Hz. or in the 47th. octave to
be 172.06 Hz.
Calculation:
31 556 925.97(the tropical year in seconds) * 25,920 (Platonic
year). Since the length (of a vibrating string, or the period of
time) is in reverse proportionality to the frequency, the length of
the Platonic year in seconds shall be the denominator. The frequency
is very low, so we will raise the frequency to the range of hearing
by multiplying with the necessary amount of octaves, e.g. 48 octaves,
so we arrive to 344,12 Hz. (47 octaves will be the half, 172,06
Hz.)
If we want to reach the spectrum of light, we multiply with
89 octaves which leads us to a frequency of 1/31 556 925.97 * 1/25
920 * 2 89
= 7,56 * 10
14
Hz. corresponding to a
wavelength of 0.396 micrometer, which we perceive as violet near the
ultra violet. This is the color of the Platonic Year. The
complementary color to violet is yellow. The Chinese called their
fundamental tone "the yellow bell".
Through the ages, civilizations have often wrestled
with the dilemma of whether to put up with unpractical musical
pitches to keep the pure idealism in their system of
pitch-calculation, or to depart a little from alignment with the
heavenly ideal by taking the practical path of slightly adjusting
their notes in order to harmonize them.
Though there were
individual figures who dissented, the ancient western cultures
generally opted, in their idealism, for heavenly alignment at the
expense of having slightly imperfect relationships between their
notes.
However, by the seventeenth century AD the Western
world would have begun its entry into the present era of science and
logic. This era was marked not only by an attitude of heavy
materialism, but also by a most useful pragmatism. The heavenly
alignment in the sacred tuning was abandoned for the sake of
expanding music’s harmonic possibilities.
Surely in the following centuries a new era of sublime harmonic music was composed in the deep intent to praise God in the music. However the focus was laid in the heart of each individual instead of the tuning of instruments and temperament of the scale.
The ancient Chinese culture was a model for a strict,
collective system of tuning of instruments. The reference tone, Kung,
relates to the frequency of the
Platonic Year. The note of the Platonic
year is F in the Western Equal Temperament pitch, which is found in
the 48th octave with a frequency of 344.12 Hz.
The Indian ancient
music had a less rigid system, where improvisations was allowed
within the bordes of certain
inviolable modes. The fundamental OM
sound, according to Cousto, corresponds approximately to the C sharp
in the small octave of the present day tuning system (136 Hz) and
corresponds to the 32nd octave tone of the Earth
year.
Numerous Chinese legends attest to the power of music and sound. Here is a quote about the music master Wen of Cheng and how he learned to control the elements:
"Master
Wen was following the great master Hsiang on his travels. For three
years master Wen touched the strings of his zither, but no melody
came. Then master Hsiang said to him: "By all means, go
home".
Putting down his instrument, master Wen sighed and
said: "It is not that I cannot bring a melody about. What I have
in my mind does not concern strings; what I aim at is not tones. Not
until I have reached it in my heart can I express it on the
instrument; therefore I do not dare move my hand and touch the
strings. But give me a short while and then examine me."
Some
time later he returned and again approached master Hsiang, who
inquired: "How about your playing?"
It was spring, but
when master Wen plucked the Shang string and accompanied it with the
eighth semitone, a cool wind sprang up, and the shrubs and trees bore
fruits. Now it was autumn!
Again master Wen plucked a string, the
Chiao string, and accompanied it with the second semitone: a languid,
warm breeze appeared, and the shrubs and trees bloomed fully. It was
now summer, but he plucked the Yü string and had the eleventh
semitone respond, upon which hoar frost and snow came down, the
rivers and lakes freezing up.
When the winter had come, he plucked
the Chib string and accompanied it with the fifth semitone: the sun
blazed forth and the ice immediately melted away.
Finally, master
Wen of Cheng sounded the Kung string and did so in unison with the
other four strings: beautiful winds murmured, clouds of good fortune
came up, there fell sweet dew, and the springs of water welled up
powerfully."
In this story the four outer strings of the zither,
and the four seasons, are symbolic of the ancient conception of the
four aspects of man: his abstract mind, his concrete mind, his
emotions and his physical body. (The European alchemists called them
Fire, Air, Water and Earth)
Master Wen could not play until he was
able to master his own four aspects of Being. The vital outcome of
the mastery of mind and body was the ability to play these four outer
strings in unison and hereby also learn to play the central Kung
string – corresponding to his Higher Self. From the four-sided
base of the pyramid of life, he had raised himself up to the very
apex of perfection.
The moral of the story is twofold: first, we must master our four-fold nature, before we can attain self-realization. Secondly, only by doing so we can begin to perform music, which is sublime and divine.
The ancient Chinese believed, that music could influence the harmony of the society, and they were very keen on right tuning with the celestial influence, so order and harmony could prevail. The Chinese imperial culture manage to flourish for 4 thousand years, before a decline began in the 19th. Century. The taste for a modern style in drama and music was beginning to replace the ancient traditions. The great classical modes were supplanted by styles which were more popular, noisier, cheaper and imitative. The Western influence may have played a part, since its music was begun to be appreciated and played on the expense of their own traditional music.
The fact remains, that the decline in music was
paralleled by a general decline in the culture itself. The emperors
of the last dynasty attempted to direct music back to its former
state, but without success. In 1912 it was replaced by a republic.
Yet from its beginning the republic was rocked by instability,
Japanese invation and civil wars, untill the Communist China in 1949
was founded.
In this Century, we are begining to see the
outline of a new, powerful Chinese culture.
The general assumption is, that music is a product of the society and a reflection of its culture. This may be so in many cases, but history has also examples were new music has been the initial force to alter the society and even change the cause of history.
A good example is the American revolution and
Independence War against the British colonial regime. Several years
before the actual uprising, resistance songs began to appear in print
and swept the colonies with extremely popularity. The inspirational,
freedom songs was the gathering force for organizing resistance
gropes and the mean for shaping their vision for the future of their
land.
The "Freedom Song" by John Dickinson in 1768 was
one of the first and set the pattern for all those songs, which
fueled the minds and spirit years before the actual physical movement
began.
During the Independence War the "Yankee Doodle"
was a favorites of favorites, sung in defeat as well as in the final
victory.
Many of the political leaders of the emerging New World,
such as Francis Hopkinson, Thomas Paine and Benjamin Franklin, were
among the songwriters, in addition to being Freemasons.
The history of USA shows how powerful music can be.
The Americans has in my opinion a special talent for entertainment
and music, which has manifested itself as a world captioning force in
the 20th. Century.
Music has the power of uniting people as
well as dividing them. It can be the medium of creating uplifting
(sublime) emotions, unite disagreeable parts or at least for
pacifying the common man.
Music can support people in their idea
of an identity, which clearly is manifested in the generation gap or
sub grouping. As a music teacher cried out: "Beatles is as
remote for the young kids as Beethoven!"
What is new is the shot amount of years between
generations. 5 years can easy separate youngster by fashion of
music.
The new
popular music has created strong space in the mind of the modern
youth creating an idea of identity and affiliation with sub groups.
Before music had the power to unite people. Now it seems to
divide.
There is a long tradition for fueling the national or
political affiliations by music, such as the national anthem and
party songs. Sometime music even can built the bridge between hostile
groups, though the have not meet.
An
example of such is the West-East
Divan symphony orchestra founded by the famous Jewish
pianist Daniel Barnboim and exiled Palestine scholar Edward Said. The
sole reason of this orchestra was to manifest, that Jews, Muslims,
Christens are able to play music together in spite of deep
differences. As Daniel Barnboim said, when he became honored citizen
of Palestrina: "Playing together does not create peace.
Playing together brings mutual understanding and respect, which is
the fundament for peace."
There are other orchestras world
wide with similar intentions.
The concern a regime or an establishment has against
new music, demonstrate what power music is considered by the rulers
to have on the mind of the people.
A modern example is the
repression of Western music, the Communist Russia and similar
dictatorships executed with zealous strength by censorship and
persecution.
The established hierarchy and control can be
questioned or threatened by the new music introduction to novel modes
of consciousness into the society. Classical music from the earlier
imperial zar-regime was aloud, since it encodes and articulates the
structure of a centralized political-economic system similar to the
communist dictatorship. Music composers during the communist
regime was forced to obey the party guide lines and praise the
establishment.
The Western music, however, reflects in its structure
a less rigid form of hierarchy (democracy), which allows much more
creativity and innovation. The rock n' roll music has in many ways
become a powerful medium for the propagation of the lifestyle of the
Western world. Totalitarian states worldwide try to prevent its youth
to hear it well aware of its liberating force.
An example could
be the use of rap music created by the young generation in Iran as a
protest against the strict religious government. On the other hand,
in the Muslim ghettoes of France, the rap is about their alienation
and hate at the police.
In many historic battles the music had the
function of encouraging the fighting spirit. The Scottish bagpipe was
famous in many WWII battles. During the Vietnam war the eclectic
guitar and the protest songs was a powerful weapon for the drafted
youth against that war. The electrification of the music made it
possible to reach a big audience in live concerts, when the record
companies tried to band the protest songs.
Also, in the general
battle against the establishment, the new culture of youth personify
in rock bands had great success in capturing the mind and shaping the
new identity. The "Hippie" movement or the "Beat"
generation was supported by the explosion of new music, which
subverted the old structure in the society by praising "freedom"
and "individuality", a.s.o.
The entertainment industry is bigger and
more powerful than ever. For better and for worse. I like to say,
that entertainment is stronger than military force. There is much
truth in the joke about, what made the communist Russia to collapse?
It was the soap TV series called "Dallas"!
Of
cause the so called sex liberation had a powerful "weapon"
with the new music. It was more sexy to be a musician than an
engineer! Popular music became the fast lane to fame, sex and money
for underprivileged, ambitious people.
In the course of time the
corruption became obvious. Few had the backbone to withstand the cult
status and displayed an abusive behavior and a depraved example for
the fans.
When old rituals are removed, the empty space has
to be replaced by something else. The vacant space has in my opinion
been taken over by "the lord of the flies"(W.Golding's
book). The tyranny of formlessness! When parents e.g. have resigned
their authority, the children make their own regulations even more
tyrannical.
Rituals give a concrete shape, color and zest to many abstract spiritual ideals. A wisely planned and solemnly conducted ritual prepares the ground, creates the atmosphere, suggests the mood and predisposes the mind so that we may easily detach ourselves from the three dimensional (+ time) worlds and feel the mysterious presence of the higher intelligence and the Supreme universal power.
The greatest men in life, the most wonderfully
developed in spirituality, have all come through the discipline of
the rituals.
Magic and rituals have long been connected. There is
magic in any ceremony that we do, whether it of a routine nature,
such as making a wish on our birthday, or whether it is a
sophisticated ritual involving all kinds of movements, lights and
music.
In both cases we are using the power of the ritual in
order to obtain something in our life, or to enter higher dimensions.
An actual definition of magic is difficult. Scott Cunningham states: "Magic is the projection of natural energies to produce needed effects." In other words, every time that we consciously connect to the universal energy in order to direct it to a specific result that we wish to manifest in our life, we are utilizing the so called magic.
Rituals are the tools by which we are utilizing and
harnessing the power of the universe. The purpose is to demonstrate
the connection between nature and its laws. Rituals are a reminder to
us that we are an intricate part of this vast universe. Ritual is the
form and structure that enables our spirit to enter higher
dimensions. It is the safe space that allows us to open to the
deepest part of ourselves.
Ritual is transformational. You
commence a ritual in one state of being and end in another. The
result is always a shift of consciousness. Ritual contributes to your
wholeness by allowing enough safety and freedom for all the parts of
yourself to be expressed.
Considering how much indifferent,
space filling "music" has occupied the modern environment,
I would say, that "music" has become a destructive force
itself, preventing one to think and feel for oneselves and make one
numb.
Silence
has become a care commodity.
As Aldous Huxley stated: "The twentieth century is, among other things, the Age of Noise. Physical noise, mental noise and noise of desire - we hold history's record for all of them. And no wonder; for all the resources of our almost miraculous technology have been thrown into the current assault against silence."
The history shows how music (and art)
served those institutions, that had the power and money in the
society. This statement might sound a bit overstating for those
thinking, that art has its own agenda, but in the long run the
economy rules the art.
For a long time the church sponsored the
art. When the king got the upper hand, the art began to reflect a
more mundane expression. With the rise of the middle class (and
introduction of democracy), the art began to fulfill their need for
entertainment, since they had the money to pay for it.
After
World War II an entirely new segment of the society began to have
money available for entertainment especially for music, the
teenagers.
Rock n' Roll and later Beat music shaped a new anti-authoritarian
culture of youth, which changed the structure of the society, when
that generation entered the institutions.
Read
more at my page about music and society in this age of the
fatherless society,
where dreams and feelings are the engine in the society, not the
physical needs. The virtual world is here to stay!
My sole concern in these pages has been
the positive
aspect of music and sound. How it has the capacity to
elevate, enrich and feed the body and soul for its dormant potential.
Music has the ability to soak and clean ones innate strength.
However, it can not create gold, if there is no gold in the first
place, as the old alchemist belived. There have to be a seed, which
music can enrich. Failing this the music is futile.
As
a keen music lover it has troubled me to read about the use of music
in Nazi concentration camps. Fine classical music was played for the
waiting prisoner doomed for destruction. The commandant of Auswitzs
was a music lover and played his violin to the thick smoke from the
crematory. Adolf Hitler was inspired by Richard Wagner's "Parsifal".
I am too. Does this make me or Wagner to a monster?
The great Father of the Church, Aurelius
Augustinus, 354-430 AC, used an example to illustrate the evil.
He will not steal the pear in the garden of the neighbor for the
pleasure of eating the pear, but because it was forbidden.
He wished the evil, because it was evil.
"I stole, because I
had a dislike for doing the right, and it urges me to sin," he
confessed.
Humans has their freedom as a birthright given by their creator. Hence, they make their own choice between good and evil. "The drama of liberty" as the post war German philosopher, Rüdiger Safranski, label it in his book, "The Evil".
Since the legendary Cain killed his
brother, mankind has tried to deal with its enigmatic freedom.
Through millennium religion's, philosophical systems and ethics has
attempted to moderate the boundless liberty of man with more or less
success.
In regard to the twentieth Century chaotic bloodshed,
Safranski articulate a question about our modern, technological
civilization:
Does it in reality eliminate the freedom to act for
the modern man?
The deeds of the individual human is still possible as before, but they are now woven into so many complex systems, that the desired effect is far from the final result. Has the dynamic of our complex technological civilization now reached a point, where it has its own inherent logic, and man is going to be "burnt" by its own civilization? Safranski asked, if this degree of civilization has become disastrous and therefore evil?
Man has liberated himself from Nature by means of institutions and civilizations. Now the question is: has civilization disengaged its self from man? Is humanity still in control and is able to make choices between good and evil? It can make weapons of mass destruction, but does it have a simillar level of consciousness and devolopment of the heart? Has our modern technology liberated its self from man and is now rolling as an avalanche down in the pit?
Augustinus stated, that the nature of
mankind stands between God and the rest of the Nature, which solely
was created by the will of God.
Man has his own will, which stem
from his given liberty. A will which in arrogance can lead Man to
believe, that he is his own foundation.
God is able to create out of noting, "creatio ex nihilo".
The human will can not do. It can not even do what it desire. When it
thinks it has done something "good" with the right hand,
the left hand did not know, what harm it has done.
Man is imperfect in contrast to Nature,
whish in its own way is what it is. Man has to figure out, what he is
going to be. In this continued process, he has the tendency to fall
down to be less, than he can be due to the original sin as the
scripture states.
As Augustinus confessed, it was arrogant
and dangerous to refuse Gods offer to be a part of His will. To deny
the spirit of Man to be one with the spirit of God, means that the
spirit of Man is too fond of its self.
He commits a treachery against himself,
since he denys the chance to reach beyound his own limited
foundation.
This was a major break from the way of
thinking of the Antiquity. Contrary to
Augustine the philosophy of the Antiquity was convinced, that Man
could be a goal for its self, and true knowledge was able to change
Man to a better being.
"Know yourself" so you know,
what you can, and only want, what you are able to do. It was
imperative to know ones limits, so one only aspire to what was
possible. When the will and the ability to do has the same
extent, the limitations creates harmony.
In the time of
Socrates the harmony between being and doing still might have had
sense.
The modern man does not have such
understanding. There is no longer a synchronization between being and
doing. His knowledge is far more, than his real being actually can
understand. His wishes goes beyond, what he is able to manage, e.g.
bloody revolutions fueled by idealistic theories, and he is able to
do more than he wants, e.g. ecological disasters and social collapse.
The modern Man is deeply disturbed. First he rejects the
transcendence by not aiming for powers above himself, and now he does
not even know himself and his limitations.
"A priori one can claim, that all perceptions
and responses, all categories of behavior, all learning and genetics,
all neurology, physiology and endocrinology, all organization and all
evolution, can be considered as communication. This broad field can
all be subject to the laws of communication."
In fact,
it is impossible not to communicate. We are born into the world of
communication, we are a part of it willing or unconsciously, and even
after our death it continues as legacy.
As mentioned in Information
theory, Bateson made use of the mind concept in description of
complex cybernetic systems, including the unconscious mind.
Bateson
was an anthropologist and his use of mind in complex living systems
has nothing to do with the common idea of a "religious"
mind in Nature. He did not accept the notion transcendence, as the
keen scientist he was, but considered control and self-regulating as
a mental
aspect, which did not belong to a part of the system,
but was inherent in the whole
system.
The individual mind, which is immanent
in the circuit within and outside the body, is only a subsystem of
the supreme mind. This larger mind is not some transcendental deity.
It is still immanent in the total
interconnected social system or planetary ecology.
It is an
entirely self adjusting unity, which "think, act and determine"
and the boundaries do not coincide with the organisms or parts
involved, but is weaved in or incorporated into the whole system.
For Bateson the mind concept was a description, a
model, a map, which should not be confused with the landscape. In
science as in daily life the mistake of categories is common.
He
liked to rephrase Pascal's expression, "the heart has its own
reason which is unknown to the intelligence", to "the heart
has its own precise algorithm".
Algorithm is a mathematical
recipe for a process or calculation, also used in computer
programming. Bateson used this statement to explain the underlying
premises for our perception, thinking and acting, which is unable to
be captured or understood by the algorithm of the language.
He
considered art, music and religion as examples of pre-verbal
thinking, a bridge over the gap between consciousness/mind and
pre-verbal perception. This immanent supreme deity, which he
jocularly called the god, Eco, is permeating man, nature and the
universe.
Jesus Christ said: "My words are spirit and they are life and they do accomplish that whereunto they are sent."
Spirit is the creative cause in the Universe and our words are potent only as this same spirit is seen as the operative force behind them. It is the activity of the force of Nature, that makes the seed grow for no seed has power within itself. It is a container or vehicle of that force. So it is with words. Our consciousness or awareness of Spirit is the focal point in the power of the word.
Idle words are impotent and do not create; though
they, in a sense, may add to the state of hypnosis.
To fear negative words is to add to their hypnotic energies and
thereby adds to the influence of the negative words. The power of
ignorant or idle words is only, that they may intensify the hypnotic
state of man’s mind, but they do not alter the creative cause
in the least.
The power of the negative words is only the
modernization of the old idea of the devil, and is a direct violation
of the fact, that there is only the power of God.
When one begins to assemble in his consciousness the
activities of any principle, he begins to say, "I am …"
This is the centralizing of the authority of the principle in him. "I
am" renders the mind dynamic instead of letting it rest in
potentiality. It becomes dynamic the moment we focus thought upon I
AM. The focal point is the center always and from it emanates the
authoritative commands that control and determine the entire status
of the man who is capable of manifesting the actualization of his/her
command.
This name "I AM" was God to Moses. It has come
down through the ages as "I AM". To the Hindus it is AUM,
which means the same. Likewise to the Christians’ "Amen".
The Chinese use it as TAU.
It has been hard for me to conceive the power of
thoughts, though many reliable sources through time have expressed
so.
An explanation might be, that our thoughts usually are
chaotic.
They are happening without any real control or focus, whirling around
without any consistent direction or deep purpose. It is an army where
the soldiers are marching against each other instead of following the
direction given by the king. The powerful army cancels itself
out!
When I read Baird Spalding books "Life
and Teachings of the Masters of the Far East", vol. 1-6, I
became quite astonished over what those holy men could do. It surely
demonstrated the miraculous potential
humans possess.
Anyway, we are unaware of the miraculous power of thought. I guess, we have fallen asleep to it! What we experience is the response to stimuli mainly from the outside world. We call it physical reality and it can be real tough, but mainly it is a subjective reality. Who has not experienced the change of reality by a shift in mood or emotion? One can say, that thoughts works as the mediator or a lens that shape your reality.
Music and sounds that are created from the heart and have the intention to communicate to other hearts, carries emotions about God and is a reminder of the divinity deep inside us. Such music put the brain to "soak" so the daily "noise" is dissolved and give space for deeper emotions and thoughts, so the real self has a chance to be present. This is the meaning of real music.
We are born into this Earth with a limited consciousness and have lost the memory of what we are and from where we come. The Fall of Man as the scriptures tells, has caused a separation from the mighty Creator God.
The purpose with this life is to remember and
recreate WHO WE REALLY ARE.
We recreate under difficult conditions and heavy laws, by our own
choices, that divine being our Father Creator has given to us as our
birthright.
Some say that we are Physical Angels, who carry all
the elements of the holographic universe within us; we are ONE spirit
in ONE body.
Usually we are not aware of our multi - dimensional body, so we feel lost and alone. The freedom to choose between right or wrong is often difficult and we are tempted to blame our Farther for our misery, forgetting that unconditional love give us the sole and exclusive right to choose. Our consciousness is our guide.
Music contains a secret power, which can shape the mind of man and alter societies or nations. It is a two-edged sword. It can bring us in alignments with God and our deepest, real self or diverge us from the supreme influence of our mighty Creator.
The ancients believed, that music in the hands of the
"evil" or ignorant, could only lead the civilization to an
inevitable doom, but in the hands of the illumined, music was a tool
of beauty and power, which could lead the entire society into a
golden age of peace, prosperity and brotherhood.
Even in recent
time in Western Europe this belief was expressed. As Andrew Fletcher,
the writer and orator, stated in the Scottish Parliament of 1704:
"I
knew a very vise man, who believed that if a man were permitted to
make all the ballads, he need not care who should make the laws of a
nation."
Ancient
civilizations were well aware of that power in music and sounds, and
took different measures in order to have the musical supreme
influence prevail. The ancient Chinese civilization, which mirrored
this most vigorously, lasted 5000 years.
The most important task
for the Ancient Chinese Emperor was to secure the foundation tone,
the huang chang, the musical note which was called Kung. The
celestial influence changed in time and the Emperor had the
responsibility of tuning the Kung in perfect harmony with the divine
energies from Above so the harmony in his country could be
maintained.
Every single instrument in China had to be tuned in
accordance with the imperial tone. So closely affiliated was the
foundation tone, Kung, to the affair of the state, that the standard
of weights and measurements was calculated from the sacred pipe. A
musical education for the officials was considered as important as
the skills for their job.
There are many paths to re-member and re-create
oneself and hereby become one with our Creator.
Hence,
you too can sing your song to the Uni-verse.
This dissertation has focused on music and sound, which has the potential to open the gate to the multi dimensional realm of man and let the heart sing its song in harmony with the Uni-verse. As you may have noticed, this does not apply to the music, we usually clutter our empty space with.
Copyright © 1998-2009, Thomas Váczy Hightower.
The privious part I of The Sound of Silence
See the first part of The Musical Octave, The Creation of the Musical Scales
Send me a comment: mail@vaczy.dk