Music and the Power of Sound : The Influence of Tuning and Interval on Consciousness

Music has always been esteemed for its power to speak directly to our higher consciousness, a power founded in the purity of simple harmonic ratios. In this book, Alain Danielou traces the development of musical scales and tuning from their origins in both China and India, through their merging in ancient Greece, and on to the development of the Western traditions of modal and polyphonic music. Understanding these potent harmonic relationships offers a way for today's musicians to transcend the limitations of overly rationalistic music by drawing on its metaphysical roots.Music, above all other arts, has always been esteemed for its power to speak directly to our higher consciousness. Based on unchanging laws of number and proportion, music also embodies the fundamental metaphysical principles underlying everyday reality. How do these two aspects of music's power, it's twin roots in consciousness and mathematics, relate to one another? And why does each of the world's music systems seem to have its own unique effects on consciousness? \_Music and the Power of Sound\_ is a new and thoroughly revised edition of Alain Daniélou's pioneering \_Introduction to the Study of Musical Scales\_, an important book that for many years has been virtually unobtainable in the West. In these pages, Daniélou traces the development of musical scales from their origins in both China and India, through the merging in ancient Greece of those two systems, and on to the development of the Western musical traditions of modal and polyphonic music. Because musical pitches have specific frequencies, their relationships can be expressed numerically as ratios of greater or lesser complexity: the simpler the ratio, the more euphonious the harmony. The musicians of antiquity understood scales to be either cycles of simple intervals (China), arrays of varying intervals around a central pitch (India), or a combination of the two (Greece). Any one of these methods of construction resulted in a multitude of contrasting scales, each capable of expressing distinct emotional and spiritual states. Those scales, Daniélou argues, not only reflected but also influenced the spiritual values of their parent civilizations. In the purity of simple harmonic ratios can be found the secrets of music's affective power. These potent harmonic relationships offer a way for today's musicians to transcend the limitations of our overly rationalistic musical system and fashion a synthesis with the metaphysical roots of the most eternal of arts. ALAIN DANIÉLOU (1907-1994), the founder of the International Institute of Comparative Musicology in Berlin, elucidated for tens of thousands of readers the meanings of the arts and religious traditions of both East and West. He was an accomplished player of the vinã and taught in the music department at the University of Benares. His numerous books, the product of a career spanning six decades, include: \_The Myths and Gods of India\_; \_Gods of Love and Ecstasy\_; \_While the Gods Play\_; \_Virtue, Success, Pleasure, and Liberation\_; \_The Phallus\_; \_Yoga: Mastering the Secrets of Matter and the Universe\_; and \_The Complete Kama Sutra\_.;Intro; Title Page; Dedication; Contents; List of Tables and Figures; Foreword by Sylvano Bussotti; Editor's Note; Chapter One: Metaphysical Correspondences; Chapter Two: The Conflict of Musical Systems; The Different Musical Systems; The Structure of Musical Sounds; Relations between Sounds; Fifth and Octave; Octave and Mode; Fifth and Modulation; Harmony and Temperament; Melodic Expression or Harmonic Expression; Chapter Three: The Measurement of Intervals and Harmonic Sounds; Measurement of Intervals; The Scale of Sounds; Notation; Harmonics; The Scale of Harmonics Music has always been esteemed for its power to speak directly to our higher consciousness, a power founded in the purity of simple harmonic ratios. In this book, Alain Danielou traces the development of musical scales and tuning from their origins in both China and India, through their merging in ancient Greece, and on to the development of the Western traditions of modal and polyphonic music. Understanding these potent harmonic relationships offers a way for today's musicians to transcend the limitations of overly rationalistic music by drawing on its metaphysical roots. Music, above all other arts, has always been esteemed for its power to speak directly to our higher consciousness. Based on unchanging laws of number and proportion, music also embodies the fundamental metaphysical principles underlying everyday reality. How do these two aspects of music's power, it's twin roots in consciousness and mathematics, relate to one another? And why does each of the world's music systems seem to have its own unique effects on consciousness? _Music and the Power of Sound_ is a new and thoroughly revised edition of Alain Daniélou's pioneering _Introduction to the Study of Musical Scales_, an important book that for many years has been virtually unobtainable in the West. In these pages, Daniélou traces the development of musical scales from their origins in both China and India, through the merging in ancient Greece of those two systems, and on to the development of the Western musical traditions of modal and polyphonic music. Because musical pitches have specific frequencies, their relationships can be expressed numerically as ratios of greater or lesser complexity: the simpler the ratio, the more euphonious the harmony. The musicians of antiquity understood scales to be either cycles of simple intervals (China), arrays of varying intervals around a central pitch (India), or a combination of the two (Greece). Any one of these methods of construction resulted in a multitude of contrasting scales, each capable of expressing distinct emotional and spiritual states. Those scales, Daniélou argues, not only reflected but also influenced the spiritual values of their parent civilizations. In the purity of simple harmonic ratios can be found the secrets of music's affective power. These potent harmonic relationships offer a way for today's musicians to transcend the limitations of our overly rationalistic musical system and fashion a synthesis with the metaphysical roots of the most eternal of arts. ALAIN DANIÉLOU (1907-1994), the founder of the International Institute of Comparative Musicology in Berlin, elucidated for tens of thousands of readers the meanings of the arts and religious traditions of both East and West. He was an accomplished player of the vinã and taught in the music department at the University of Benares. His numerous books, the product of a career spanning six decades, include: _The Myths and Gods of India_; _Gods of Love and Ecstasy_; _While the Gods Play_; _Virtue, Success, Pleasure, and Liberation_; _The Phallus_; _Yoga: Mastering the Secrets of Matter and the Universe_; and _The Complete Kama Sutra_ Intro Title Page Dedication Contents List of Tables and Figures Foreword by Sylvano Bussotti Editor's Note Chapter One: Metaphysical Correspondences Chapter Two: The Conflict of Musical Systems The Different Musical Systems The Structure of Musical Sounds Relations between Sounds Fifth and Octave Octave and Mode Fifth and Modulation Harmony and Temperament Melodic Expression or Harmonic Expression Chapter Three: The Measurement of Intervals and Harmonic Sounds Measurement of Intervals The Scale of Sounds Notation Harmonics The Scale of Harmonics Chapter Four: The-Cycle of Fifths: The Musical Theory of the ChineseChinese Music The Nature and Purpose of Music Yin and Yang The Seven Degrees of the Pentatonic Scale Symbolic Representation of the Pentatonic Scale The Spiral of Fifths Equalized or Tempered divisions The Lü The Degrees of the Scale The Scale of the Lü Symbolism and Correspondences of the Lü Meanings of the Names of the First Twelve Lü Correspondences of the Degrees of the Scale Western Commentaries Chapter Five: Relations to A Tonic: The Model Music of India Indian Musical Theory The Laws of Music and their ApplicationsModal System and Harmonic System The Problem of the Division of Sound The Theory of Elements Sound and Vibration The Nine Svaras The Tonic and the Grāmas The Diatonic Series and the Comma Diesis The Tonic and Cosmic Cycles The Two Diatonic Scales The Ga Grāma The Scale of Nine Sounds and the Mūrchanas Chromatic and Enharmonic Acoustic Definition of the Division of Śrutis Symbolic Necessity of the Division into Twenty-two Śrutis Musical Definition of the Śrutis Further Subdivisions of the Śrutis Misinterpretations of the Śrutis Western Division of the Octave into Twenty-two IntervalsInfluence of Indian Theory in Europe The Jātis Affinities of the Musical Notes The Modes or Rāgas Definition of Rāgas The Periods of the Day The Modal or Harmonic Division of the Octave Chapter Six: Confusion of The Systems: The Music of The Greeks Ancient Greek Music The Theory of the Scale Genus The Enharmonic Genus The Chromatic Genus The Diatonic Genus Dorian Harmonies Exotic Harmonies The Fifteen Tones of Transposition Chapter Seven: The Western Scale and Equal Temperament Western Music The Modes of Plainchant The Scale of ZarlinoThe Major Mode Equal Temperament Chapter Eight: The Scale of Sounds The Need for a Scale of Sounds Three, the Cyclic Number, and Five, the Modal Number Similarities Between the Scale of Fifths and the Scale of Proportions Remarks on The Scale of Sounds Conclusions References Bibliography Other books by Alain Daniélou About the Author About Inner Traditions Books of Related Interest Copyright The idea that the universe is created out of sound or music (and therefore is music) is a very ancient one. In this book, Joscelyn Godwin brings together three contemporary German thinkers who exemplify this tradition in its modern variants: Marius Schneider, Rudolf Haase, and Hans Erhard Lauer. The selections draw on ancient Indian sources and mythology; Kepler's Platonic vision of a musical, geometric universe; and the evolution of the tone systems of music. While every music lover senses the power and truth that reside in music, very few actually approach music as a path to cosmic knowledge. Godwin takes literally Beethoven's assertion that "Music is a higher revelation than all wisdom or philosophy." Godwin writes, "...to penetrate the mysteries of music is to prepare for initiation into those fathomless mysteries of man and cosmos."

Music has always been esteemed for its power to speak directly to our higher consciousness, a power founded in the purity of simple harmonic ratios. In this book, Alain Danielou traces the development of musical scales and tuning from their origins in both China and India, through their merging in ancient Greece, and on to the development of the Western traditions of modal and polyphonic music. Understanding these potent harmonic relationships offers a way for today's musicians to transcend the limitations of overly rationalistic music by drawing on its metaphysical roots.