numerology and music

just as modern medicine practice owes its roots to medieval
gravediggers, musical tuning owes it roots to mathmatician/astronomers
attempting to mirror/discover the sacred proportions in the macro/micro
world around them. Just as modern medicine will never completely free
itself of its beginnings, neither will tuning practice. That
microtonality and just intonation and the other methods of constructing
tuning have had difficulty in acceptance by the mainstream of music
makers lies in the "monotheistic" attitude of there being one supreme
all encompassing tuning. Not to pick on all you ET practioners , but the
reason i prefer not to work in any et is that it is a closed cycle. With
just and the other tunings enities I use I am always aware that I am
within a small area open on all sides, ready to see the possibility of
one intervalm replacing the other at any moment. Perhaps you ETers have
your own way of seeing it that my feeble mind has missed so please
share!
My favorite numerology excursions have been "777 and other Qabalistic
writings of Aliester Crowley. Samuel Weiser. new york 1973". The basic
idea behind much in this book is primal ideas or conception are
symbolized by primes with the other numbers being the result of the
combination of these ideas. In theroy, any idea or ideas can be
represented by a number.
31 represents (in this book) both god (AL) and not (LA). Here athiest
should find a welcome resting place!
In passing, one might find some significance in the Wilsons use of
Pascal triangle, otherwise known as Mt. Meru in the east. Maybe many of
these artifacts were concidered Sacred due to the proliferation of just
the amount of things that decend from these peaks!
Is not the beauty of the pythagorian scales not enough to stand in awe
of 3 on some level!
Pardon me for going so many directions, I've been off the net for these
last 5 months, It was alot of tuning email to go though in a day! May
you all prosper! Kraig Grady (also at www.anaphoria.com)

On Thu, 6 Aug 1998, Mark Wilkes wrote:
> Another thing I'd like to know is what kind of sensitivity an average
> musician's ear has, in terms of pitch change. +/- 0.5Hz? Less?

That's impossible to answer without defining more specifically what
context you're talking about. With a good rich timbre, clear harmonic
context, and sustained tones, surprisingly many people can hear
differences of down to a cent or even less because of beat rates. OTOH,
with a timbre with few strong partials, fast tempi, and/or an isolated
melody (or a sufficiently complex harmonic context), even fairly large
commas can pass unnoticed.

--pH http://library.wustl.edu/~manynote
O
/\ "Churchill? Can he run a hundred balls?"
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NOTE: dehyphenate node to remove spamblock. <*>

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End of TUNING Digest 1495
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