Category Archives: Music

Quadrivium: The Four Classical Liberal Arts of Number, Geometry, Music, & Cosmology

17 Apr ’12

The quadrivium—the classical curriculum—comprises the four liberal arts of number, geometry, music, and cosmology. It was studied from antiquity to the Renaissance as a way of glimpsing the nature of reality. Geometry is number in space; music is number in time; and comology expresses number in space and time. Number, music, and geometry are metaphysical truths: life across the universe investigates them; they foreshadow the physical sciences.

Quadrivium is the first volume to bring together these four subjects in many hundreds of years. Composed of six successful titles in the Wooden Books series—Sacred Geometry, Sacred Number, Harmonograph, The Elements of Music, Platonic & Archimedean Solids, and A Little Book of Coincidence—it makes ancient wisdom and its astonishing interconnectedness accessible to us today.

Beautifully produced in six different colors of ink, Quadrivium will appeal to anyone interested in mathematics, music, astronomy, and how the universe works.

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Ancient Builders Created Monumental Structures that Altered Sound and Mind, Say Researchers

12 Mar ’12

The results of recent research suggests that ancient, or prehistoric, builders of the monumental structures found in such diverse places as Ireland, Malta, southern Turkey and Peru all have a peculiarly common characteristic — they may have been specially designed to conduct and manipulate sound to produce certain sensory effects.

Beginning in 2008, a recent and ongoing study of the massive 6,000-year-old stone structure complex known as the Hal Saflieni Hypogeum on the island of Malta, for example, is producing some revelatory results. Like its related prehistoric temple structures on Malta, this structure features central corridors and curved chambers. But this structure is unique in that it is subterranean, created through the removal of an estimated 2,000 tons of stone carved out with stone hammers and antler picks. Low voices within its walls create eerie, reverberating echoes, and a sound made or words spoken in certain places can be clearly heard throughout all of its three levels. Now, scientists are suggesting that certain sound vibration frequencies created when sound is emitted within its walls are actually altering human brain functions of those within earshot.

“Regional brain activity in a number of healthy volunteers was monitored by EEG through exposure to different sound vibration frequencies,” reports Malta temple expert Linda Eneix of the Old Temples Study Foundation,  ”The findings indicated that at 110 Hz the patterns of activity over the prefrontal cortex abruptly shifted, resulting in a relative deactivation of the language center and a temporary shifting from left to right-sided dominance related to emotional processing and creativity. This shifting did not occur at 90 Hz or 130 Hz……In addition to stimulating their more creative sides, it appears that an atmosphere of resonant sound in the frequency of 110 or 111 Hz would have been “switching on” an area of the brain that bio-behavioral scientists believe relates to mood, empathy and social behavior. Deliberately or not, the people who spent time in such an environment under conditions that may have included a low male voice — in ritual chanting or even simple communication — were exposing themselves to vibrations that may have actually impacted their thinking.” [...]

From: Popular Archaeology

Category Anthropology, Archaeology, Music Tags , , , , ,

Kepler’s surprise: The sounds of the stars

6 Jan ’12

Most astronomers gaze at the heavens and see stars. William Chaplin hears an orchestra — a celestial symphony in which the smallest stars are flutes, the medium-sized ones are trombones and the giants are reverberating tubas.

The sounds are internal vibrations that reveal themselves as a subtle, rhythmic brightening and dimming of a star, explains Chaplin, an astrophysicist at the University of Birmingham, UK, and a specialist in astroseismology. These waves provide information that astronomers can’t get in any other way: triggered by the turbulent rise and fall of hot gases on the star’s surface, the vibrations penetrate deep into the stellar interior and become resonating tones that reveal the star’s size, composition and mass (see ‘Celestial music’). So by watching for the characteristic fluctuations in brightness, says Chaplin, “we can literally build up a picture of what the inside of a star looks like”.

Better still, he adds, asteroseismologists are now hauling in the data wholesale. After years of being hampered by Earth’s turbulent atmosphere, which obscures the view of the Universe and has limited asteroseismology to about 20 of the brightest nearby stars, researchers have been astonished by the trove of information coming from a new generation of space observatories. Thanks to the French-led Convection, Rotation and Planetary Transits (COROT) space telescope, launched in 2006, and NASA’s Kepler space telescope, launched in 2009, they can now listen in on hundreds of stars at a time.

“We are in a golden age for the study of stellar structure and evolution,” says Hans Kjeldsen, an astronomer at Aarhus University in Denmark.

from: Nature

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Ancient Egyptian Meditation Music

6 Jan ’12

Gerald Jay Markoe studied classical music at both Juilliard (B.A.) and the Manhattan School of Music (M.A.). Since the early 1960s, Markoe has studied meditation and astrology, and he specialized in translating the positions of the planets into music, often recording custom tapes based on a person’s astrological sign.

Category Esoterica, Music, Shamanism, Videos Tags , , , ,

Sacred Chants of Shiva – Craig Pruess and Singers of the Art of Living

11 Dec ’11

Intensely beautiful!! Spacious, transcendental Sanskrit Chants for meditation and silence.

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Mohammed Reza Lotfi, Sehtar

11 Jan ’11

Mohammed Reza Lotfi, Sehtar (via parviz4321)

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Alexander Zhikharev – Singing Bronze

15 Sep ’10

Alexander Zhikharev was born in 1951 in the village Khoroshevo, which is now the Moscow region Khoroshevo-Mnevniki. after he got out of the army, he started working at the factory VILS [All-Union Institute of Light Alloys] & there poured his first bell. down the road, Alexander served as a bell ringer in the Kremlin & the Cathedral of Christ the Savior, researching manyyears to realize a way to replicate the bells dreamy resonances. In 1988, he found a form that is comparable in sound to the traditional bells and decided to call it ‘Hammer Icon’ or bila. They were flat, bronze & brass plaques, varying in size & weight, which emitted a surprisingly beautiful tone, quite unlike anything that sounds.

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Albert Einstein and Rabindranath Tagore

6 May ’10

Albert Einstein and Rabindranath Tagore in Berlin, Germany, 14th July, 1930

Nobel Laureates Prof Albert Einstein (1921) and Sir Rabindranath Tagore (1913) met at Einstein’s residence in Berlin, Germany, on 14th July 1930, as photographed. The recorded conversation elegantly demonstrates how the two utilised the language of music, as a metaphor, to forge common ground between science & spirituality.

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Steve Reich – Music for 18 Musicians

4 Mar ’09

Steve Reich “Music for 18 Musicians” – Section IIIA

Music for 18 Musicians is a seminal work of musical minimalism composed by Steve Reich during 1974-1976. Its world premiere was on April 24, 1976 at Town Hall, New York.

The piece is based around a cycle of eleven chords. A small piece of music is based around each chord, and the piece returns to the original cycle at the end. The sections are aptly named “Pulses,” and Section I-XI. This was Reich’s first attempt at writing for larger ensembles, and the extension of performers resulted in a growth of psycho-acoustic effects, which fascinated Reich, and he noted that he would like to “explore this idea further”. A prominent factor in this work is the augmentation of the harmonies and melodies and the way that they develop this piece. Another important factor in the piece is the use of human breath, used in the clarinets and voices, which help structure and bring a pulse to the piece. The player plays the pulsing note for as long as he can hold it, while each chord is melodically deconstructed by the ensemble, along with augmentation of the notes held. The metallophone (unplugged vibraphone), is used to cue the ensemble to change patterns or sections.

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Hamza El Din – Escalay

8 Feb ’09

One of the first world-music releases to reach Western ears (originally issued in 1968), this album rightfully established Hamza El Din as one of the leading instrumentalists on the lutelike oud, which he taught to guitarist Sandy Bull and others. The three tracks that comprise this disc, all lengthy improvisations, showcase El Din’s remarkably fluid technique and his Nubian roots, whether on the traditional “Song with Tar” or “I Remember,” which was originally performed by Egypt’s greatest diva, Om Kalthoum. Perhaps the best example of El Din’s instrumental meditations, however, is the title track, which is his own composition. Its lines ripple and sway, then stop to ponder and work around a phrase before moving on—a style unique at the time, but which influenced a generation of oud players that followed. A masterpiece.

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Native American Church Song

20 Jan ’09

 

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Rig Veda Mantra

13 Jan ’09

Rig Veda – 1 (3/5) (via vedas88)

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