source file: m1496.txt Date: Thu, 06 Aug 1998 21:40:23 -0700 Subject: numerology and music From: kraig grady 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)