Musical scales corresponding to 7 planets
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Is anyone aware of any books listing musical scales corresponding to the celestial bodies of the hexagram? It would seem essential to compose music based on scales corresponding to the planet one is working with during ceremonial magick. I know Pythagoras and Kepler wrote some stuff on this, but what I am looking for is a correspondence between a planet and a particular musical scale (I can then compose the rest).
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There are individual notes assigned to each planet (by a couple of methods). I'm not aware of there being entire scales, except in the sense that a particular note anchors a scale.
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The Greeks attributed the seven planets to the seven modes:
Sol = Dorian (modern Phrygian)
Luna = Hypodorian (modern Aeolian)
Mercury = Hypophrygian (modern Locrian)
Venus = Hypolydian (modern Ionian)
Jupiter = Lydian
Saturn = Mixolydian (modern Iocrian)729
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Jonathan Goldman's book Shifting Frequencies
Ted Andrew's book _ Sacred Sounds_
Both excellent men, with excellent practices. While I did not see anything specifically referring to the Hexagram, they do offer instruction on using music in ceremony, magic and healing. Both books have an extensive bibliograpghy as well to lead us to other sourcces.
I have not read this one, but I have read other Hall books and found them worthwhile.
Manley Hall The Therapeutic Value of Music Including the Philosphy of Music
Corinne Heline has several titles that seem worthy. Star Gates as well as Beethoven's Nine Symphonies Correlated with the Nine Spiritual Mysteries are espicially interesting titles to explore.
Joscelyn Godwin Harmonies of Heaven and Earth possibly of interest. as well as The Mysteries of the Seven Vowels
Hasrat Inayat Khan _ The Mysticism of Sound_, _ Cosmic Language_, Music: The Power of the Word_
Dane Rudyhar The Magic of Tone and the Art of Music
Swami Saraswati Science of Divine Sound
Harvey and Donald White Physics of Music
These are just a few titles I gleened for you.
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Thanks everyone for that info!
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There is a book of Paschal Beverly Randolph about sex magick that extends a little about this subject. The portuguese title is "Magia Sexual", but I couldnt' find the original title.
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It must be remembered that modern keyboards and fretboards are tuned to an artificial scale developed during the 17th century and symbolised by the creation of the piano. This replaces the pythagorean scale by making the distance between each note absolutely equal in length. The natural 7 note pythagorean scale used in European folk music, gospel singing and Bantu religion, though perhaps not the 5 note scale used in Indian, Chinese and Yoruba music, do not use equidistant lengths. The new scale was devised to reduce the number of harmonics set off as orchestras became louder. This is why a gospel choir sounds louder than a white church choir - you are hearing notes that no-one in the gospel choir is actually singing.
The "mode" refers to the way a tune feels if it starts with a different note. To try this out play "frere jacques" or a similar basic tune that doesn't need black notes. Start from C and you have the Ionian mode. Then play the exact same keys as if you were starting from C, but start from D, and so on up the scale. The tune has a different feel - in pre-piano music theory this is the same tune but in 7 different modes. Nowadays we would say that it 7 different tunes, because to reproduce the same tune starting from D, say, you would need black notes.
There is agood article cached here:
A bit complex but accurate.
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That's why I prefer play a fretless instrument
All of the tuning systems are a compromise at some level. Good singers and fretless instrumentalists can achieve the best of both worlds - 4th and 5th interval harmonies in pythag-worthy tuning, and the ability to modulate keys in a song.