Because in the West are are taught myths about music. First of all we are taught that music is sacred because it is a "metaphor" for really important things. So if we want to convey how important philosophy is we say it is like music - this is what Plato did and all philosophers are "footnotes" to Plato right? Only the problem is Plato used the wrong music theory! And no one would ever know this! In other words Western music is actually mass mind control.
So next we say well science itself is best described by the metaphor of music! This is what M.I.T. philosopher of science professor Arnold Pacey said! And the "music logarithmic spiral" expresses this - and we learn Fourier harmonics and the wave equation that is applicable to almost all aspects of science, as math professor Ralph Abraham points out. But again what people don't realize is that the math is based on the wrong music theory and so the math is wrong as well!!
And so what are we left if? Music itself. Surely Western music is a metaphor right? A metaphor for our subjective reality - our emotions, psychological associations, etc.Consider this essay on Jazz as a metaphor
I provide a brief theoretical argument for how music may be considered – not as a physiological triggering device for ecstatic states – but as an organized, symbolic system that structures spiritual experiences for participants. This structuring, I argue, operates in a manner similar to the way in which metaphor, grounded in our fully embodied self, appears to structure both our entrenched and short-lived conceptualizations and communications.And then we get this sobering taste of reality so we clearly know what true music is as a metaphor:
The problem is that the pure sine wave doesn't exist! It is an illusion of symmetric mathematics! Math professors will tell you this - if you find the ones who have really studied music theory - like math professor Luigi Borzacchini or math professor Alain Connes. And so music professionals - people who write about music as their profession - they don't even realize they are using the wrong math to analyze what true music is.Harmonics – also known as overtones or partials – are components of every sound in nature except the pure sine wave.
Of course if you are using the wrong mathematics to structure the symbolic system as the music then you are not going to understand how music is more than just a "physiological trigger" but actually the process of the truth of reality itself! Certainly real music that is nonwestern will be a very effective physiological trigger indeed - beyond the more superficial lower emotions of Western culture.
People get paid to write about this stuff because they are just using music to prop up Western culture itself - and so as people liked to get patted on the back - so too do they like to have "musicologists" write about how music reinforces their Western cultural myths.
Here a musicologist is critiquing Briane Greene, a string theorist, and Stephon Alexander, stating both misuse Pythagorean harmonics,
But the writer, Robin James, makes a fundamental error about music theory itself:
Recall that Pythagoras and Plato used geometric ratios to measure vibrating strings, not soundwaves.First of all Pythagoras did use sound waves as internal listening and there is no evidence he used a monochord. Plato's math was fundamentally different than Pythagoras but people equate the too, since Plato lied about Pythagoras and Plato covered up the truth about Pythagorean harmonics.
Oboe keys are neither evenly spaced nor does their spacing follow systematic mathematical ratios (like the 12:9:8:6 ones Pythagorean harmony uses)That's what Robin James considers to be Pythagorean? That is from Archtyas - not Pythagorean. So I search "orthodox pythagorean did not use 8" to prove my point. I get a lot of other interesting hits before my blog shows up. This is my Do-Om Up the Yin-Yang! book which is really just a music theory analysis.
To quote an expert: “Orthodox Pythagorean theory recognizes five consonances: fourth, fifth, octave, twelfth, and double octave; and these are represented by the multiple and superparticular ratios [n + 1 : n] from the tetrad. The number 8 obviously does not belong to the tetrad.” André Barbera, "The Consonant Eleventh and the Expansion of the Musical Tetractys: A Study of Ancient Pythagoreanism," Journal of Music Theory, 1984. Like I said, the Pythagorean Theorem did not come from Pythagoras! No 8 means no 9/8 which means no 9/8 cubed as the square root of two, no Devil’s Interval and no “scandal of the irrational.”All you need are the 1-4-5 music ratios to listen to as infinite harmonics. When you set up the tetrachord as 6:8:9:12 this is for Archytas fake harmonics of the "harmonic mean" and not the "subcontrary mean."
But let's dig deeper just to clarify. This 2014 book on multicultural music-math states Orthodox Pythagoreans just avoid square roots. No it's much more than that - it's the secret of noncommutative phase. Peter Pesic, Music and the Making of Modern Science - cites Boethius explaining that Orthodox Pythagoreans rejected the 9:8 ratio harmonic (use the scribd convertor in the foot notes to upload pdf of the book).
But that book gives analysis of India and China traditional music-math so let's see if it knows the secret. Nope - it's written by a mathematician so they don't know the secret of music. Wait upon continual digging - behind fire wall - I get this:
Wan wufu Yin er bao Yang. Chong qi yi wei he.^ [The ten thousand things bring the Yin and embrace the Yang. Thanks to the qi, they then become harmony.] ...
O.K. the whole book is on archive so I'll word search it.
The ratio between Gong and Zhi was 3:2, like the one between do and sol [in
the Greek (orthodox) system]; the ratio between Zhi and Shang was 3:4, like the
one between re and sol; hence the ratio between Gong and Shang, Shang and Jiao
or Zhi and Yu would be 9:8, like the one between do and re, re and mi, or sol and
la. However, if we wanted to unroll the circumference along the Western musical
scale, the similarities would finish here.
Stephen Hagel says Orthodox Pythagoreans used 9/8 - but Philolaus used "subcontrary mean" not "harmonic mean." Just like the Chinese - this pdf link gives the "small universe" meditation practice as the music tuning of qi from the 12 LüLü tuning Suanfa tongzong by cheng compendium:
Secret of the Small Universe or Microcosmic Orbit Meditation:
Yang pipe became Yin, and by “increasing” the Yin pipe was transformed into Yang.
In the first case, the result was a downward generation, and in the second, an upward
one. Thus we find a continuous process of generation, with continuous exchanges of qualities
between Yang and Yin, making clear the dynamic characteristics of the
procedure followed.
Each of the 12 lUlU [pipes of Perfect Fifth/Fourth] were assigned a hou [climatic season] chosen among the 24
jieqi [solar terms]. For example, Huangzhong corresponded to Dongzhi [winter
solstice]; Linzhong recalled the Dashu [great heat] and so on. Furthermore, the
figure indicates, together with the names of the lUlU, the 12 dizhi [earthly branches]
in their relative order. Thus the first lUlU corresponds to the first dizhi, that is to say
Zi [son] and so on. The dizhi were also used to indicate couples of hours during
the day; for example, Zishi [time of the son] indicates the hours from 1 1.00 p.m. to
1.00 a.m., and the other dizhi follow the order of the hours.
this model of musical theory continues
to be inspired by the qi.
John Burnet claims Orthodox Pythagoreans used 6:8:9:12 but as the subcontrary mean and not the harmonic mean, later developed by Archytas and PlatoGreek Musical Writings: Volume 2, Harmonic and Acoustic Theory
https://books.google.com/books?isbn=0521616972Andrew Barker - 1984 - MusicIf the harmonic and arithmetic means are inserted between such terms (e.g., 6, 8, 9, 12), the new terms are the inner boundaries of the tetrachords, separated by a tone. (Terms ... Archytas' divisions cannot be reached in this way, but a simple change in the application of the theory of proportions gives the required results.In music theory, a tetrachord is a series of four notes separated by three smaller intervals. In traditional music theory, a tetrachord always spanned the interval of a perfect fourth, a 4:3 frequency proportion—Tetrachord - Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetrachord
And so what Robin James doesn't realize is that the uncertainties that Stephon Alexander is referring to are time-frequency uncertainty - which is not a probability but is from noncommtuative geometry and noncommutative geometry is real Pythagorean harmonics.
Instead Robin James argues that Alexander's science is actual just a NeoLiberal agenda, based on Jacques Attali's NOISE analysis (political economy of music). Yes that is true - that Stephon Alexander has to fall back on statistics and symmetric math but the foundation of noncommutative geometry that he uses is from de Broglie - before the statistics of quantum physics was created - and based on the Law of Phase Harmony as relativistic quantum analysis.
So we have a musicologist who does not understand either the music theory well enough, nor the mathematics of quantum relativity well enough. String theory of Brian Greene is straight up symmetric math through and through - and so it is not the same as Stephon Alexander relying on noncommtuative phase that he got from the truly radical vision of Yusef Lateef and John Coltrane.
But since this whole discussion and debate is still happening "within" the Matrix of Platonic symmetric math - we only get glimpses of the truth - Stephon Alexander relies on de Broglie, on noncommutative geometry and on the cycle of fifths from natural harmonics - and this connection is indeed radical and nonwestern.
The Sonic Episteme: acoustic resonance & biopolitics (under contract for DUKE University Press)
Under contract! too bad Robin James does not know the truth of music harmonics applied for mind-body-spirit transformation - and what connects Indian meditation with Daoist meditation and the San Bushmen spiritual training! It is the noncommutative phase of the 1-4-5 music harmonics. de Broglie's Law of Phase Harmony did rediscover this ancient truth as many scientists are starting to realize.
I have provided all my research for free - but it is too radical for the "academy" to consider. The political implications are apocalyptic! Western civilization has been wrong since Plato and Archytas and so now are only hope is to Do-Om Up the Yin-Yang!
haha. But that's o.k. because that is the original human training anyway and we don't have a choice. The 5th dimension as noncommutative phase is in control.
For example would Robin James be able to acknowledge the empirical truth that the original human culture did not even know what homosexuality was and the males did not practice masturbation! Or would that go against the late capitalist postmodern "liberation" politics. haha. Ooops!!
Real ecological sustainability based on music theory is much more radical than supposed "radical leftists" can handle.
Dear Professor James: Thank you for writing on Stephon Alexander's book The Jazz of Physics
and your book forthcoming on acoustics and mind-body transformation. I
did my master's thesis at U of MN in 2000 on "sound-current nondualism,
music theory and radical ecology." I just did a blog post critiquing
your work so I hope you can read it. http://ecoechoinvasives. blogspot.com/2018/02/the-myth- of-pure-sine-wave-why-music- is.html
So I finished my master's degree through the African Studies department
doing self-directed research led by Professor Brewer - a lady who
taught my Race, Class and Gender studies class. Rose Brewer. But the
actual classes I took were from a Chinese spiritual yogi healer Chunyi
Lin http://springforestqigong.com
I
had realized that real Pythagorean harmonics is the same as Daoist
alchemy harmonics. Then after my "enlightenment experience" I read one
scholarly book a day for 10 years while sitting in full lotus yoga
position - and so then I discovered how the oldest philosophy of India
is also based on the same music harmonics as Pythagorean and Daoist
harmonics.Hi Professor James: Can you send me a copy of "Music Theory and the Male Gaze"? I am a male and I've studied music theory intensely and I also took several women studies courses while at university and college. Also since I practice music meditation this involves trance of the pineal gland. Staring was used for healing by the males in the original human culture - the San Bushmen. This is considered the most difficult level to maintain the stare so that the biophotons going out of the eyes are coherent as a laser. Thank you, drew hempel, MA
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