The Earth exists in a grid of electromagnetic harmonics related to its rate of spin. And each harmonic generates its own harmonics. Rather than creating a musical “scale”, it creates a “mesh” of inter-connected, inter-dependent frequencies – unifying the fastest frequencies in the universe (protons, voxels, light) with the slowest (planetary and galactic spin).
However, we can overlay musical scales onto this harmonic grid. And whereabouts we place that scale on the grid identifies what quality of energy that musical scale is expressing. It’s an energetic cookery-book for your emotional and trans-migrational soul to experience!
In this diagram, the lower-left corner is the Earth’s 24-hour spin itself:
- Above that are 3rd harmonics (or “perfect fifth intervals” – as they’re described in western music, because the note they create is the “fifth” note in the western scale above the note before it)
- To the right are 5th harmonics (or “major third intervals” as they are known as because they form the 3rd note above the note they’re derived from)
- One fun fact is that the 5th harmonic is the same note as the 10th harmonic (i.e. the 5th harmonic raised by an octave: x 5 x 2 = 10). So, all you need to do to know the 5th harmonic of a frequency is move the decimal point! Multiply it by 10
- The grid continues to the right – we don’t know how far, probably to the speed of light and the rate of spin of the tiniest protons and voxels – with each “major 3rd interval” being 10 times the frequency of the column to its left
- The Bb and F frequencies I detected are in the middle column
- (A 432 Hz is naturally in the right-hand column, the 5th harmonic of F, e.g. F 43.2 Hz begets A 432 Hz)
For a more detailed introduction to this harmonic grid, please see, “A Day is G!“
Emotional Energies
I have been collaborating with wellness practioners to deliver these tones in “Sound Activation” meditations, and we do hear consistent qualities described for each frequency in the harmonic grid.
Scale Building
Right, so how do we build musical scales across this harmonic grid?
One approach is to do as Zarlino did, using 3rd harmonics on top of 3rd harmonics to provide the 8 notes needed for a western scale.
Another approach is to build from each of the prime-number harmonics of the fundamental note – giving us 3rd, 5th, 7th and even 11th harmonics.
But the way the harmonic energy of Earth’s spin presents itself is evidently primarily through 3rd and 5th harmonics (because those are the ones that I was able to detect interfering with my tone generator from the field of electromagnetic energy below human hearing) – and so we can formulate a way of building scales based on the grid of 3rd and 5th harmonic combinations.
White Notes – “diatonic chords”
So, everyone has seen, and at least briefly played a piano (leave a comment below if you haven’t!). What’s the difference between the white and black notes? (They say the church decided to put the scale of C-major on the white notes, and the other notes on the black keys – and I’ve done a fun investigation of how that can be leveraged.)
“Major” Chords
On the white notes of the piano, there are three chords which have the required number of intervals, (or “spaces”) between the notes to make the chord “major”. The thing which makes them “major” – with that “jolly” quality – is the fact that the second note in the chord is always 4 steps (or two “whole-tones”) up from the first note. It just seems to be a reality in all cultures that this interval is perceived as a full, happy, content musical harmony. The three major chords in the “white key” of C-major are:
F-major
G-major
C-major
“Minor” Chords
And there are 4 “white” chords that are “minor” – which have that slightly sad quality. And what they all have in common is that the second note in the chord is now just 3 steps (a tone and a half) above the first note:
A-minor
B-minor
D-minor
E-minor
Poor, sad minor chords!
“Traversing the grid”
Now, (music theory time, courtesy of Pythagoras):
Major chords are constructed as “1-5-3”, e.g. for the key of C-major:
- 1st harmonic, e.g. C
- 5th harmonic, (“major 3rd interval”) e.g. E
- 3rd harmonic (“perfect 5th interval”, e.g. G
And where can we find these notes on the grid of 3rd and 5th harmonics I constructed to visualise the Earth’s primary harmonics? It turns out, they’re right next to each other – crossing from the left column to the right and back, e.g. C to E to G:
Meanwhile, minor chords are constructed as “1-minor 5-3”, e.g. in the key of C-major:
- 1st harmonic, e.g. A
- Flattened 5th harmonic (“minor 3rd interval”) e.g. C
- 3rd harmonic, e.g. E
And where can we find these minor chord notes in the Earth harmonic grid? Funnily enough, also right next to each other – crossing from the right hand-column to the left.
For the non-musically trained, you are sick of my by now – regurgitating some rubbish I learned in music school! For the musically trained, you can see this is nothing like anything you learned in music school – this is overlaying western musical foundations on the true, Natural source of resonance from whence music comes. This is ancient – and brand new!
And, by the way, I didn’t go to music school. But I have played and learned from far-afield, all my life.
Building a scale
Right-o. How do we build a whole scale, e.g. the C-Major scale, from the notes of the Earth’s harmonic grid?
Simple – like this.
- The teal notes are the “white notes on the piano”.
- And the light blue ones are the black notes.
- And the grey ones are the other candidate frequencies we did not include for the particular scale
- The “major chords” all begin from the middle column (F-C-G)
- And the minor chords all begin from the right-hand column (A-E-B – and D).
“Wolf Tones”
Ok, it gets tricky with the D. You’ll notice there is one in the middle column (291.6 Hz), and one in the right-hand column (288 Hz). What do we learn from this?
- There are more notes in heaven and earth than in the philosophy of middle-ages church music theorists, Horatio!
- And, we either need to add two versions of the D-note to the scale, or choose one, or choose a frequency between the two and average it
- If we choose the D in the middle column, the G below it is going to be dead happy – as it has its perfect 3rd harmonic
- Or, if we choose the D in the third column, the Bb is going to have its ideal “major-3rd interval” (5th harmonic). But the G won’t be happy because its 3rd harmonic will sound “jangly”
- Or, we can average the frequency for a D between the two.
Now, my approach – because of the way the harmonics peeked through the aethers at me, revealing a natural energy propagation mechanism of pure 3rd and 5th harmonics emanating from the Earth’s spin – is not to average anything – not to tweak any of the frequencies – and to keep the harmonic frequencies untouched – just the way Nature played it.
I have experimented with having two versions of the “wolf-tone” note in the key (abandoning another note and replacing it with a second flavour of D for example), and there are microtonal guitars which do this too. But ultimately I find this sounds discordant – the one D hangs in a chord with sustain or reverb against the other version of the D – and it just sounds … wobbly. Plus, it’s a pain to remember which version of the note to play when!
So, which way do we go? I favour giving the G, (in this case), it’s pure 3rd harmonic D – because the G (the harmonic before the wolf-tone) is:
- Fundamental to the major chord sequence
- And is harmonically foundational to the key.
- Whereas, in this case, the B-flat is a black-note, outside the key of C-major, and therefore not warranting a perfect 5th harmonic for a note we’re rarely going to play in that scale anyway
“P-Shape”
Right, so do we have a formula for constructing a scale in any key? Yes we do! It’s basically to move the “P-shape” above to whichever key notes on the grid we want to base our key on:
Tune in tomorrow and I’ll show you all the keys!
P-SHAPED KEYS
Below, are all the keys that fit into the first 3 columns of the harmonic matrix and use the “P-shape” traversal :
WRAP AROUND FREQUENCIES
You may have noticed, there is not much difference in the frequencies in the middle-column for E, B, F# and C# versus those Tones from the right-hand column. For example, E is 323.63 Hz in the middle column, and E is 324 Hz from the right-hand column. These are so close that it means we have the flexibility to construct the scale either using the Zarlino backwards L or the P-shape pattern, without changing the audible result much.
“backwards L-shape” – Zarlino
Another traversal approach is the “Backwards L-Shape” approach, which seems to be what the Venetian music-theorist Giosoffo Zarlino used for his scale in the 16th century, which we had discussed here.
In my view, this is a better-sounding pattern, but it only works in certain keys, as shown below:
In the “backwards L-shape” traversal, there are 8 consecutive notes coming from the right-hand “column” (e.g. C, G, D, A, E, B, F#, C#), and these are augmented by four 5th-harmonics below them (Ab, Eb, Bb, F).
The illustration above shows not just the interval shape which Zarlino writes about in his theories of harmonics, but the actual frequencies in our “right hand column” – which are harmonics of a Day. (How did Zarlino also know about these frequencies?!)
Have a look here for more of our research about Zarlino and a piece I made using his frequencies.
