Why does some music resonate with our essential being, and some leaves us cold, dissonant, upset or even angry?

• Rhythm?  Sure.  “it don’t mean a thing if it ain’t got that swing” !
• Harmony? It will certainly give a song depth. But harmony by itself can be “lipstick on a pig”
• Key?  I actually believe that the musical key and harmonic alignment, is key.  That it’s the fundamental  resonance of a piece of music is what “moves” us.  Moves our molecular, structural, emotional and astral being.

One way to test this theory is to listen to the same piece of music in different keys. For example, my favourite blues artist, John Lee Hooker, made several recordings of “I’m in the mood”

• The recordings in the key of G minor sound kind of country and wild.  
• The recordings in E or E-flat are heavy – like the most deep, dark passion – like it really is the mood for love.

Key to the Dungeon

A related personal experience: in 2008, I was rehearsing with my band (the Cosmic Marvels).  The singer had written a new song in the key of B-minor.  Both the drummer and I had such a strong, visceral reaction against it that we both rebelled and refused to play it.  As our drummer later related, it was as if “every fiber of my being was reacting against the song”.  We parted company with that singer the following week.

Similarly in 2015 – and forgetting the prior experience – I was in another band, The Moonbeeems – when I asked the band if we could try one of our songs in the key of B-minor.  You’d think I would have learned from the prior experience – but I’m slow that way.

When we had finished the song one of our singers  was so physically upset that she stormed out of the studio, banging the door behind her.  

And, that was basically the end of that band too.

So clearly: B-minor, not a great key for band harmony! Or anyway, B-minor seems to be unsettling and uncomfortable.

Musical “Da Vinci Code”

But what is the “right” key – or right keys?  For me, the challenge is to find those vibrational frequencies that really do connect our essential being, and to construct a musical vocabulary that can be called on by musicians in the same way that poets have words with specific meaning that they combine into various rhythms and rhymes to convey “truth” and beauty.

Paul Klee, the Bauhaus painter and teacher formulated his language of line and colour in his notebooks and lectures.

The painter Vassily Kandinsky taught that each colour resonates a musical note. He said this:

“… color is a means of exercising direct influence upon the soul. Color is the keyboard. The eye is the hammer, while the soul is a piano of many strings. The artist is the hand through which the medium of different keys causes the human soul to vibrate. It is, thus, evident that color harmony can rest only on the principle of the corresponding vibration of the human soul. This basis can be considered as the principle of innermost necessity”.

So, is there a musical codification of energy that leads us through the different flavours of musical key and their archetypal energies, perhaps to some foundational source resonance from which they all derive, harmonically?

Musical Wasteland

Unfortunately, Western culture and musical theory have left us in a shambles:

1. The A-note is the modern reference pitch – but the evidence is that in ancient times, it was not A
2. The vibrational frequency of that A reference pitch has been altered from its standard of 432 vibrations per second, (documented in the 16th century by Gioseffo Zarlino and used in the proportions of ancient architecture), to 440 Hz made a standard in 1939.
3. Western musical instruments are tuned to “Equal Temperament” – which approximates all notes of the 12-note harmonic scale – deviating from the harmonic roundation. Even when your piano is “in-tune” – it’s not in tune harmonically even to itself
4. Modern guitars, tuned to E, lend themselves to only specific keys. And the modenr piano, with its keyboard designed with the white keys reflecting the key of C-major, have another influence on the keys in which music is made – which may not have much to do with the harmonic mood or emotion intended.

So,

• we don’t know what keys to play in
• we don’t know what note should be the foundation of that key
• we don’t know what frequency that note should be at
• and anything we play on a piano, guitar or other fixed scale instruments isn’t even in tune with itself!

Occasionally though, we will still hear a piece of music which grabs us, from its first note.  Whether by fluke or inspiration, the artist had recorded the song in a certain key, perhaps with a certain “out-of-tune” instrument – or with a vibrato which somehow transcended the prison of tuning – and connects with our soul.  

There is this moment of immediate resonance within us – at a deep level.  Our thirst for the sacred kicks in and we rush out to hear this “gem of enlightenment” over and over.

Meanwhile, the potential for modern electronic keyboards, and electronic tuning devices to steer us back to a world of harmony and balance, has instead locked music into an equal temperament prison. Artificial music which nearly connects us to the divine, but actually debases us.

Orchestral, stringed music still has the chance of being played harmonically, as the lack of frets on violins and cellos allows the musicians to build the notes and scales harmonically upon each other.

The magical music we remember from up until around 1981 – when musicians tuned by ear, has now been supplanted with a music-factor: plug your electronic tuner in. Great, consistently banal music.

Jimi Hendrix is no longer spending hours tuning his guitar until it feels right – or pummeling his whammy bar to hit the right sounds.  The old piano at Dynamic Studios in Jamaica has been replaced by electronic keyboards that play exactly according to the institutionalized Western conceptions of music.  We are locked into 440 Hz and Equal Temperament.  

And now, through the “miracle” of “Auto-Tune”, even our human voices, the most essentially emotive component of music – are being altered in recordings and live performances to align with the Equal Temperament keyboard – instead of aligning the keyboard to the natural harmonics of the human voice.

We are slaves to an imposed musical reality caused by unnatural tuning.

Back to Reality

It’s entirely possible with some modern keyboards, to tune them harmonically. Technology now allows us back to our natural connection with Earth – if we know how to use it.

DJs – creating musical collages of other people’s music, however it was recorded, is another potential source of hope, because the pitch and Beats Per Minute of the music can be adjusted on playback. But, for now, DJs are not aware of an alternative, and don’t have the understanding to apply these tools in a consistent framework.

And meanwhile, all of this harmonic deficiency is covered up with hyper-bass until all we can do is drink ourselves into oblivion to make it sound alright.  Multiple people have told me, in their quest for musical enlightenment, how dancing too close to the sub-woofer playing Equal Temperament 440 Hz music has cramped them up or sent them rushing to the bathroom. This is not what music is for.

Why does our industrial society essentially “weaponise” every aspect of reality against kindness, love, connection, compassion? Just asking.

No wonder people stay home and watch the TV – and what do they see?  A world increasingly destroyed by our own dis-harmony and lack of sympathy and insight.

Even our options are wearing thin.  Digital recordings of “primitive” music from India, or Ireland or the Amazon or Indonesia – digitally recorded and then compressed for quick streaming download, and, if recorded in a studio – probably re-calibrated to A = 440 Hz, Equal Temperament.

So, where is the music that can penetrate our daily dross and re-connect us to our cosmic vibratory dance?

I hope to provide the tools and information to reverse these problems.