Pythagoras and the Birth of Western Music
- 1. Musicology 1 Pythagoras and the Birth of Western Music
- 2. Human/Universal Dualities Limited Odd One Right Male Rest Straight Light Good Square Unlimited Even Many Left Female Motion Curved Dark Bad Oblong
- 4. One was not simply the first number used in counting, it also denoted ‘Unity, Identity, Equality, the purpose of friendship, sympathy, and conservation of the Universe, which results from persistence in Sameness. For unity in the details harmonises all the parts of a whole as by the participation of the First Cause’. Two was one plus one, but it was also the dyad, the principle of dichotomy, the mutability of everything that is; three was emblematic of things that have a beginning, a middle, and an end; four was the number of points required to construct a pyramid, the simplest of the perfect solids. The first four whole numbers were used to form the tetractys…
- 5. Add together these four numbers and you get 10, the perfect number that is the basis of Pythagoras’, and therefore our own, mathematics. Contained within the tetractys was the mystery of how finite form – the pyramid, which is suggested by the figure of the tetractys – emerges from the infinitude of one, the single, perfect point. The spiritual progress made by Pythagorean initiates is symbolized by the progression in the tetractys from the unity of one to the unity of ten.
- 13. Octave
- 14. Fifth
- 15. Fourth
- 16. Intervals
- 17. Tetrad
- 19. Plato’s Demiurge
- 24. The Big 3
- 25. Frequency
- 27. Amplitude
- 28. Waveforms
- 29. In acoustics the term "harmonic" is a noun used to describe an overtone or partial whose frequency is an integer multiple of the fundamental frequency
- 30. A fundamental frequency and the first five harmonics with frequency ratios of 2:1, 3:1, 4:1, 5:1 and 6:1 in relation to the fundamental frequency