Pythagoras and the Birth of Western Music

Musicology 1

Pythagoras and the Birth of Western Music

Human/Universal Dualities

LimitedOddOneRightMaleRestStraightLightGoodSquare

UnlimitedEvenMany

LeftFemaleMotionCurved

DarkBad

Oblong

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…

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.

Musica Instrumentalis

Musica Humana

Musica Mundana

Octave

Fifth

Fourth

Intervals

Tetrad

http://www.suddensound.com/um/monochord/

Plato’s Demiurge

The Big 3

Frequency

Wavelength and Amplitude

Amplitude

Waveforms

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

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

The Harmonic Series