Yoshizen's Blog

Harmony in Dharma / Origin of TONAL SYSTEM

Posted in Art, Buddhism, Dharma, Fun to read :-D, Music, Natural Harmony, Order of Universe, Who is Yoshizen by yoshizen on January 14, 2010

When I was small, long before the school, I made the most Fundamental discovery,

Fundamental Element of the matter is the ASH “- – – – that’s what I thought.   Though, nobody was

impressed, despite this is the unquestionable FACT.    Look,  To burn anything, Wood, Grass, Coal, Charcoal,

Fish bone, Paper, Cotton, Woolly things —— what ever they are, all burn to the ASH.

And even burn  ASH  further,  still it  remains as the ASH. —— This is the Truth, isn’t it ?

But I only got the words ” Silly boy ”  without any explanation.

(World is twisted,  they are blind and rotten ! ! !   😦  )

——————–

Another question which captured me ——in fact many years, was “Why all the music were composed

in the same Do, Re, Mi, Fa  scale, and can be played on the same simple instrument ? ? ?”

On that time, one of my pass time was to listen the radio VOA ( Voice of America Far-East Netwok/

American propaganda, aiming to the communist Russia and China ) and listening latest American

Hit-Chart.  And I was writing down the short passage of each tune to music score.

( Regardless,  whether the tune is A or C—– the matter is just relative scale of the note )

( And this interest led me start to listen many ethnic, such as Indian Music — It was the time of Ravi Shankar)

——————–

German Sociologist  Max Weber wrote a book about the evolution of the music scale,

from  Natural Tonal Scale to Equi-distant Tonal Scale ——– etc, kept my question alive and so on.

Many years later, when I needed to design electronic tone generator,  and while watching the frequency

table of music tones, such as  A=440 Hz,  E=660 Hz  etc—— I realized, all the tones in the music scale

are having 1:1.5 ratio, which can create Pentatonic easily. ( This is why Pentatonic is so common in

any folk cultures in the world )

1 :1.5 ratio mean, if you shorten the length of the String  ( if it was C / Do ) to 2/3rd,

the tone become 1.5 times higher to the 5th (E / So) and so on.

(Press a string and play, if the shorter side sound octave higher than the other side, it’s the 2/3rd point)

In short, Do (524 Hz)—> So (786 Hz)—> Re (1179/ Octave high of  589 Hz)—> Ra (880/ 440 Hz)

—> Mi (660 Hz) ( Save, few Hz deviation,  which wouldn’t  make audible differences)

Here all the Pentatonic Notes of  Do, Re, Mi, So, Ra  were created. ! ! !

——–Much more interesting Phenomena is, those tones are not human invention.

They are naturally existing.

All the materials vibrates.  (If you hit, they makes a sound, except shock absorbing soft material)

They vibrate not only in its fundamental frequency, but also all the harmonic frequencies of x2, x3, x4, x5 etc.

(Though even number of the harmonics are in the Octave, and its sound is indistinguishable.)

So that, those odd numbered harmonics are   524 Hz (C / Do) x3 /2 = 784 (G / So),     x 5 / 4 = 654 (E / Mi),

x7 / 8 = 457 (A / Ra),    x9 / 8 = 588 (D / Re) —-> Do, Re, Mi, So, Ra —– Pentatonic in the Nature. ! ! !

This is the reason why the  Dominant Harmony is [ Do, Mi, So ],  as they are naturally there, and

sounding in perfect Harmony.

——————–

The Nature having such amazing structure,  Isn’t this the beauty of the Dharma and the Rules within ?

——–When I realized this, I thought ” Eureka ” then noticed, this is what Pythagoras found 3000 years ago.

My brain was 3000 years slow.

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