THE MUSIC OF THE SPHERES Astrology and Music in Harmonices Vitae

THE MUSIC OF THE SPHERES

Astrology and Music in Harmonices Vitae (1999)

Music and Astrology have a long and honorable history together. For example, in the Middle ages, they were both part of the essential core of knowledge of the educated person, the quadrivium, which consisted of astrology, music, arithmetic and geometry. And long before this, they were connected by the the Pythagorean notion of the Music of the Spheres.  This can perhaps be expressed in general terms as an intuitive understanding that there is an overall harmony or musical quality to the created world.  This harmony is manifested as a relatedness that extends both upwards and downwards -  downwards to the smallest details of the individual’s life , and upwards to the largest patterns of the stars and planets – the ancient astrological and esoteric maxim of As Above, So Below.  The influential Greek philopsher Pythagoras (ca.600 BC) connected this with his scientific studies of musical harmony, where he discovered that the vibration rates of harmonious pitches were related in simple ratios such as 2:1 or 3:2. This was an idea which he claimed to have learned in Egypt, and the connection between musical harmony, astrological events and the hyuman soul was made evident by the underlying mathematics. The factor common to all of these was number. 

“For the Pythagoreans, both music and soul share a basis in number. Music is demonstrably numerical, as experiments with the monochord had shown them. In the Pythagorean tradition the soul is also made from number because it reflects the structure of the World-Soul, whose mathematical formulation is set out by the Pythagorean philosopher Timaeus in Plato’s dialog of that name.”

(Joscelyn Godwin, Harmonies of Heaven and Earth, p.21)

And because the “structure of the World-Soul” is read in numerous ways, among them through the science of astrology, there is a deep and intimate connection between music and astrology.

Inspired by this ancient intuition, the author has devised a software program, called Harmonices Vitae, which composes music corresponding to the astrological Transits and Progressions of a person’s life. The correspondence is executed at the rate of one minute of music per year of life. Because of the uniqueness of each person’s birthchart (including Rising sign) the music produced by Harmonices Vitae is entirely unique to each person. In effect, each person has a musical composition which is the (astrological) pattern of their life and which is utterly unique to them (barring, of course, twins born within a few minutes of one another). The software has been found useful to professional astrologers as well as to lay persons, since Transits and certain types of Progressions are made clearly evident through the musical medium. In a way, Harmonices Vitae is a sort of scientific visualization  program, simplifying and making apparent to the interested person the complex patterns of transiting and progressing planets in a birthchart.

The software runs in real time on a suitable Macintosh computer. For practical purposes, the music is produced by synthesizers simulating the sounds of traditional instruments.  However, except for the expense of hiring and recording actual musicians, there is no reason in principle why the music might not be transcribed to traditional music notation and reproduced by conventional (acoustic) instruments.

How to Interpret Life Music

Each planet in an individual’s birthchart is represented by an instrument in the Harmonices Vitae “orchestra”. For example, the Sun  is represented musically by a piano, the Moon by a Clarinet, and  Mars by a Hand drum (tabla). The other planets and their corresponding instruments are listed in table 1.

Harmonices Vitae is based on an energy concept  of reading a birthchart, where each planet represents an internal potential of the individual. This potential becomes actualized at various times in the life by the passage of another planet over the point in the Zodiac occupied by the natal planet.  This actualization is heard as a moment of musical activity (a fragment of melody, a chord or  drum hit), its duration and intensity corresponding to that of the transit itself.  It therefore becomes very easy to hear times in your life when a certain internal energy (the natal planet) was brought to awareness by inner or outer circumstances (the transiting planet).

For example, if you hear drums (Mars) coming into prominence for an extended "solo" between 13 and 15 minutes on the CD display, it means that "martial" qualities and activities (self-assertion,  strength, sports, the physical aspect of sex)  became somehow important between the ages of 13 and 15.The exact nature of the "activation" is determined by the character of the transiting planet. Thus Jupiter acting on Mars produces a quite different effect than does say, Saturn or Mercury.

Transits are the primary astrological factor considered by the Harmonices Vitae software, but Progressions are also used to determine two important musical factors.  Through the course of a person's life, the planets as they move come into "connection" with planets in the person's birthchart. These times of connection are known as transits. In Harmonices Vitae, transits generate musical activity - a fragment of melody, a chord, or a drum hit. The strength of the transit controls pitch, loudness and general musical energy. The music becomes an audible record of the intensity of  the transits affecting the person. The instruments that are playing tell you which planets in the birthchart are being "activated".  The motions of the progressed Sun and Moon determine the overall musical factors of key, harmony and rhythmic style.

Natal planets produce no sound of their own until 'activated' by a transit. The character of this 'activation' is appropriate to the transiting planet. Transiting planets (Moon through Pluto) each have a musical theme which is heard only when they aspect a natal planet. This theme is transposed to fit the pitch range suitable for the natal planet's instrument, and to fit the current key and chord as determined by the Moon's progression through the Zodiac Key Wheel (see below). Each transiting planet theme is of a musical character appropriate to the astrological nature of that planet.

Since the effects of the transiting planet are only ever heard through the instrument of the aspected natal planet, this character is modified somewhat by the character of the natal planet's instrument. Thus, some transiting/natal combinations are more 'harmonious' than others. For example, Mars transiting Mars works well because the martial nature of Transiting Mars' theme sounds well with the martial nature of Natal Mars instrument (trumpet and drum) but is less effective when transiting natal Venus (flute). Similarly, Venus transiting Mars has a rather incongruous effect, but Venus transiting Luna is more harmonious. This corresponds roughly to the astrological compatibility of the two planets involved in the transit. As any astrologer knows, however, the situation quickly becomes very complicated because there are almost always several planets aspecting a given natal planet.

 

Musical Effects of Various Transits

The planets as they move through the course of a person’s life constantly come into and out of relationship with the planets in the birthchart. Furthermore, each planet has a characteristic effect on the life of an individual as it progresses through the sky. These planetary characters have been studied astrologically for at least 2500 years as documented in Babylonian horoscopes from ca. 500 BC, and possibly as long as 6000 years with the ancient Egyptians and Sumerians. These  planetary influences are related to the mythological characters of the various pagan gods  associated with them. Many of these associations have come down to this day in common  language; thus we have words such as jovial to indicate the character of Jupiter’s (Jove’s) influence, martial to indicate Mars’; and mercurial, saturnine, venereal and lunatic to indicate an aspect of the characters of Mercury, Saturn, Venus and the Moon (Luna). Note the negative connotations of the words associated in common parlance with the two female bodies, Venus and Luna. In the astrological tradition the influence of these planets is by no means exclusively negative, but their negative associations in common speech is a reflection of the devaluation of the feminine which has been under way in Western culture for approximately 2000 years.

Transits from the inner planets are musically very brief. The Moon for example moves through an aspect within a beat, adding its typical rapid ornamentation of sixteenth note triplets. Transits from Mercury, Venus and the Sun are somewhat longer lasting, amounting to a measure or two. Transits from Mars last about 4-8 measures, depending on whether it goes retrograde while in aspect. Jupiter and Saturn can produce much longer periods of musical activity, up to about forty seconds for Jupiter and 2-3 minutes for Saturn. They therefore produce significant musical sections.

Transits from the outer planets (Uranus, Neptune and Pluto) are very long lasting and produce the major musical structures of the life music. They can last several minutes each and completely alter the quality of the more rapid planets while in effect.

Aspects are positions of relationship between transiting planets and the planets of the birthchart and are based on the harmonic division of the circle. Because the sine wave is the extension of the circle in time, aspects therefore are related to the harmonics of sound. For example, the conjunction (0º) corresponds to a musical unison or fundamental tone, the opposition (180º) to the octave or first harmonic; the trine (60º) to the octave plus a fifth or third harmonic,etc. The precise details of this relationship have been subject to a great deal of speculation over the centuries.

As each transiting planet approaches an aspect with a planet in the birthchart, its effect on that planet increases, climaxing when the aspect is exact, and gradually diminishing afterward. The effects of these transits will be made audible musically by means of these musical transformations (variations) on the themes of the birthchart. The intensity of the transformations will likewise increase, climax and decrease through the course of the transit.

Aspects between planets in the natal chart are clearly audible as recurring 'ensembles' of instruments. For example, if Venus and the Moon are conjunct in the birth chart, they will be musically 'activated' simultaneously by any transiting planet and will always play together. Other aspects produce similar but less pronounced results. For example, if Venus and the Moon are square one another natally, a transiting square by Saturn to Venus means that Saturn is also either conjunct or opposed Luna. But a trine from Saturn to Venus produces no aspect to Luna.

Musical key and chord changes are determined by the position of the progressed Moon through the cycle of the Zodiac. Each sign has a corresponding key and mode, as listed in figure below, the Zodiac Key Wheel. Each sign is further differentiated into a series of 30 chords, one for each degree of the sign. The chords remain within the context of the overall key as determined by the sign, but their quality and character vary considerably. For example, Capricorn, being a conservative sign and a guardian of tradition, has a chord sequence of quite classical character, while Gemini's chord changes are much 'jazzier'. Since the Moon progresses through the Zodiac quite rapidly, chord changes occur approximately. every 2 bars, while the overall key changes every 2 1/2 minutes or so. At the rate of one minute per year, the Moon progresses through the entire cycle of the Zodiac in about 30 minutes of musical time, at which point it returns to the key (i.e. sign) in which it began. This series of key assignments to zodiac signs is, to my knowledge, unique. It is based on the circle of Fifths, the fundamental acoustic relationship of the interval                                                               of the fifth. This relationship is important because the fifth (actually octave plus a fifth) is the first new tone to appear in the harmonic series of a given tone. The signs of the zodiac are assigned to musical keys though a descending Circle of Fifths, from lightest to heaviest, representing the descent of creativity from abstract intuition (Sagittarius) to concrete form (Capricorn). This arrangement is shown  superimposed on the circle of the Zodiac in figure 10 and diagrammatically in table 4.

This arrangement has a number of interesting properties:

A.Signs of like element are in closely related keys. e.g. the three fire signs are related by fifth up or down from Leo, the central fixed sign - Sagittarius maps to Ab, a fifth up from Leo, while Aries maps to Gb, a fifth down. This describes the traditionally harmonious relationship between signs of like element.

B.Signs of complementary elements (e.g. fire-air, earth-water) are likewise in related keys, though somewhat more distant than those in the same element, and with an inversion of scale mode (e.g. from Major to minor in the case of fire/air).

C.Traditional Astrological relationships, known as aspects , correspond well with musical key relationships:

      i.Trines, astrologically indicating ease and harmony, map to closely related

       keys in the same mode, related by way of dominant or sub-dominant keys.

       These relationships have always been the easiest and most harmonious of

       key relationships in music worldwide, due to its fundamental derivation from

       the harmonic overtone series. They are fundamentally the most closely

       related keys, just as the signs of like element are the most like one another.

     ii.Oppositions, traditionally associated with opposition, map to unrelated

       Major-minor keys (i.e. Aries/Libra as Gb major/C minor. These keys are

       always connected by way of the tritone, diabolus in musica (the devil in

       music)

     iii.Squares, associated with tension and difficulty, map to minor thirds.

     iv.Sextiles, traditionally a mixed relationship implying a positive expression of

       creative tension, map to major thirds and perfect fourths, moderately distant

       key relationships, forcing creative confrontation between the keys involved.

     v.Quintiles, an aspect also known as paradox, show up in this system as

       oddly related keys, e.g. Cancer/Sagittarius as B flat min/F# min.

     vi.Every Grand Square spells out a diminished seventh chord, a strongly

       conventionalised expression of musical tension.

Rhythm and the Zodiac Style Wheel

Changes of style and texture are produced by the motion of the progressed Sun through the Zodiac. Each sign has an associated rhythmic/melodic style appropriate to the character of the sign, Like the system of keys/chords the signs are further differentiated into degrees. Because the Sun progresses much more slowly than the Moon, major changes of rhythmic and melodic style occur much more rarely than changes of key. In the course of a thirty minute piece (corresponding to thirty years of life) , a major rhythmic style change will occur only once or twice, as the progressed Sun changes sign.