THE SACRED GEOMETRY OF SOUND

Sacred Geometry and the Structure of Music

"Legend recounts how Orpheus was given a lyre by Apollo. By playing his lyre, Orpheus produced harmonies that joined all of Nature together in peace and joy.

Inspired by this Orphic tradition of music and science, Pythagoras of Samos conducted perhaps the world's first physics experiment. By plucking strings of different lengths, Pythagoras discovered that sound vibrations naturally occurred in a sequence of whole tones or notes that repeat in a pattern of seven.

Like the seven naturally occurring colors of the rainbow, the octave of seven tones — indeed, all of Creation — is a singing matrix of frequencies that can be experienced as color, sound, matter, and states of consciousness.

This correlation of sound, matter, and consciousness is important.

For as Stanford physicist William Tiller has proved, human consciousness imprints the space and matter of the universe.

It is our intent that gives the direction and quality to Creation.

I believe that this matrix of Creation is waiting for us to sound the most harmonious vibrating chord — to sound the universe itself into a perfect, idealized form.


Phi and the Musical Fifth


To follow this discussion, we first need to know that the Golden Mean and the Pentagram are closely related.

For the angles of the five sides of a Pentagram are at a ratio of exactly 1.618 — the Golden Mean ratio, known mathematically as phi.

The fifth is the interval found in most sacred music, and has a powerful harmonizing effect on the human energy system.


It is the first harmonic sounded by a plucked string, and is what gives the note its depth and beauty. Its sacred sound is the hallmark of the Gregorian chant. In fact most divinely inspired music, including some New Age music and that of indigenous cultures, is built around the musical interval of the fifth.

This music-geometry connection is well stated by Goethe, who said, "Sacred architecture (geometry)  is frozen music."......The same is true of the "architecture" of the human body.

It was Pythagoras who first described the fifth interval that has come to be universally recognized for its beauty.

It is "an archetypal expression of harmony that demonstrates the 'fitting together' of microcosm and macrocosm in an inseparable whole.

The fifth is a beautiful sound because it demonstrates how the universe works."

And in building the phi proportions, along with those of the other musical intervals, into the designs of cathedrals and temples, the architects also are building in the effects of the musical intervals upon which the sacred proportions are based.

These effects, immediately experienced as harmonious, powerful, and centering, can be experienced first-hand when one enters a Gothic cathedral or an ancient Egyptian temple. Being inside such a space helps us to access other dimensions of consciousness.

It is the same experience that is reached through listening to sacred music."

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