The Harmony of the Spheres

The Harmony of the Spheres PDF Author: Joscelyn Godwin
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1620550962
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 348

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Book Description
Professor of Music at Colgate University and a widely respected musicologist, Godwin traces the history of the idea, held since ancient times, that the whole cosmos, with its circling planets and stars, is in some way a musical or harmonious entity. The author shows how this concept has continued to inspire philosophers, astronomers, and mystics from antiquity to the present day.

The Harmony of the Spheres

The Harmony of the Spheres PDF Author: Joscelyn Godwin
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1620550962
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 348

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Book Description
Professor of Music at Colgate University and a widely respected musicologist, Godwin traces the history of the idea, held since ancient times, that the whole cosmos, with its circling planets and stars, is in some way a musical or harmonious entity. The author shows how this concept has continued to inspire philosophers, astronomers, and mystics from antiquity to the present day.

Harmony and the Music of the Spheres

Harmony and the Music of the Spheres PDF Author: Mariken Teeuwen
Publisher: Brill Academic Pub
ISBN: 9789004125254
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 589

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Book Description
The Carolingian intellectual elite studied the late-antique work of Martianus Capella with enthusiasm. The wealth of glosses that survive in Carolingian manuscripts testify to this. This book analyzes the reception of ancient knowledge on music, and weighs its relevance for medieval music theory.

The Music of the Spheres

The Music of the Spheres PDF Author: Jamie James
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 9780387944746
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 292

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Book Description
For centuries, scientists and philosophers believed the universe was a stately; ordered mechanism - mathematical and musical. The smooth operation of the cosmos created a divine harmony (perfect, spiritual, eternal) which composers sought to capture and express. With The Music of the Spheres, readers will see how this scientific philosophy emerged, how it was shattered by changing views of the universe and the rise of Romanticism, and to what extent (if at all) it survives today. From Pythagoras to Newton, Bach to Beethoven, and on into the twentieth century, it is a spellbinding examination of the interwoven fates of science and music throughout history.

The Harmony of the World

The Harmony of the World PDF Author: Johannes Kepler
Publisher: American Philosophical Society
ISBN: 9780871692092
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 618

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Book Description
The authors have presented and interpreted Johannes Kepler's Latin text to English readers by putting it into the kind of clear but earnest language they suppose Kepler would have used if he had been writing today.

Sing Aloud Harmonious Spheres

Sing Aloud Harmonious Spheres PDF Author: Jacomien Prins
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351664182
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 496

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Book Description
This is the first volume to explore the reception of the Pythagorean doctrine of cosmic harmony within a variety of contexts, ranging chronologically from Plato to 18th-century England. This original collection of essays engages with contemporary debates concerning the relationship between music, philosophy, and science, and challenges the view that Renaissance discussions on cosmic harmony are either mere repetitions of ancient music theory or pre-figurations of the ‘Scientific Revolution’. Utilizing this interdisciplinary approach, Renaissance Conceptions of Cosmic Harmony offers a new perspective on the reception of an important classical theme in various cultural, sequential and geographical contexts, underlying the continuities and changes between Antiquity, the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. This project will be of particular interest within these emerging disciplines as they continue to explore the ideological significance of the various ways in which we appropriate the past.

The Music of the Spheres, Or, Cosmic Harmony

The Music of the Spheres, Or, Cosmic Harmony PDF Author: Leonard A. Bosman
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Cabala
Languages : en
Pages :

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Book Description


Melody, Harmony, Tonality

Melody, Harmony, Tonality PDF Author: E. Eugene Helm
Publisher: Scarecrow Press
ISBN: 0810886405
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 211

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Book Description
Where did the major scale come from? Why does most traditional non-Western music not share Western principles of harmony? What does the inner structure of a canon have to do with religious belief? Why, in historical terms, is J.S. Bach’s music regarded as a perfect combination of melody and harmony? Why do clocks in church towers strike dominant-tonic-dominant-tonic? What do cathedrals have to do with monochords? How can the harmonic series be demonstrated with a rope tied to a doorknob, and how can it be heard by standing next to an electric fan? Why are the free ocean waves in Debussy’s La Mer, the turbulent river waves in Smetana’s Moldau, and the fountain ripples in Ravel’s Jeux d’Eau pushed at times into four-bar phrases? Why is the metric system inherently unsuitable for organizing music and poetry? In what way does Plato’s Timaeus resemble the prelude to Wagner’s Das Rheingold? Just how does Beethoven’s work perfectly illustrate fully functional tonality, and why were long-range works based on this type of tonality impossible before the introduction of equal temperament? In this new century, what promising materials are available to composers in the wake of harmonic experimentation and, some would argue, exhaustion? The answers to these seemingly complicated questions are not the sole province of music professors or orchestra conductors. In fact, as E. Eugene Helm demonstrates, they can just as easily be explained to amateurs, and their answers are important if we are to understand how Western music works. The full range of Western music is explored through 21 concise chapters on such topics as melody, harmony, counterpoint, texture, melody types, improvisation, music notation, free imitation, canon and fugue, vibration and its relation to harmony, tonality, and the place of music in architecture and astronomy. Intended for amateurs and professionals, concert-goers and conductors, Helm offers in down-to-earth language an explanation of the foundations of our Western music heritage, deepening our understanding and the listening experience of it for all.

Harmony and Counterpoint

Harmony and Counterpoint PDF Author: Bell Yung
Publisher: Stanford University Press
ISBN: 0804726582
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 338

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Book Description
This volume of nine essays draws together leading scholars in anthropology, social history, musicology, and ethnomusicology to address the roles and functions of music in the Chinese ritual context. How does music, one of a constellation of essential performative elements in almost all rituals, empower an officiant, legitimate an officeholder, create a heightened state of awareness, convey a message, or produce a magical outcome, a transition, a transformation? After an introduction by the volume editors, Bell Yung proposes a theoretical framework for dealing with Chinese ritual sound. A group of three essays focuses on the music for rituals that create political and social legitimacy followed by a second group of essays considering the music associated with rites of passage. Two essays then deal with the music accompanying rituals of propitiation. In all these cases, music is seen to play a critical role, if not the core of the ritual.

Music, Cosmology, and the Politics of Harmony in Early China

Music, Cosmology, and the Politics of Harmony in Early China PDF Author: Erica Fox Brindley
Publisher: SUNY Press
ISBN: 1438443137
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 240

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Book Description
Explores the religious, political, and cultural significance attributed to music in early China. In early China, conceptions of music became important culturally and politically. This fascinating book examines a wide range of texts and discourse on music during this period (ca. 500100 BCE) in light of the rise of religious, protoscientific beliefs on the intrinsic harmony of the cosmos. By tracking how music began to take on cosmic and religious significance, Erica Fox Brindley shows how music was used as a tool for such enterprises as state unification and cultural imperialism. She also outlines how musical discourse accompanied the growth of an explicit psychology of the emotions, served as a fundamental medium for spiritual attunement with the cosmos, and was thought to have utility and potency in medicine. While discussions of music in state ritual or as an aesthetic and cultural practice abound, this book is unique in linking music to religious belief and demonstrating its convergences with key religious, political, and intellectual transformations in early China.

Signature of the Celestial Spheres

Signature of the Celestial Spheres PDF Author: Hartmut Warm
Publisher: Rudolf Steiner Press
ISBN: 1855842351
Category : Body, Mind & Spirit
Languages : en
Pages : 416

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Book Description
Is the solar system ordered? Or is it simply the result of random and chaotic accidents? This book takes the reader on a compelling and powerful journey of discovery, revealing the celestial spheres in their astonishingly complex patterns. Movements of the planets are found to correspond accurately with simple geometric figures and musical intervals, pointing to an exciting new perspective on the ancient idea of the "harmony of the spheres." Hartmut Warm's detailed presentation incorporates the distances, velocities, and periods of conjunction of the planets, as well as the rotations of the Sun, Moon, and Venus. Numerous graphics--including color plates--illustrate the extraordinary beauty of geometrical forms that result when the movements of several planets are viewed in relation to one another. Moreover, the author describes and analyzes concepts of the "music of the spheres," with special emphasis on Kepler's revolutionary ideas. The book also discusses current scientific beliefs about the origin of the universe and the solar system, enabling the reader to understand fully how this remarkable research supplements contemporary materialistic views of the cosmos. The appendix includes his mathematical and astronomical methods of calculation, as well as a detailed discussion of their accuracy and validity based on modern astronomical algorithms.