Tuning Fork & Notes for the Celestial Hymns

Rituals, spells, prayer, meditation and magical acts.
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Nefastos
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Tuning Fork & Notes for the Celestial Hymns

Post by Nefastos »

Have you used tuning fork or for example piano keys to give you the right musical note for the celestial hymns (as given in table page 186 in Fosforos)? Or, in case you are musical enough to just know the right tone by yourself, do you use your knowledge to give a specific tone or scale to your prayers?

Long ago I tried to collect the seven tuning fork set for to use with each of the celestial hymns, but it turned out they were surprisingly hard to obtain, so for the moment I only have A (for Friday) & C (for Tuesday) to use to give the right note for the chanting. I think I will try to find the whole set again. (Tips for the places selling beautiful instruments are thus also appreciated.)

Often intuition serves well enough for the chanting/prayer, but in cases where there is need for grounding to the primary correspondences, I find their use positive. And the tuning fork, a partly magical instrument in its simplicity, seems like a great way of having an instrument solely for the magical purposes; using piano or some other means for getting the note, would seem not so ritualistically "pure". Which, of course, would not be a bad thing at all, if you see the ceremonial side differently, like in chaos magic.
Faust: "Lo contempla. / Ei muove in tortuosa spire / e s'avvicina lento alla nostra volta. / Oh! se non erro, / orme di foco imprime al suol!"
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RaktaZoci
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Re: Tuning Fork & Notes for the Celestial Hymns

Post by RaktaZoci »

What an interesting topic! I was not actually aware that we had this kind of tonical influence in our ritual system. As Nefastos knows, I am myself quite interested in the connection of the musical scale to different systems (most of my notes concern the theosophical system) of prayer or worship and their correspondences to other concepts.

I haven't used, atleast very consciously, a certain note for each prayer, but I have used a bell in the beginning of the chanting. I actually replaced this bell recently to one that has much brighter sound, and possibly a higher note also. I seem to have some kind of a connection to the note D (two half steps below the normal E on guitar tuning) since I accidently tuned my drumset to the D scale, which was also the bands tuning at the time. Im not sure if this has some correspondence, though..

Alright, I checked the note on my bells, which actually were the same note, the other one just being slightly brighter, and this note was A. I have most likely then recited the hymns also in this same key.
die Eule der Minerva beginnt erst mit der einbrechenden Dämmerung ihren Flug.
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Kavi
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Re: Tuning Fork & Notes for the Celestial Hymns

Post by Kavi »

I have for long time thought of forming Celestial Hymns for different modes. As we know western music is divided to seven modes.
Ionian, Dorian, Phrygian, Lydian, Mixolydian, Aeolian and Locrian.
Mode is named for such, as it contains certain "mood" which is because of the intervals. So easily by using modes, one could create seven different moods for seven different celestial hymns.
When I read Fosforos and saw these musical notes with Celestial hymns I thought instantly of modes.
But it has been just a thought in back of my head and I haven't done actually anything , but read highly theoretical stuff about music.

Maybe it is a coincidence, but I have found from internet that 12 keys of piano goes identically with calendar months or at least resembles piano notes, if every month which has 31 days is white key and rest are seen as having 30 or irregular amount of days. They are black keys.
So we have seven months with 31 days: January (F), March(G), May (A), July (B), August (C), October (D) and December (E).
And here we have with 30 days and irregular days: February (F#), April (G#), June (A#), September (C#), November (D#)

I am not sure if there is any real use for this kind of thinking while singing the celestial hymns, but black keys could be at least seen as somekind of variation.
Oh, and of course Celestial Hymns are conntected to days of the week, rather than to months. :)
The colors are based on my subjective view, how I "see" the notes.

I usually just use any note which I sing along celestial hymns as "tonic" and occasionally go to fourth note from the tonic.
Maybe one day I could try to come up with different methods to work with hymns as I currently try to learn persian music. And I find it sounding really religious to my ear.
I have found that each mode in persian music not only has esoteric meaning and element which they hold in themselves, but also time, when it would be proper to use this certain mode. (Sufism)
Maybe western modes and greek modes before it had also similar to that but I haven't found anything from internet to prove this at this point.
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Heith
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Re: Tuning Fork & Notes for the Celestial Hymns

Post by Heith »

Thanks for sharing Tako, that was fascinating!
Kavi
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Re: Tuning Fork & Notes for the Celestial Hymns

Post by Kavi »

Heith wrote:Thanks for sharing Tako, that was fascinating!
I'm happy to hear this :)

Although I don't know how to compose music for Hymns at the point, as it seems that locrian has this "diabolus in musica" and it has quite hard to resolve the melody, but maybe it could be seen still as quite religious mode. Seventh mode with tritonus and not satisfying cadence... :D
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Heith
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Re: Tuning Fork & Notes for the Celestial Hymns

Post by Heith »

Tako wrote:Although I don't know how to compose music for Hymns at the point, as it seems that locrian has this "diabolus in musica" and it has quite hard to resolve the melody, but maybe it could be seen still as quite religious mode. Seventh mode with tritonus and not satisfying cadence... :D
Well I have no idea what you have written there but, it fascinates me! ;) Can you bring a little electric piano to the annual meeting and demonstrate?
Kavi
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Re: Tuning Fork & Notes for the Celestial Hymns

Post by Kavi »

Heith wrote:Well I have no idea what you have written there but, it fascinates me! Can you bring a little electric piano to the annual meeting and demonstrate?
Many musical things have been really hard for me to get too, so I understand this.
I think I could organize somekind of demonstration of it by bring somekind of piano for example in the phone app or using guitar and singing the notes over chords :)

(and sorry I don't remember the names of the hymns in english so I will just use their correspondence in the days)*

I am not familiar with theosophical concepts of notes and scales, so if someone who knows about them could tell, why are the notes in following order B C E G A F D?
I tried with guitar to come up with logic but it seems it doesn't have anything to do with fourths or fifths.
Although:
Monday B to Wednesday E
Tuesday C to Thursday G (exception as all else are fourths it in this fifth)
Wednesday E to Friday A
But then G to F is second interval :'-)
Friday A to Sunday D.

And I have to confess, I don't know anything about planets, but I have tried to read about concept of "music of spheres".
I have also read about 12 notes for 12 different astrological zodiac signs, but I'm not convinced there is any real use of it in exoteric music at least.

I have gotten used to that week starts on Monday and musical notes are as well counted from C.
But Planets seem to correspond differently with notes...
Why B resonates with Moon?
Every note has different frequency due to different planet, which resonates with different frequency in the Cosmos, (not to also forget about archetypes) but if it is so - are those frequencies (notes) more of a symbolic in nature as currently used equal temperament is just a compromise to make every note stable by impurifying each note a little so that they are equal with each other.
Not to say of course that it is a mistake to use equal temperament, but tuning systems seem to be not universal to my understanding.


Also I happened to notice that Tuesday Wednesday and Thursday form C major triad. C being root note, E being third and G fifth.
But before this thing starts to go too mad, I'd eagerly want to hear about this all as I believe my way of looking at this is too exoteric to understand it.
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Thelithiz
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Re: Tuning Fork & Notes for the Celestial Hymns

Post by Thelithiz »

I have intended to try sometimes but have not yet, and same with seven chakras. The tuning fork is used (by) humming the scale up or down to find the right note, so only one is needed.
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ben Shachar
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Re: Tuning Fork & Notes for the Celestial Hymns

Post by ben Shachar »

I will offer my relevant information on this topic though it is of little historical relevance it is applicable to the modality.

I created a guitar tuning that I find very useful and versatile on the acoustic. It offers many harmonics and the use of a capo allows one to adjust the key per discretion. It is as follows from top (low E) to bottom (high e)

1.D#
2.G#
3.C#
4.F#
5.B
6.E

It takes a little adjusting as the mechanics are different.
All one need do is find a chord that resonates with the open tuning and play from that position. The capo will change the feel as it increases the key upward
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