A musical sound, thus illustrated, is composed of 25 circles of vibrations, and each circle is a more or less developed sound. There are, therefore, 25 sounds in one musical sound.1 When these 25 sounds, with 19 different ratios, are fully developed and standing in the same order and in the same proportions as that in which they naturally arise in a single sound, and in this fully developed condition all heard together, they produce one grand harmonious chord of chords.2 The reason is obvious; these 25 sounds are distributed over six octaves. As B, the seventh in the octave-scale, cannot be developed save at the distance of five and a-half octaves above the fundamental sound, so on that account it has no octave in the chord, having only one circle of vibrations in Nature's grand fugue. D, the second of the octave-scale, arises at nearly five octaves up, and has only two circles of vibrations; G and E arise in the fourth octave, and have three circles each; A arises in the third octave, and has four circles; C arises in the second octave, and has five circles; while F, the fundamental sound, the genetic root of the whole system, has the first octave entirely to itself. It has also the seven circles of vibration which embrace and enclose the whole six octaves, and give unity of structure to the whole system of vibrations. [Scientific Basis and Build of Music, page 17]
"Although a sound is composed of the notes which, when developed, constitute three chords, beautifully differing in their musical effects; yet, as the three notes which make the fundamental chord have sixteen of the twenty-five circles of vibrations, this determines the predominance of the fundamental chord. And as the root of this chord has seven of these sixteen circles, the top of the chord five, and the middle of the chord four, so do these seven circles of vibration determine the predominance of the note to which they belong, and conspire to give a wondrous unity of effect to what is really a highly complex sound." [Scientific Basis and Build of Music, page 18]
See Also
Overtone Series
Ramsay - The Great Chord of Chords, the Three-in-One17