Ramsay
grave harmonic, while all the other intervals have, shows that the natural laws are not confined to one style of working.
When the major scale has been generated, with its three chords, the subdominant, tonic, and dominant, by the primary mathematical ratios, it consists of forms and orders which in themselves are adapted to give outgrowth to other forms and orders by the law of duality and other laws. All the elements, orders, combinations, and progressions in music are the products of natural laws. The law of Ratio gives quantities, form, and organic structure. The law of Duality gives symmetry, producing the minor mode in response to the major in all that belongs to it. The laws of Permutations and Combinations give orders and rhythms to the elements. The law of Affinity gives continuity; continuity gives unity; and unity gives the sweetness of harmony. The law of Position gives the notes and chords their specific levities and gravities; and these two tendencies, the one upward and the other downward, constitute the vital principle of music. This is the spiritual constitution of music which the Peter Bell mathematicians have failed to discern: [Scientific Basis and Build of Music, page 37]
The sympathy of one thing with another, and of one part of a thing with another part of it, arises from the principle of unity. For example, a string requires to be uniform and homogenous to have harmonics producing a fine quality of tone by the sweet blendings of sympathy; if it be not so, the tone may be miserable ... You say you wish I were in touch with Mr. Keely; so do I myself ... I look upon numbers very much as being the language which tells out the doings of Nature. Mr. Keely begins with sounds, whose vibrations can be known and registered. I presume that the laws of ratio, position, duality, and continuity, all the laws which go to mould the plastic air by elastic bodies into the sweetness of music, as we find them operative in the low silence of oscillating pendulums, will also be found ruling and determining all in the high silence of interior vibrations which hold together or shake asunder the combinations which we call atoms and ultimate elements, but which may really be buildings of wondrous complexity occupying different ranges of place and purpose between the visible cosmos and Him who built and evermore buildeth all things. The same laws, though operating in different spheres, make the likenesses of things in motion greater than the differences. [Scientific Basis and Build of Music, page 87]
With perfect duality of response does resolution of chords go on in the minors. When the tonic chord follows the subdominant one, they have for their note in common A, i.e., in the key of A; and the middle of the subdominant moves by semitonic progression to the top of the tonic. When the tonic chord follows the dominant one, the top of the tonic and the root of dominant E is a note in common, and the top of the dominant goes by semitonic progression to the middle of the tonic. These simple chords are thus linked together exactly with the same degree of continuity as the simple chords of the major. When the tonic chord follows the compound subdominant, this compound chord, like the compound dominant in the major, has two semitonic progressions - one to the top and one to the middle of the tonic - and they have one note in common. When the compound dominant follows the subdominant, the root of the subdominant is lent to the top of the dominant, and thus a note in common is created, and the middle of the subdominant moves by semitonic progression to the root of the dominant. When the compound subdominant follows the dominant, the top is lent to the root of the subdominant, creating a note in common between them, and the root of the dominant goes to the middle of the subdominant in semitonic progression. This is the way of Nature. The unbroken continuity of her ways is perfectly illustrated in the linked sweetness and kinship of chords in a key; or when one key passes by modulation to another key; and that through all the chords and all the keys. We shall see wondrously more of this when we come to the study and contemplation of the Chromatic System of Chords. [Scientific Basis and Build of Music, page 112]
Cayce
"DO stay sweet. Keep that attitude of expectation. Do keep an attitude of hope. And KNOW that there is healing in the power and might of the love of the Divine." [Cayce (2948-1)]
See Also