Some 19th century Scottish music theory eccentricity. You too can play about architecture ! (apologies to frank Zappa )

https://publicdomainreview.org/essay/music-of-the-squares-david-ramsay-hay-and-the-reinvention-of-pythagorean-aesthetics

A Zen master teaches that you can strive to experience the world in one object, say, an apple,. He adds that there are no categories of fruit, nor of objects, each one its own individual entity. Mind numbing? What is this?

It's an artistic and stylistic perception of the world where such human abstractions surpass perception of the objects themselves, uniting them in broad and unfamiliar ways but also dividing them endlessly.

So, you have a silly tree or a noble tree and they remind you of someone you know. You have car design, building design, natural design of faces and bodies, design of anything including fine art, and they all relate by these abstract parameters. (This can be a real conversation stopper if the "likened" subject actually turns into the new subject.)

Stretching further, your basic personality, even your soul purpose, might be seen in a dog (maybe your dog). A little Chinese girl might somehow resemble a male American actor. Sense of design crosses all barriers, uniting objects from all manner of commonly perceived categories.

It's a beautiful thing, miles of metaphors upon other metaphors. It's a poet's world and of course includes the world of music. with its mathematical correspondences and lack thereof, and its flow through time (or lack thereof).

From a litter of poodle puppies all playing in our livingroom,, I picked the smallest one who could outmaneuver the others. Then he'd turn his head completely around and look squarely at me. It strongly reminded me of an exceptionally talented singer I toured with long ago, so I named him "Buckley".

Interesting link.

"there appears to be implanted in the human mind a governing principle of harmony of a mathematical nature, responsive to impressions made upon the organs of sense [...]"

This is very much related to 'Just Intonation' (JI) (perfect harmony) which i have spent a lot of time studying.
Pythagorean's tone systems were of course JI.

The ear hears consonance between pitches when those pitches have frequencies in simple ratios:
2:1 for the octave
3:2 for the JI fifth
4:3 for the JI fourth
5:4 for the JI major third
6:5 for the JI minor third
etc.

This consonance is heard because, for example with the JI fifth:
The higher pitch progresses through 3 cycles in the exact time the lower pitch progresses through 2, where they then come back into phase and repeat the process.
Exactly like a 3 against 2 percussion polyrhythm.
This is the 'mathematical harmony of 3 against 2'.

The reason i write 'JI major third' instead of 'major third' is because all modern instruments, guitars and Sticks, use a tone system called '12 Tone Equal Temperament' which is only a rough approximation of JI, all the intervals except the octave are 2-18 cents out of tune.

To play in JI you need weird looking unequally-spaced frets and you would not be able to freely modulate between keys. There are special guitars fretted for JI but i have not yet seen a tapping instrument fretted this way.

To elaborate, I meant eccentricity in the good sense, if anyone was wondering [emoji1783]


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My buddy calls me eccentric. I clarify the difference between being referred to as "eccentric" vs. "nuts" is how much money you have. In that respect, I'm nuts. But I have a Stick...

Thanks Mike for the website. Better than t.v. Going on to MY extreme philosophies of music, I ascribe to "The Big Note" Theory described on F.Z.'s "Lumpy Gravy". Also, anyone notice the similarities in "coded finger symbols" in Emmett's FreeHands and Hays?