Musical Intervals & the Human Experience

“I interweave my earthly existence with the divine-spiritual world, and, on the wings of the tone structure, the gods move through the world. I participate in their moving when I perceive the tones.” ~ Rudolf Steiner

 

Unique to the Acutonics®️ sound healing system, is the enormous profundity & importance placed on the musical interval (the space between the tones), within the application of Sound Vibration to matter. The interval is the doorway that superconducts movement of energy throughout the scale of  human experience.

So this Sound Therapy system does not apply just 1 tone (fork) on the body but always 2. The space between holds immense magic, not to mention the variations of intervallic personality, of multiple psychological archetypal voices having a conversation.

There have been various composers and philosophers that recognized a relationship between the intervals and how the development of mankind in a changing world (through the Earth’s precession or cyclic ages) is being perceived. Quantum Physicists also speak of dimensions or aspects of consciousness as levels of Frequential Harmonics.

 

“The facts of human evolution are expressed in musical development more clearly than anywhere else.” (Rudolf Steiner)

 

Some say that as a collective energy Earth and its inhabitants have been (mainly) operating (at this current place within the Great Year/ Yuga cycle), within the 3rd frequential harmonic.

Yet as the ascending precession spirals its wheel to allow more light from a higher frequential North Star 🌟 , there will be consistently increasing potential yet again to further expand collectively within the Octave ladders of harmonic expression.

From a more esoteric-philosophical point of view we can look at the divisions within the octave as a representation of the both physical and spiritual nature of man, man’s “Inner World” and “Outer World“, as well as the Earthly or physical and Cosmic or spiritual relationship. Perhaps even the expression “AS ABOVE, SO BELOW” could “represent” this division.

Unison

The tonic is the Wu Qi- the void, Oneness and Home.

 Second

The 2nd is the initial step away from Wu Qi in the musical scale.

It creates duality, contrast, division and tension. When you first leave home you are stepping into the unknown with one foot still residing there and the other taking a step into separation.

The Major 2nd (also called “Super Tonic”) represents what Freud called the “Super-Ego” (critical and moralizing role), the minor second represents what Freud called the “ego” (realistic part that mediates between the desires of the “id” and the “super-ego“).

The 2nd’s (the “ego” and “super-ego”) are the connection between the “id” (Tonic) and the emotions (3rds). The minor 2nd sensation it gives is similar to that of the Major 7th, the “Leading Tone”, in opposite direction. As the Major 7th leads us to the Octave, so does the minor 2nd to the Tonic.

Examples- Ohm/Mars 2nd, Ohm/Saturn 2nd, Ohm/Chiron 2nd, Chiron/Nibiru 2nd

 

Third

Expansion, growth, development, wisdom

One becomes two and two becomes three—just like in Oriental cosmology. Three is about the three treasures, the trinity and 3 is the building block for the harmonies, for the 10,000 things.

Rudolf Steiner about the 3rd:

“This transition to the experience of the third signifies at the same time that man feels music in relation to his own physical organization. For the first time, man feels that he is an earthly being when he plays music.

The third guides us to our inner being.

The “I” is, so to speak, within the confines of the human organism; man experiences the interval of the third inwardly. In a manner of speaking, man withdraws his experience of the world from the cosmos and unites it with himself. 

Not until man could experience the third did the subjective element feel that it rested within itself. Man began to relate the feeling for his destiny and ordinary life to the musical element.

The difference between major and minor keys appears; the subjective soul element relates itself to the musical element. Man can color the musical element in various ways. He is in himself, then outside himself; his soul swings back and forth between self-awareness and self-surrender. One therefore can say that in the case of the experience of the third the mood is one of consolidation of the inner being, of man’s becoming aware of the human being within himself.”

The Major generate a more “extrovert” feeling (toward the fourth), minor the more “introvert” feelings (toward the “I”).

You step out in a minor 3rd (Ohm/Zodiac 3rd) with the major 3rd (Ohm/Nibiru) you have gained wisdom experience—you are far enough away from home to look back with recognition and understanding and wisdom to keep moving on.

With the major 3rd there is an inner desire to move on and with the minor 3rd there is a strong decision to move on regardless of the consequences, regardless of the implications of what your choice is and how it affects others, how it effects relationship – major 3rd teaches us how our actions impose recognition of time and cycles and the limits of time for those around us—the thought that we would be together forever.

 

Fourth

Foundation, stability, solidity

It can be shocking to use since it is full of ambiguity with no real tonal centre—it is more radical.

 

Rudolf Steiner about the 4rd:

“The experience of the fourth is perhaps one of the most interesting for one who wishes to penetrate the secrets of the musical element. This is not because the experience of the fourth in itself is the most interesting but because it arises at the dividing line between the experience of the fifth of the outer world and the experience of the third in man’s inner being. The experience of the fourth lies right at the border, as it were, of the human organism.

With the experience of the fourth, man moves about, as it were, in the divine world; he stands precisely at the border of his humanness, retaining it, yet viewing it from the other side.“

In the Acutonics system the 4th, although our Earth Day 5th interval is also known as an augmented 4th. This interval is known as the devils interval, perhaps because it gave humans a taste of godhood.  Remember in the 5th which was the first interval to be lost to us—maybe 500 years ago –at that time a feeling that “I stand within the spiritual world was” dominant. We did not require instruments to produce the quality of the 5th.  Why—we possessed outwardly and in imaginative consciousness that we produced the 5th and it took its course in the divine realms. In the 4th we felt in a sense the holy wind that placed us in the physical world. Soon we required instruments that were outer to objectively experience the 4th.  The 4th says, “There is singing”  The 3rd“I sing”.

Examples:

Ohm/jupiter 4th

Fifth

 

The 5th opens to possibility, change and is an invitation. Fifths made a person feel as if they were carried into a different element.

Rudolf Steiner about the 5th:

“The experience of the fifth brings awareness of man within the divine world order. The experience of the ascending fifth is, as it were, an expansion into the vast universe.

This becomes more obvious if we take the scales through the range of seven octaves — from the contra-tones up to the tones above C — and consider that it is possible for the fifth to occur twelve times within these seven scales. In the sequence of the seven musical scales, we discover hidden, as it were, an additional twelve-part scale with the interval of the fifth.

In the age when the fifths predominated, it was impossible to color music in a subjective direction. Subjectivity only came into play in that the subjective felt transported, lifted into objectivity.”

 

It is a transporting feeling because of the lifting out of oneself. 5ths are contained in a lot of Chinese music—pentatonic scales.  With the experience of the 5th you might say, “The angel in my being is beginning to play music. The muse in me speaks.”  The experience of the 5th arose when humanity still felt united and still lived in the breath.  There was a felt feeling, though not verbally expressed “I breath in, I breath out.”  So with the 5thwe are leaving and returning to you.  It comprises both inhalation and exhalation. The 7th is exhalation. The 3rdenables us to breath from within.  The 5th brings us out of ourselves. The I is in motion outside physical organization—it was inside with the 3rd remember. In the 5th we feel the transition from the inner organization (3rd to the outer organization, the 7th—inner to outer experience.)  The experience with the 5th is an awareness of oneself within the divine world order.  Expansion into the vast universe, while the 3rd is return into ourselves.  And of course, in between the 2 lies the 4th. One of the most interesting intervals. In the 5thhumanity sang—because everything on Earth was divine and because we all had such imaginations we were always speaking of the spiritual worlds.  If you spoke and sang, you were connected with the spiritual worlds—there were the words of language. The spiritual elements incarnated in the tones of song. 5ths give us the possibility of motion outside of the human realm.

 

Examples:

Mars/Venus 5th, Chiron/Venus 5th, Saturn/Venus 5th, Low Jupiter/Sun 5th

Sixth

 

The 6th is reimagination; it is beyond the certainty of the 4th or the 5th…

With the 6th you have committed to a new lens.
6th is about momentum and about moon tides, about pulling

The major 6th is so positive—it is a lighthouse for going home
Home has not changed—we changed, and we change sometimes home is no longer tolerable. We become our own experience and that is tolerable—we have to change home so that our experience of home is what we make it.

The 6ths do play a similar role as the 3rds, but then (mirrored) on the “other side of the border” and relate to the cosmic or “spiritual” realm.

Rudolf Steiner about the 6th:

“One who experiences sixths knows what inspiration is. The form of the soul’s composition during the experience of the sixth is that of inspiration with clairvoyance.“

The 6th is in between a 5th and a 7th—and so it may be easier to explain the experiences of motion in 3 steps—the 7th, the 6th, and the 5th—in a kind of transported condition.  We enter our own being in the 4th; we dwell within ourselves in the 3rd. So the 3 steps—5ths are about imagination….6th are about inspiration with clairvoyance

Examples:

Ohm/Venus 6th, Full moon 6th

Seventh

Spirituality, Intuition, soul searcher, personal growth and development.

Rudolf Steiner about the 7ths:

“One who fully experiences sevenths knows what intuition is. What I mean is that in the experience of the seventh the form of the soul’s composition is the same as clairvoyantly with intuition.

This musical experience, which was based on an experience of the seventh through the full range of octaves, always consisted of man feeling completely transported. He felt free of his earthbound existence and transported into another world in this experience of the seventh. At that time he could just as well have said, “I experience music,” as “I feel myself in the spiritual world.” This was the predominant experience of the seventh. 

As the human being wished to incarnate more deeply into this physical body and take possession of it, the experience of the seventh became faintly painful.”

 

7ths are about intuition—what this means is that the experience of the 7th is where the souls composition is the same as clairvoyant intuition. That is why all of the mystery schools equate musical cognition with spiritual-musical cognition.

The experience of the 7th was the essential musical experience at the time and age of Atlantis.  The music of the time had very little similarity to the music of today—it was arranged in continuing 7ths—in other words 7thawareness of the full range of octaves. There was a feeling of being constantly transported—transported in a sense to other worlds and dimensions.  With this a freedom from Earthbound existence.  “I feel myself in the spiritual world”.  So this connection with the 7th continued to dominate up into the post Atlantean age—until it began to have an unpleasant effect.  Why? Because humans being wanted to incarnate more deeply into the physical body and take possession of it.  To be embodied, incarnate. The 5th then became more pleasant—and so the 5ths began to dominate and the experience was as though there was a tonal range of different octaves.  But in the 7th, the feeling is a lifting outside the body, but at the same time a unified being standing on Earth.  Music held the possibility of feeling of oneself in the world.  Human beings received religious instructions by being taught the music of the time. There was an understanding that through music we are not just Earthly but a transported being.

The 7th pulls in a different way, pulls to a new octave, and a new beginning and with the solar 7th, the major 7th, it is dissonant and it does pull toward home and it has inherent motion and tension—it give so much complexity to the chord

The 2nd and the 7th are both very close to the octave and proximity creates tension

Examples: Solar 7th, Sedna/Full Moon 7th

Octave

When we start to really learn about the octave it presents us with a unique musical experience—something like “I have found my I anew.”  A completed cycle. So really, it is a movement to a different level, a different experience of self.  It brings us to find our self on a higher level—to have and to feel our own self once more.

 

Dr Eeka King (Chinese Medicine)

Certified Teacher of the Acutonics® Diploma Certification Program

 

References