Music and the Power of Sound: The Influence of Tuning and Interval on Consciousness [Hardcover]

Alain Dani?lou (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 1, 1995

An accomplished musician and Hindu scholar looks to the harmonic ratios of ancient China, India and Greece as he explores the power of music to speak to our higher consciousness.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"With his fierce, global intelligence, Alain Danielou was the first to wake up the West to the universality of musical harmony and its potential for planetary consciousness."
(W.A. Mathieu, author of The Listening Book and The Musical Life )

"Our debt to his scholarship and humanity is immeasurable."
(The Times Literary Supplement )

Language Notes

Text: English, German (translation)

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 192 pages
• Publisher: Inner Traditions; Rep Sub edition (August 1, 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0892813369
• ISBN-13: 978-0892813360
• Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 6.2 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,335,758 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Brilliant though too much hinduistic, April 20, 2008

By 

Jacques COULARDEAU "A soul doctor, so to say" (OLLIERGUES France) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Music and the Power of Sound: The Influence of Tuning and Interval on Consciousness (Hardcover)

Alain Daniélou is known first of all for his musical semantics based not on notes but on intervals, hence not on punctual sounds but on the articulation of one note onto another to form an interval and then on the articulation of intervals one upon another. In this book of articles and studies brought together, some of them being unpublished before, he used his approach to further some other ideas. The basic principle is that an interval is the ratio produced by the frequencies of the two notes that define that interval. He tested and identified the psycho-mental effects of these intervals on listeners and connected them to three numerical elements appearing in such ratios (basically 2, 3 and 5). But he further brings into his approach an important inspiration from the old Sanskrit approach of music. We have to note here he assumes that this Vedic tradition is the oldest human musical tradition, is the basic and sole because only possible musical approach, and it has been kept in later Hinduist music. We can see here he is totally unaware of the fact that Sumerian music is at least one thousand if not one and a half thousand years older. Vedic music is not the original form of music. He also forgets that Hinduism is an old approach in India and he does not consider at all the Buddhist approach. All his symbolism with an ever present God as a creator would have to be challenged in the Buddhist understanding that there is no god and the world is not seen as created. Yet his symbolic approach that brings together musical notes, geometrical shapes, colors, animals, planets, basic elements, etc., ... and gods, is interesting if we let the divine elements out of a modern assimilation. The book is a lot more interesting when he shows how an interval has to go through an acoustic trip from the ear up into the brain and the mind to be interpreted and felt. Then his formal approach can lead to a new question he does not ask: are the effects of the intervals what they are because of the correspondence between the functional structures of these intervals and the brain cells that process the acoustic stimuli, and the stimuli of other senses? And further on, that could lead to the question: are the formal structural characteristics of sounds in agreement or disagreement with the same in a building (like in a church) that has perfect acoustics? In other words Danielou's agreement with the deistic and altogether rather purely experiential approach of the Hinduistic school limits his vision of his subject. What's more, that blocks him totally against any form of music posterior to let's say the romantics or at the latest Debussy. He rejects all music composed over the last hundred years that does not follow the basic musical principles from the Renaissance to the Impressionistic era. In fact he states that all Vedic vision of music is the acme of music and he rejects the western principles of harmony that triumphed at the end of the 15th century. There is not much left then except going back to an exiled Tibetan monastery in some lost Himalayan mountain. I don't think anyone wants to be that regressive. It could have been a marvelous book with a little distantiation from his hinduistic absolute reference.

Dr Jacques COULARDEAU, University Paris Dauphine, University Paris 1 Pantheon Sorbonne & University Versailles Saint Quentin en Yvelines

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars A mixed bag., January 25, 2011

By 

Hexagram of the Heavens (Tropical Zone) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: Cosmic Music: Musical Keys to the Interpretation of Reality (Paperback)

Jocelyn Godwin is very prolific - this is the first book I've read of his. Although I will read more, my first impression is about 3 stars worth.
His orientation seems to be Theosophical / Anthroposophical, heir to the traditions of Madame Blavatsky and Rudolf Steiner, which means that what we may wistfully call "hard facts" are freely interspersed with spiritual fantasy.

Of the three essayists included in this volume (Godwin contributes the intro, some notes, and apparently some tranlations) - Marius Schneider, Rudolf Haase, and Hans Erhard Lauer - I can take or leave two. Lauer is an Anthroposophist through and through, which means Theosophy (itself an eclectic 19th century blend of yoga and christianity) mixed with a dose of Darwinism and pushed through a sieve of Zoroastrianism. Schneider may have more to say elsewhere (his major work is in Spanish and is on my wish list but yet unread), but the essays included here are random musings on musical symbolism in the Vedas and elsewhere, and other authors have much more to say about the musical import of this symbolism (see "The Myth of Invariance" by Ernest McClain.)

The saving grace of this volume is in the essays by Rudolf Haase, which deal with Kepler's work, with harmonic theory in general (musical and astronomical) and - in part - how it relates to the spiritual fantasies which are regularly imposed on harmonic theory (and of course have been for several thousand years). Haase has the grace to directly address this issue up front, saying that "...with the help of ... teleological thinking, harmonics is in a position to produce a morphological proof of God." - and then he proceeds to offer various disclaimers and discussion points in order to put this position in perspective, a more discerning position than usual for music-of-the-spheres mystic types.

More gold is in the appendix, where Godwin reproduces in English translation some relevant passages from Kepler himself. Kepler is a central figure in the area of thought where musical harmony meets astronomy and calendar systems, as central as the mythical figure of Pythagoras and closer to modern thought. Reading these excerpts gives me the distinct feeling that I would do better to read Kepler - if he's available in English - than to read any anthroposophist's essays about him.

A small quibble: either Godwin or Haase - not sure which it was at the moment - places some emphasis on Kepler's supposed own emphasis on the "major and minor" scales. This would be an anachronism by about 100 years or so, and indicates some probable mis-reading of Kepler's Latin, I expect. (See "Between Modes and Keys: German Theory 1592-1802" by Joel Lester.) It must be hard enough, of course, to interpret the subtleties of authors writing in medieval Latin or Italian, and who can blame Godwin for trying (the translations are apparently his), but noticing one wrong note is to be alerted to the possibility of more.