The Lost Harmonic Law of the Bible Jay Kappraff New Jersey Institute of Technology Newark, NJ 07102 Email:
[email protected] Abstract The ethnomusicologist Ernest McClain has shown that metaphors based on the musical scale appear throughout the great sacred and philosophical works of the ancient world. This paper will present an introduction to McClain’s harmonic system and how it sheds light on the Old Testament. 1. Introduction Forty years ago the ethnomusicologist Ernest McClain began to study musical metaphors that appeared in the great sacred and philosophical works of the ancient world. These included the Rg Veda, the dialogues of Plato, and most recently, the Old and New Testaments. I have described his harmonic system and referred to many of his papers and books in my book, Beyond Measure (World Scientific; 2001). Apart from its value in providing new meaning to ancient texts, McClain’s harmonic analysis provides valuable insight into musical theory and mathematics both ancient and modern. 2. Musical Fundamentals Figure 1. Tone circle as a Single-wheeled Chariot of the Sun (Rg Veda) Figure 2. The piano has 88 keys spanning seven octaves and twelve musical fifths. The chromatic musical scale has twelve tones, or semitone intervals, which may be pictured on the face of a clock or along the zodiac referred to in the Rg Veda as the “Single-wheeled Chariot of the Sun.” shown in Fig. 1, with the fundamental tone placed atop the tone circle and associated in ancient sacred texts with “Deity.” The tones are denoted by the first seven letters of the alphabet augmented and diminished by and sharps ( ) and flats (b).