In Tune with the Cosmos

The album “Inside the Great Pyramid” begins with the sound of three strikes on the sarcophagus. Its dramatic bell-like tone reverberates the air of the chamber. Then, overlaying the sound of the Coffer, one hears the electronic tone of the Korg tuner followed by the smooth tone of Paul’s flute matching the sound. By re-tuning his flute to this frequency, every note he plays thereafter is reconciled to the harmonics of the room. At this moment Paul’s playing is in synch with the musical/numerical hologram of the pyramid--he is actualizing the wisdom alluded to in esoteric rhetoric, his playing summoning knowledge not consciously invoked in 5 millennium.

The numeric frequencies of the notes he plays become a library of information integrating the proportions of the pyramid with the dimensions of the earth and the human body. The pulse of physiology is harmonizing with the periods of the planets--truly, jazz in conversation with the cosmos.

A Note on the Significance of Tuning
The industry standard for the tuning of musical instruments in this country was not established until 1939. In previous centuries, Concert A varied from a high of 567 Hz in 1619 to a low of 403 Hz in 1648. Differences in tuning caused numerous problems for ensemble playing. For example, an organ built in one period may have been tuned low, while a wind instrument from another era or region may have been tuned a half tone higher. To remedy the problem, Concert “A” at 440 Hz was adopted by an international convention in 1889. As a result of that agreement all concert instruments now tune to the same pitch. Although utilitarian, the tuning standard of A/440 was not selected for any organic properties--the numerical frequencies of the notes of the modern musical scale no longer relate to meaningful correspondences.

But in the music Paul played in the King’s Chamber, based on the tuning frequency of A/438.18 Hz, all the notes he played, expressed in number, have natural, meaningful correlations. Whether scaled up or down by the decimal, doubled, divided, trebled, quadrupled or rendered an octave higher or lower as in music, the permutations of 438.18 relate to the natural order. Dramatically, each permutation of 438.18 corresponds to some dynamic process, physiological function or property of the pyramid. 438.18 is a fundamental alchemical number, intimately linked with the family of Canon Measures.

Pythagoras (550 BCE) explained music as the expression of a universal harmony which is also realized in arithmetic and in astronomy. Kepler (1600) correlated musical tones and intervals with the movements of the planets and astrology. Leibniz (1700) called music an “unconscious exercise in arithmetic.” Music has always been