Music

Band playing music

It is obvious that all created things are connected one to another by a linkage complete and perfect…

• We enjoy music because when we listen to it, the sounds resonate with the other souls in the universe to whom we are connected.
• Musical notes resonate with individual souls, and the timbre (character of the sound) of each note relates to the person's character. Melodies are like stories of spiritual and material ascent and descent, timing and rhythm.
• Harmony between notes relates to different people being in harmony with one another, for example by cooperating on various things.
• Non-tonal sounds such as drums relate to people doing things which are less loving and more strong and firm.
• The pitch or frequency of each note relates to the spectrum of spiritual colors (see Theory section below for more detail).
• Rhythm relates to regular patterns in time, and repetition in music arises from repeated actions or events.
• As Eastern religions have been studied more and more in the West, Western music has become increasingly loop-based. This is because Eastern religions involve ‘tuning in’ with cycles in the Universe and Eastern meditation involves repeated patterns such as mantras or focusing on one’s breathing.

Theory

Playing the piano

The simplest musical scale to understand is C major. It comprises the eight notes from the note on the left of the two black notes together, ascending to the same position higher up. Some scales include black notes but this one does not. The notes on the scale are shown by letters C to G and then A to C.

These notes correspond to the spiritual colors, as follows:

C – Red, D – Orange, E – Orangish Yellow, F – Yellow, G – Green, A – Turquoiseish Blue, B – Violet

Chords (triads) are played with a ‘root’ note, two notes above that and another two notes above that. The chords with these notes as root notes also have these colors, with major chords being light versions of the colors and minor chords being dark versions.

In the scale of A minor, which is the minor scale without black notes, the notes and chords have the same colors as in C major. For other scales, the colors for C major or A minor can be transposed to the new scale, and then the color of each note is two thirds the transposed color and one third the original color (from C major or A minor).

While some believe other ways of tuning instruments aside from the standard (‘A440’) way are better, the standard way of tuning is best because it matches up perfectly with the colors and resonates with the spirit. Other ways of tuning are designed to resonate more with other parts of the body.

Bridge

Bridge album cover

This album of piano music by Tim is spiritually related to this project.

On the album cover is The Clifton Suspension Bridge in Tim’s hometown of Bristol, and since it bridges the human and natural worlds, it is a sign of this project. As far as he knows, Tim is the Bahá’í who lives closest to the bridge. The Bahá’í community has purchased the property where ‘Abdu’l-Bahá stayed while He was in Bristol, and this is very close to the bridge.

The album has a track about spirituality of the material world, and then a track about how the East and West will embrace each other like two lovers, and then a track about how the Bahá’í Faith will be embraced by the whole world.