TheMusicGuy

I'm the music guy discussed in this thread, so thought I could help explain harmonic interference theory to clarify what it is and what it's not. First would be that it is not strictly "science", but instead natural philosophy. Science is a process of dissection and finding differences with the goal of controlling nature. Natural philosophy is the opposite process of unifying and finding commonalities in order to understand nature and connection to self. Harmonic science is then primarily a natural philosophy that crosses boundaries, which is why it is not accepted into the science method. My theory describes music perception as a reflective Gaussian derivative pattern matching process evolved into the body and brain. There are a set of 34 principles describing this and some predictive metrics for common emotional qualities triggered by interference patterns in sound and vision. It extends holonomic brain theory into the area of auditory cognition and applies the Gaussian derivative as a focusing function in the holonomic model. This is then further supported by two other rising theories: Harmonic Resonance Theory and Adaptive Resonance Theory. The theory is extended into various geometric models, which ultimately leads to a single harmonic field something like a scalable quantum field. This field is an orthogonal standing wave lattice that can contain both auditory and visual objects just like our brains do, measuring degree of coherence in different patterns. Practically speaking, this model can be simulated in a neural net for machine recognition of organic properties. It can also be used to classify living organisms withing the broader context of cosmological evolution and coherent self-organizing properties throughout nature. So while all this comes from the realm of natural philosophy, it does have applications along with certain philosophical implications. The scientific method only gets us so far.

You're right we don't need all that to understand the essential elements of nature. The study of nature and thus self has lost its way in modern science. We are taught by our schools and churches that seeking answers in nature is pointless (even evil) and that the only good and right thing to do is learn to manipulate nature without understanding. This is the legacy of Rome. Take me instead to the Temple of Fractal Resonance ... I want to sign up.

Thanks for the welcome. To your question, the term Jazz originated in the word Jasmine, the French perfume worn by the working women in New Orleans bordellos at the turn of the 20th century. This was where jazz got started, designed to induce feelings of sensuality. There was an influx of all things French into New Orleans at that time, including classically trained piano players from Europe bringing with them the latest chromatic harmonies. This is why the French embraced jazz early on - it was harmonically romantic and even impressionist at times, becoming more polychordal in time. I agree about much of the pop music today being negative in tone. If it's not outright hostile, it's at least cynical. Not like the naively happy music of the 60s. This said, there is still good solid music to be found if you look hard. Muisc is more than sound. It is a model of coherence that entrains our thinking and worldview. It is persuasion and at the center of perception.

I happened across this site while browsing my first ever google search on my website interferencetheory.com. There was a lively discussion about the ideas presented on my site, which I found interesting, so I signed up here. I thought I might introduce myself by clarifying a few points about my book and site. First, I should say that I don't claim a secret Catholic conspiracy to control music as was pointed out in a forum here. Rather, I claim the control of music and harmonic theory was and still is a central part of Church doctrine and well documented in canon law and historical records. Long before Christianity, music and harmonic theory had been central to the development of religion and social organization and was commonly "purified" in an attempt to fix entonation in a curved pitch space. This practice reached it's apex in the Catholic Church (Catholic is from the Greek word katharsoi, to purify). It was an accepted practice of the Church to control the harmonies acceptable inside a sanctuary, passing canonical laws in 1234 AD known as the Liber Extra. While this seems harmless enough, the practice naturally suppressed some intervals in favor of others, promulgating a decidedly manmade and unnatural view of music and harmonic principles in nature. The same thing happened with the suppression of pagan heliocentric cosmology, causing Galileo no small amount of grief. This practice is more significant than one might first think or want to admit. Science developed under duress of this purification doctrine, causing harmonic principles to be avoided during the Enlightenment to appease the Church. A natural and pragmatic reaction to a powerful multinational regime I'm sure. But unfortunately, this religious purification and scientific avoidance strategy has created a Western science and academia that is in denial that nature self-organizes harmonically. The smarter you are, the less you want to admit that most things can be explained using simple musical terms. A beautiful truth indeed and one central to the Tao, but not much money or prestige in it for aspiring scientists. This is the subject of my book and site - to show how nature and all living things self-organize according to simple harmonic principles. Rather than focusing on religion, perhaps it would be more fun to discuss something really controversial, like Darwinian evolution. Is evolution strictly a matter of random mutation and natural selection or is it guided by a preexisting and inevitable resonance patterning process intrinsic to water and carbon bonding? Could we actually be a kind of atomic music?