Astrology in relation to Musical tonality

I often compose music using this basic system of comparison that I devised. It’s simple but it works.

There's twelve notes in the Octave, twelve houses, twelve signs.

Capricorn is at the beginning of the year in terms of the Roman calender, and A is the beginning of the alphabet. However in Western music “C” is always the starting key in most cases because in it's Ionian or Major form it has no sharps or flats which corresponds to Aries which is seen as the 1st sign in Astrology.

So for me the corresponding note/key for each house sign is
C = 1st house = Aries
C#/Db = 2nd house = Taurus
D = 3rd house = Gemini
D#/Eb = 4th house = Cancer
E = 5th house = Leo
F = 6th house = Virgo
F#/Gb = 7th house = Libra
G = 8th house = Scorpio
G#/Ab = 9th house = Sagittarius
A = 10th house = Capricorn
A#/Bb = 11th house = Aquarius
B = 12th house = Pisces

The opposition of each sign corresponds to be the tritone of each note. Eg. Aries to Libra: 1st to 7th: C to F#.
An example of a major chord is: “C,E,G” which corresponds to 1st,5th and 8th houses. Or a grouping of Aries, Leo and Scorpio. Leo is the major third of Aries. Take out the G; the Scorpio: the 8th and add an A: Capricorn, 10th and now we have the relative minor. The A minor “A,C,E” which corresponds to 10th, 1st, 5th…(Capricorn, Aries, Leo.)
Sagittarius still has a strong link to Aries as well though as a major chord starting at G#/Ab (Sagittarius) needs a C (Aries) to be it’s major third.

The major scale of Aries is: Aries (1) (C), Gemini (3)(D), Leo (5)(E), Virgo (6)(F), Scorpio (8)(G), Capricorn (10)(A), Pisces (12)(B).
These are just some basics but the comparison is endless...

Very very interesting ..
I wonder how this corresponds to the way I make music myself. I'm a scorpio rising, my fifth house is Jupiter in Aries and I always find myself drawn to using the C note a lot. Coincidence?

I was just looking at the Circle Of 5ths or Circle Of 4ths, and I have labeled it with what I believe to be the corresponding Astrological sign.

To the musically uninitiated the cycle starts at the top of the circle with the key of C which has no sharps or flats, it’s relative minor is A. This is because A minor also has no sharps or flats. The C major scale and A minor scale use the same notes but have different starting notes.

From that point you can follow the chart clockwise by ascending fifths to the next key which is G. G has one sharp, it’s relative minor is E minor. Each step around the chart in a clockwise direction is ascending another 5th. The next key is that of D has 2 sharps, it’s relative minor is B. The cycle continues in this pattern.

Alternatively you can go anti clockwise to reach F by ascending a 4th. The key of F has one flat, the key of B♭ has 2 flats, and so on. At the bottom of the circle, the sharp and flat keys overlap, showing pairs of enharmonic key signatures.

To my amazement, when I labeled the cycle of fifths with what I believe to be the corresponding astrological signs, all of the Air signs, Fire signs, Water and Earth signs are all still trine on the circle of 5ths/cycle of 4ths chart. In fact Aries, Leo, Sagittarius, and Gemini, Libra and Aquarius are all in exactly the same positions they’re in on a regular Astrology chart. The others; the Water and Earth signs are now exactly opposite they’re common position on a conventional astrology chart.

This idea is only half-way new. The Signs have never been attributed to musical notes, but the notes have been attributed to the aspects. Ptolemy writes on it and Kepler expands on it by switching the focus from the Signs to the degrees.

In music the dominant is an important factor. Going from the tonic or base note to the dominant creates a sense of increased tension, however going from the dominant to the tonic is seen as the perfect cadence. The perfect cadence or step down a Perfect 5th is the strongest cadence and a form of ultimate release.

I've looked at this before in terms of comparing it to the Golden ratio also known as divine proportion or the ratio 1:1.618 which is often signified by the Greek letter Phi. If you break an octave up in the ratio of 1:1.618 you get 5:7.

360 degrees divided by 1.618 is around 222 degrees. When starting at the beginning of the first house at o degrees, 222 degrees will take you to the the centre of the 9th house. In musical terms it will take you up a minor 6th. If you go down to that same point, going backwards from 0 degrees it will be a major 3rd.

Beethoven is said to have used the Golden ratio to write his 5th symphony. The 5th symphony begins with a decending major 3rd.

Beethoven's 5th Symphony is written in C minor which I would label the key of Cancer: the relative minor of Eb major. Even though Beethoven begins.

Anyway, I'm just blabbing on. I'm exited now and I'm gonna go play piano and come back later.

Kaiousei no Senshi said:

This idea is only half-way new. The Signs have never been attributed to musical notes, but the notes have been attributed to the aspects. Ptolemy writes on it and Kepler expands on it by switching the focus from the Signs to the degrees.

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ok...I'll read up. Know anywhere where I can attain that information quickly on the net, or any books on the topic I could try and find?

I'd say Ptolemy's Tetrabiblos would be a safe bet, you can find downloadable copies of that online. As for Kepler's experiments with his new aspects, I'm not sure if he ever published that in a book, but any good biography on him will have that information within it.

Kaiousei no Senshi said:

I'd say Ptolemy's Tetrabiblos would be a safe bet, you can find downloadable copies of that online. As for Kepler's experiments with his new aspects, I'm not sure if he ever published that in a book, but any good biography on him will have that information within it.

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Cool. Thanks.

MkM84 said:

Awesome concept. Makes sense that Aries is major as Leo would be Aeolian (natural minor). Also, notice how much rock / pop is written in "Leo Aeolian" and Leo is popular. I buy it fo sho.

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Aries is "C" major not just "major"...all signs have a corresponding major and minor key. The word "Major" on the cycle of 4ths/cycle of 5ths chart signifies that the outside letters are the Major keys and the word minor signifies that the inside smaller letters represent the minor keys.

Aries = C Major = A minor
Taurus = Db/C# Major = Bb Minor
Gemini = D Major = B minor
Cancer = Eb/D# Major = C minor
Leo = E Major = C#/Db Minor
Virgo = F Major = D minor
Libra = F#/Gb Major = D#/Eb Minor
Scorpio = G Major = E minor
Sagittarius = G#/Ab Major = F Minor
Capricorn = A Major = F#/Gb Minor
Aquarius = A#/Bb Major = G Minor
Pisces = B Major = G#/Ab Minor

Aolian is a mode, basically the same thing as minor. Aolian can be in all keys as well.

Ionian is the mode that corresponds to Major.

It is possible to play all the modes the others being the Dorian, Phrygian, Lydian, Mixolydian and Locrian in 12 keys (signs).

In correspondance to this system it makes sence that since you're a Gemini ascendant and you like playing everything on your guitar (Gemini rules hands) in drop 'D' tuning. Another guitarist I know has a Gemini north node and he often plays in drop D.

Fascinating. Will ponder this and try and figure out what everyone is saying, I know very little about Western music, but know the basics of North Indian Classical, and have a sitar and harmonium to play around with.

I've always heard songs which reminded me of certain astrological placements. I've never associated them with notes perse, but with rhythms, style and dynamism, and sound qualities (timbre? ...school music education was lousy).

Thank you for making this thread Orc, I'm reading the Aeneid at the moment, so words like Dorian, Phrygian, Lydian make me smile. Your username seems rather depressing, I should stop calling you Orc.

Sorry Matt, I obviously misunderstood you when you said it makes sense that Aries is major.

Please elaborate on what you mean by rock / pop written in "Leo Aeolian"...did you mean in C# minor? I'm thinking you might've meant E minor? I'm not sure...

And I do understand downtuning. My last band often played in drop C, drop B even drop A....and then one of the guitarists got an 8 string...."The lowest string on that is naturally an F#!"

I know this sounds a little stupid, but what exactly is an ascending fifth... are you just going up 5 semi-tones or tones? Why would you do that?

What does C major = Aries mean? Does it mean the note itself= Aries, or that the note and the chord do? Or does it mean something else...

In humble music ignorance,

Sundance

PS I hope your motivation-issues and direction issues are better... mine are to an extent. If you still want to discuss that chart I'd be willing to add my two cents in

piercethevale said:

...and 'C' is Pisces, 'C# or as it is otherwise known, 'D Flat,' is Aries...and'D' is Taurus, 'D#', or as it is otherwise known, 'E Flat' is Gemini, 'E' is Cancer, 'F' is Leo, 'F#' is Virgo, 'G' is Libra, 'G#' is Scorpio, 'A' is Sagitarius and 'A#' is Capricorn...

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I like your understanding but I think the correlation of which note/key corresponds to which sign/house is going to be an on going debate. It's not something that can really be proven. However, I think this is only of minor importance.

One thing we all believe though so far on this thread is that the signs and keys both are arranged in a spectrum: in alphabetical order if you like. I have come across some sites that have different arrangements, such as that Leo is G, Aquarius is A and Aries is E, but I feel those sites are merely Astrologically minded people trying to pick corresponding notes without giving it a lot of thought. I definitely believe that tonality and astrology are both spectrums.

I like what cosmicharmony.com has to say about spectrums http://www.cosmicharmony.com/Ha/HAmain.htm ...what part of their theory do you believe to be flawed piercethevale?

It is more interesting for me to look at intervals and cadences in music vs the aspects of astrology.

The “trine” relationship in both our "spectrums" corresponds to the Major 3rd or Minor 6th interval depending on whether the interval is ascending or descending. Both the Major 3rd and the Trine relationship are harmonious.

The major third/minor sixth in just intonation corresponds to a pitch ratio of 5:8/8:5 or 1:1.6/1.6:1. The ratios of both major and minor sixths are corresponding numbers of the Fibonacci sequence, 5 and 8 for a minor sixth and 3 and 5 for a major.

The “Square” aspect in Astrology corresponds to the intervals in music as an ascending minor 3rd or a descending major 6th.

Again using C and Aries as the example the progression of minor 3rds is C – Eb – F# - A = Aries – Cancer – Libra – Capricorn. These are in fact the Cardinal signs. When relating min3rd/maj6th/square the same works for the Mutable and Fixed signs.

Most recently I’ve been fascinated as I wrote a little bit above about the connection between 1:1.618 or 1:Φ (phi) and music/astrology. The golden section, the golden mean. The beautiful ratio that was used by Leonardo da Vinci and other great artists and scientists that dates back to ancient Greece and Egypt. The golden ratio is also manifested in living things.

If 1.618=360° then 1=222.5° or

1:1.618 = 137.5°:222.5°

If you draw a chart and start from the point 0° then 137.5° takes one half way through the 5th house: In music a major 3rd. The other point 222.5° is almost half way through the 8th house: which is in music a Perfect 5th.

It makes me wonder more about the 8th house and this mysterious 222.5° angle. In music this angle is often called the dominant cadence. Going from Dominant to Tonic can bring ultimate release of tension but going from Tonic to Dominant can bring tension.

12 Music Keys = 12 Astrological signs?

I would like to know which signs are analogous to which music keys.

C Major
Db Major
D Major
Eb Major
E Major
F Major
Gb Major
G Major
Ab Major
A Major
Bb Major
B Major

C Minor
Db Minor
D Minor
Eb Minor
E Minor
F Minor
Gb Minor
G Minor
Ab Minor
A Minor
Bb Minor
B Minor

Since D Minor is said to be the saddest of all keys, I assume that's a water sign. C Major seems pretty happy, so a fire or air sign maybe.

EDIT: NVM, I found a convincing piece done earlier this year here.


http://www.astrologyweekly.com/forum/showthread.php?t=13602

Re: 12 Music Keys = 12 Astrological signs?

Please click one of the Quick Reply icons in the posts above to activate Quick Reply.

This is very inspiring! I have been researching this for a while and am extremely fascinated with the idea! I began doing the same thing about three years ago but discovered that some of the aspects do not line up. Like for example the trine, The 1st house to the 5th make a major 3rd at 120 degs and then the 5th house to the 9th make a major 3rd at 120degs. The same is also true from the 9th house to the 1st, but if you play all three notes together you get an ugly augment fifth chord (C-E-G#). This seems to be counter-intuitive because a grand trine (all three elemental signs) should harmonize with each other right? Furthermore, What happens if you play the intervals in the opposite direction? If I take the fundamental C and go clockwise 120degs I get a nasty sounding G#. Shouldn't all of the notes in a trine sound in harmony regardless of the direction? All though maybe because the planets only go in one direction the scale should do the same. Any thoughts? I also tried using a 6 note whole tone scale(C-D-E-F#-G#-A#) around the zodiac and it seemed to work. The tritones then become your squares and the oppositions become the octaves. I thought this might make more sense because the polar axises (Aries-Libra or Aquarius-Leo) have sometimes been referred to exhibiting the same qualities as each other but each on different levels or octaves whereas a square being perpendicular is two energies at odds with one another or crossing each others paths, and to me this screams tritone. I want to make an instrument that could play a persons birth chart. I am thinking of making a midi controller of sorts that would have 12 fader type sliders in a circle. Each fader would cover a spectrum of 30 tonal increments for the 30 degrees of each house. 360 total for all 12 sliders. The idea is that you could set each fader to the exact degree of the natal chart planet. This would allow people to actually hear the harmony of the sky at the time of their birth. But as you can see I am still trying to answer these questions of how all the aspects would work and what scale or tuning would be the most ideal. Maybe I need to throw the whole idea of equal temperament out the window and make my own tuning or scale. I could take an octave in hertz (440hz-880hz) and divide the total number of hertz by 360 tonal increments. Then each degree of the zodiac would translate to 1.22 hertz . Any thoughts or comments?

PS- Equal temperament is a very new tuning system(It was created only within the last 150 years) whereas the fundamentals of astrology are very old, Maybe they are not compatible? and Would it not make more sense to use an older tuning like Just tuning or Pythagorean?

Very interesting points and possibilities. I would just add that trines are not necessarily always benefic ("harmonious") in astrology, and that squares are not always necessarily malefic in astrology (these observations have been made and expanded upon as recently as the works of Charles E. Carter), although of course trines usually are + and squares usually are -. So your experimental results with, say the ugly augment chord do not necessarily disprove your fundamental hypothesis.
Please keep us informed of your further, and expanded, experiments in this direction!

Playing with the application of visible spectrum to the Zodiac today...as a very stimulating conversation with 'Mitch' the other night and his talk of the Seventh Ray info he was aware of lead to this.
It took about all of 5 mins. to come up with this...if it is the solution, someday, I will asked to be slapped for it being so simple...posthumous slaps will be accepted and acknowledged by 'Thunderclap' or 'Rainbow', conditions permitting.

The six colors of the spectrum are Indigo, Blue, Green, Red, Orange and Yellow. The seventh ray or missing colour is Violet.

This is my proposal...and it makes sense because watch where the 'missing ray/colour falls'...

The 'B' Aquarius/Leo 'F' is the colour Indigo
'A#' Capricorn/Cancer 'E' is the colour Blue
'A' Sagittarius/Gemini 'D#' is the colour Green
'G#' Scorpio/Taurus 'D' is the colour Yellow
'G' Libra/Aries 'C#' is the colour Orange
'F#' Virgo/Pisces 'C' is the colour Red
and the phantom 'B#' Aquarius/Cancer 'E#' is the missing ray, the colour Violet

..see the interesting connection?...and as the white light of the Holy Eternal Light of the Logos, OM, enters at the Ajna, for which the 'Beej Mantra' is OM and thus enters at the 'B' which vibrates with the Ajna, which is why I place the colour Indigo there [Indigo being the colour most commonly avowed to as being the colour associated with the Ajna...also known as 'The Third Eye'] the Sun and the Moon being those two Luminaries as to which the Bible states were given to us as Gods Eternal Light as because it is how that Light can only be manifested in the physical Universe, I find delightfully intriguing...the missing ray is associated with both the Sun/Leo and the Moon/Cancer...


This arrangement then gives some indication as to why Aquarius breaks the pattern of all the 'negative polarity' or Moon side of the division of the Zodiac got to be one of the '7' of the Sun side division of the Zodiac...can you see it? Aquarius hooks up with Leo for the Polarity of both sign and tonality and Aquarius hooks up with Cancer for the Phantom note..the note that isn't there, the missing colour, the seventh ray, Violet...and Aquar./Cancer isn't of Polarity...and can't be if both are negative polarity as signs ...thus why the keys of tonality, B# and E# don't exist..or, at least, it sure makes sense to me.

[an alternative theory is that the 7 major keys are the colours and the Five sharp keys are the somehow associated appropriately. I would want to find a way to make the '7' all the major keys and the '5' the sharps...and will tinker with that...unless someone wishes to work on it and post it before I get around to it...which, considering how long it took me to get around to this, from the last time I posted on this thread...might be awhile, if even ever....as I have a hunch this should be the, or a clue to, the solution of the colour app. to the tonality and the Zodiac...
or, just another simply foolish idea from a simple idiotic fool...]

Opinions?
ptv

This seems awesome.. But still.. Too difficult.
What's your gain in this as musician?
I mean: I don't understand how to use in practice.

fullmoonlibra said:

This seems awesome.. But still.. Too difficult.
What's your gain in this as musician?
I mean: I don't understand how to use in practice.

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It is part of the riddle...nothing more....I know that many have tried to apply both spectrum and musical tonality to the Zodiac...none succeeded...even Issac Newton tried, failed and was 'stumped'...
So, my gain?...Nothing...nothing more than getting my name associated with it...that is, if it is the solution...

OrcinusOrca said:

Most recently I’ve been fascinated as I wrote a little bit above about the connection between 1:1.618 or 1:Φ (phi) and music/astrology. The golden section, the golden mean. The beautiful ratio that was used by Leonardo da Vinci and other great artists and scientists that dates back to ancient Greece and Egypt. The golden ratio is also manifested in living things.

If 1.618=360° then 1=222.5° or

1:1.618 = 137.5°:222.5°

If you draw a chart and start from the point 0° then 137.5° takes one half way through the 5th house: In music a major 3rd. The other point 222.5° is almost half way through the 8th house: which is in music a Perfect 5th.

It makes me wonder more about the 8th house and this mysterious 222.5° angle. In music this angle is often called the dominant cadence. Going from Dominant to Tonic can bring ultimate release of tension but going from Tonic to Dominant can bring tension.

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I believe the Golden Proportion of PHI has very much to do with astrology as well. Just have a look at the Fibonacci sequence of nature, that pattern repeats in all areas of our lives.

In an overwhelming number of plants, a given branch or leaf will grow out of the stem approximately 137.5 degrees around the stem relative to the prior branch. In other words, after a branch grows out of the plant, the plant grows up some amount and then sends out another branch rotated 137.5 degrees relative to the direction that the first branch grew out of.

All plants use a constant amount of rotation in this way, although not all plants use 137.5 degrees. However, it is believed that the majority of all plants make use of either the 137.5 degree rotation or a rotation very close to it as the core number in their leaf or branch dispersion, sending out each and every leaf or branch after rotating 137.5 degrees around the stem relative to the prior branch.

If we were to multiply the value of 1 over Phi to the second power (0.3819659…) times the total number of degrees in a circle (360), we obtain for a product nothing other than 137.50… degrees. As an alternate way to look at the same idea, if we were to take the value of 1 over Phi (0.6180339…) and multiply it by 360, we obtain approximately 222.5 degrees. If we then subtract 222.5 from 360 we again find 137.5 degrees – in other words, the complimentary angle to 1 over Phi is 137.5 degrees, which also happens to be the value of 1 over Phi to the second power times 360.

So, if we have followed the described mathematics, it is clear that any plant that employs a 137.5 degree rotation in the dispersion of its leaves or branches is using a Phi value intrinsically in its very form. Considering our discussion in the prior section on Phi in geometry, it is interesting to note the off-balance five-pointed star that can be seen in the leaf pattern of plants that employ a 137.5 rotation scheme when they are viewed from above.

http://www.natures-word.com/sacred-...roportion/phi-the-golden-proportion-in-nature

http://www.davidcuinart.com/?OpenItemURL=S00041DCD

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