Music Compilation
These two recordings are from a recent performance in Viroqua, Wisconsin– July, 2023. Following the two recordings is a program with musicians and notes.
Combined Element Sound Sketches (1 through 6 in the program) {18 minute listen}
Violin accompanied by Rahbi Crawford on Crystal Bowls https://rahbicrawford.com/ (Number 7 in the program) {6 minutes}
Music from the Periodic Table
This collection of 7 soundscapes represents the tones of the colors of the spectral light signatures of the elements. Each element has a unique set of colors. This project converts wavelength to frequency.
Frequency can be converted from wavelength by using the following equation: f = c /L where f is frequency in Hertz (Hz), c is the speed of light in meters/second and L is wavelength in meters.
Light has a very high measure in Hz. (Trillions of Hz per second). Using the laws of harmonics one can continually divide by 2 to reduce the very high values to those that can be heard by us. With sound, every time a frequency is divided by 2 you get to the same tone one octave lower and if you double the frequency, you get one octave higher. Think about hitting middle C on the piano and going to the right to the next C, the pitch gets higher and going to the left the pitch gets lower. We hear about 40 octaves below the sound of light.
More poetically, the dance of the colors makes a sound 40 octaves above what we can hear. Imagine that sound, singing so high that only angels can hear. Through the law of octaves, we can take the angel song, call it down to the place where we can play it on our instruments, and dance it on the earth.
Rumi translations by Colman Barks https://www.colemanbarks.com/
- Dancing Particles in the Key of Hydrogen.
{Mark John on Violin and Larry Stephens on percussion}
Dancing Particles
Daylight, full of small dancing particles
and the one great turning our souls
are dancing with you, without feet, they dance.
Can you see them when I whisper in your ear?
[Rumi]
- The Key of Boron
{Mark John on Violin and Larry Stephens on percussion}
- Rumi’s The Guest House in the Key of Carbon
{Mark John on Violin, Siobhan Elia on Cello and Larry Stephens on Percussion}
The Guest House
This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.
A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.
Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they’re a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still, treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out
for some new delight.
The dark thought, the shame, the malice,
meet them at the door laughing,
and invite them in.
Be grateful for whoever comes,
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.
[Rumi]
- The Key of Nitrogen
{Mark John on F# High Spirts Flute and Larry Stephens on percussion}
5.Rumi’s “Everything is Music” in the Key of Oxygen
{Mark John on Violin, Maya Bennardo on Violin, Siobhan Elia on Cello and Larry Stephens on percussion}
Where Everything is Music
Don’t worry about saving these songs.
And if one of our instruments breaks,
it doesn’t matter.
We have fallen into the place
Where everything is music.
The strumming and the flute notes
rise into the atmosphere,
and even if the whole world’s harp
should burn up,
there will still be
hidden instruments playing.
So the candle flickers and goes out.
We have a piece of flint, and a spark.
This singing art is sea foam.
The graceful movements come from a pearl
somewhere on the ocean floor.
Poems reach up like spindrift and the edge
of driftwood along the beach, wanting!
They derive
from a slow and powerful root
that we can’t see.
Stop the words now.
Open the window in the center of your chest,
and let the spirits fly in and out.
[Rumi]
- Tones of Water
{Mark John on Violin and sound effects}
- Improvisation in the keys of Iron and Magnesium
{Mark John Violin and Rahbi Crawford on Crystal Bowls} https://rahbicrawford.com/
Iron and Magnesium form the centers of Hemoglobin and Chlorophyll. The chlorophyll in plants inspires CO2 using sunlight to make sugar breathing out Oxygen. The hemoglobin brings Oxygen from our and our Kin’s inspiration to burn sugar. We breathe out CO2.. I am in awe how these two molecules mirror each other. Our relationship and interdependence sing together with these two elements as share our sentience together.
www.musicoftheperiodictable.com