The Astrological Zodiac & Musical Tonality – part 4 – Works by Composers & Musicians
Various composers and musicians have been inspired by the Zodiac signs. Note that not all of them listed below followed a concrete Tone-Zodiac. Some of these care:
Nat Adderley (“Soul Zodiac“), Cannonball Adderley (‘Love, Sex and the Zodiac‘), John Coltrane (“Interstellar Space“), Mary Lou Williams (“Zodiac Suite“), Marion Brown (“Capricorn Moon“), Mort Garson (“The Zodiac – Cosmic Sounds“), Dick Jacobs & Rod McKuen (“Written in the Stars“), Nathan Hall (“Earth, Sea, Sky“), Aleksandar Simić (“Zodiac“), Barry Cockcroft (“Zodiac – 12 pieces“), Bright Sheng (“Zodiac Tales – Concerto for Orchestra“), Key Poulan (“Zodiac“), Charles Matthews (“Signs of the Zodiac – Study method for Flute and Piano“) and others.
I also came across a series of albums by “Zodiac Tribe“. The music on these albums is “Ambient”, for “meditative and visualization”. You can listen to it on Spotify, Deezer and other online stream services and online stores. ! NOTE: The creator(s) of “Music Of The Zodiac” did not pay much attention to the tonality and Zodiac sign relationships! Perhaps this is because of their choice of instruments, some “ethnic” instruments used (like a flute) might not be able to play in all 12 tonalities.
Each episode is specific to a music key and a vocal narration by Pietropaolo discusses the personality traits of that key, with accompanying music written in that key, taken from music written over the centuries. In 2013, Pietropaolo won the Prix Italia in the category of best work for music for the program. Listen on Soundcloud!
AND NOW … TO CONCLUDE THIS ARTICLE WITH:
A youtube playlist with a collection of Zodiac music by some of the artists mentioned earlier in this article:
Introduction
Tone-Zodiacs
OTHER SOURCES / REFERENCES: PARTS 1-4
- “Harmonies of Heaven and Earth: Mysticism in Music from Antiquity to the Avant-Garde” (by Joscelyn Godwin)
- “Über die Wirkung der Tonarten in der Musik” (by Sigismund von Gleich)
- “Writings on Music” (by John Wallis)
- “Mensch, Musik und Kosmos” (by Anny von Lange)
- www.tonalsoft.com – Encyclopedia of Microtonal Music Theory
- www.flutopedia.com – Color of Sound calculator
- http://wiki.astro.com/astrowiki/ (AstroWiki)
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zodiac (Wikipedia)
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seasons (Wikipedia)
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planets_in_astrology (Wikipedia)
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tierkreis_(Stockhausen) (Wikipedia)
