Play That Funky Music

I am a musician, a pianist and a guitarist. Serious music is my specialty, and I love studying and performing for friends (especially the ladies) the masterpieces of Bach and Chopin and Beethoven and Mozart and Rachmaninoff, et. al.

The musician in me cannot help but notice some things that the non-musical have not. Therefore, it is my duty to share these things with my siblings in the Craft.

We're often exhorted to "see" this and "see" that. The Tarot spread is likened to a snapshot or an array of webcams. But what about the other senses?

I hear the Tarot. And I'm sure that an epicurean can taste or smell the Tarot. A sensualist perhaps develops a special relationship to the Tarot on the basis of touch.

Let me go into a little detail about how the sense of hearing has helped me in my education.

It all started one day long ago when I read about a certain planet being a "higher vibration" of another planet or celestial body. That started me thinking. It produced an "image" (an aural image, if you can get your mind around that oxymoronic concept--hey, I never said it would be an easy insight) that delighted me and never left my imagination.

Fast forward a half-decade (isn't it interesting to trace the path of your calling into deeper knowledge, to understand the genealogy of your occult life?) and I am here, in the present day, studying Tarot, where I learn about not only astrology's importance, but also numerology's.

Here is where music theory kicks in. In music, certain intervals (distance between notes) are more harmonious than others, and certain intervals are downright ugly. Sometimes these "ugly" harmonies can be beautiful in their ugliness. I'm afraid you'll just have to trust me on that one. It's true. Context, as I'm sure you know, is everything. A strong context can make a series (spaced tightly or with lots of distance between instances of them) of dissonant chords or notes exquisitely poignant and pleasurable.

Isn't it that way with Tarot? If you look at a spread's elemental energies, you get a feel for consonance (pleasant intervals, nice sounds, medicinal vibrations, healing and relaxing and effective energies) or for dissonance (ugly intervals between "notes," tension-inducing and uptight melodies). But as in music, sometimes the ugly harmonies, the dissonances, can be made beautiful by placement and context.

But that's not why I wrote this post. Remember that "higher vibration" I spoke of earlier? Well, I was too ignorant of astrology then to understand what it meant, and I'm too ignorant now. But the phrase can be ported to Tarot.

Take numerology, for instance. Nine (closing off a group, preparing to end something) is a higher vibration of three (abundance). Think of the way this sounds. How does the number three sound to you? In music, a three-note chord is called a triad. You can move the tonic note (in a three-card/note spread, this would be the Principal or Subject) and this changes the sound of the chord dramatically.

Likewise, eight and sixteen are higher vibrations of four. You could keep on going with this.

And it's not just the numbers. The Major Cards are higher vibrations of the Minor Cards. The Minor Cards are single melodic notes. The Major Cards are chords.

All of these come together to create the symphony of cosmic existence. When you "read" the Tarot ("audit" the Tarot? "Listen" to the Tarot?) sometimes you will hear a chorus of angels, sometimes a shrieking cacophony.

Hope this helps!

Hi Eruditus,

that's interesting. I'm a musician in serious music myself and I haven't thought of connecting Tarot and music at all. To me it makes sense.

But see, now you only spoke of chords, the vertical axis of music theory.
But intervalls are also part of melodies. How do you sense the horizontal axis? Does a reading shift meanings if you get a series of Majors, each in a "higher vibration" as the one before, and then for the rest of the layout you get Minors, in descending line or without any order (atonal so to speak)?

One more question, a little bit more ethical. Do you really think there are beautiful and ugly intervals? Hierarchy both in Tarot and music is good, it has it's place in the world and it's value, especially in theory. How much does it really count when it comes to playing (music or Tarot), to the practice?

Astraea Aurora

Well, Eruditis.. I thought your post was just wonderful. I don't know a darn thing about music so you have educated me. As they say, "The Music of the Spheres" !

My only input being I love Classical and Semi Classical music. Especially the piano and my daughter had all the lessons and plays. I loved to hear her practice, it brought something to my heart. My Mother played beautifully as well but, alas, it missed me. I did have a wonderful singing voice which I neglected to develop.

I love color and pictures and texture. Not sure what that makes me but a life long fascination.

Hi Eruditis, that was a fascinating post. Curiously, because I am an intensely visual person, I visualized what you were saying about sound, almost geometrically. A very new way to think about a reading, and for the deeply musical among us, I would think it would be very effective. Thank you for those thoughts.

Dear Astrea Aurora,

The Major Cards--the big chords--establish the tonality of the work (as with the greatest musical works, this tonality is apt to change within the course of the same piece). I imagine that you could trace the development of melodies by examining the Minor Cards. These represent the soloists in our ensemble, the virtuoso runs. The Minor Cards are the horizontal axis. And their intervals can be characterized as consonant and dissonant. This concept of consonance and dissonance is relative, by the way. A geometric chord (vertical axis, major psychological theme or karmic lesson) or a linear run of melodic notes (horizontal axis, individual actions, thoughts, feelings, and events) can seem ugly in isolation but lushly beautiful in context.

Just as you have certain very specific feelings about certain intervals and combinations of intervals in music, so you would have definite feelings and opinions about intervals and combinations of intervals in the Tarot. This plays a large part in establishing the "feeling" we get from the cards, and could be at least part of what cartomancers speak of when they refer to the "energy" of the cards.

In this sense, you might look at the totality of Major Arcana (three-dimensional chords) and assess their development over time, or over the spread, or what have you. And indeed, generally one should absorb the totality of the work before rendering individual scenes described by the Minor Cards. The Major Cards lets us know our "tonal base," so to speak.

Now, bear in mind that I'm no expert on either Tarot or music. It could be that I'm full of crap and am just too ignorant to know it. In other words, I might know just enough karate to get my ass kicked. But it *feels* right, if you know what I mean.

And I agree--it doesn't feel right to say certain numerical relationships (intervallic relationships, elemental relationships, or whatever there is) are better than others. But the consonance or dissonance of a note, chord, or progression sets a tone and establishes emotion in music and art--and don't these media imitate life? Tarot reveals life. Tarot contains the emotions that we will experience in the future. Tarot is what art imitates.

I hope this helps to clarify an embryonic (and thus problem-laden) adjunct to the Tarot.

Dear Marion,

Thank you for your kind words! I'm glad that I was able to serve this community by offering some of my world experiences for everyone to profit from, and I do hope these ideas intensify your experience with the Tarot.

Hi Memries,

Music is absolutely awesome. I was born to be a musician, and tend to see music, astrology, tarot, magic, etc. as brethren-subjects within the same overarching skill set.

If you feel closer to colors and textures and pictures (all lovely things that I too am attracted to) then that's the way Tarot speaks to you.

Thank you for the kind thoughts and words.

I started to read this thread beofre I went to work today, and I have to tell you it really caught my eye.

I think that there is a connectedness to the cards, and numbers, and music is right up there with numbers and counting, isn't it?

I think there was a thread on what song reminds you of what card? I think you would have fun on that thread.

The whole deck opens up like a Orchestra, doesn't it?

That's the best way to learn it, opening up to what it has to offer.

Dear HeavensVault,

I would have enjoyed the thread that related favorite songs to favorite cards.

Are you familiar with the phenomenon of ear worms? They are the ditties, the tunes and slogans and limericks that get trapped in your brain and enter into this irritating loop. Earworms have been known to drive men mad.

What I'm trying to say is that I have no more modern earworms. Songs don't get stuck in my head anymore. My heroes are all dead Europeans. The most modern music I listen to was composed in a day when motorcars were novelties. However, I am cursed with ear worms of an altogether different sort. I don't have favorite "songs," so much as I have favorite sonatas and favorite polonaises and favorite mazurkas and favorite symphonies. And snatches of these can sometimes be doomed to loop unmercifully in my head.

But as far as connecting THEM to the Tarot....that wouldn't be possible for me. I hear a new symphony in the Tarot. I hear the symphony of the Querent's life. Because I'm new the "recording quality" of that symphony sounds as if maybe a squad of Nazi goons were pillaging the studio while the "recording" is being produced. In other words, because I'm new, the music is grainy, scratchy...but there are bars and measures of clarity where I hear the vibrations of the Cosmos. I expect to hear more as I improve.

I'm very happy you liked the post, and I hope the idea profits your Tarot experiences.

Warm Regards,
Stephen

Terrific thread. I am a great listener of music, but theory eludes me. Yehudi Menuhin was my hero while I was a struggling violinist for nearly 15 years. He captured my heart when he described the violin as having "the shape of a woman's body". The smell of rosin can instantly transport me to another time.

For hours I would listen to Hungarian dance music played by long-forgotten violinists, along with other records, while dreaming one day of becoming a famous violinist. I would spend even more hours playng my violin, somehow managing to meld my fingers and my brain together and getting to a place where the music just came forth without me really thinking about it; it felt so good. While I never became a famous violinist, there is no sound sweeter to my ears.

There is a book called "The Third Ear" which looks at the physiological and the psychological aspects of hearing. You may have alread read it, but it is quite interesting.

My career has been devoted to hearing and the amazing, truly exquisite way in which our ears work. To think of the tarot in terms of the music (chords, dissonance, and resonance, etc.) makes sense to me. Of course, what is deemed as dissonance will vary according to culture, but there can be a strange and exotically haunting beauty in that which is ugly.

Thanks for all of the descriptions and this entire concept.