Between the earth and the moon, there is one full tone (II)

Cecilie Penney

3D-animation and 9 voice choir.
Duration: 05:07

Performers:
The earth
The moon
Mercury
Venus
The sun
Mars
Jupiter
Saturn
The fixed stars

In ancient Greece, Pythagoras identified that by dividing a single string into different lengths, you
could produce musical notes. By doing so, it was possible to identify the ratios of musical intervals
in numbers.(1)

 

Imagine a string on a viola and this might seem a little more clear.

 

Pythagoras believed that mathematics were the basis of understanding the world and that most
things in nature were modelled after numbers. He made he assumption that the same principles
existed in the universe and that the celestial bodies made sounds in their relation to each other.
The account of Pythagoras’ vision of the cosmos comes from Aristotle who puts it like this:

 

“[…] the motion of bodies of that size must produce a noise, since on our earth the motion
of bodies far inferior in size and speed of movement has that effect. […] Starting from this
argument, and the observation that their speeds, as measured by their distances, are in the
same ratios as musical concordances, they assert that the sound given forth by the circular
movement of the stars is a harmony.”(2)

 

With the earth at the centre of the universe, Pythagoras identified the musical intervals as follows:

Earth → Moon: One full tone
Moon → Mercury: Half a tone
Mercury → Venus: Half a tone
Venus → Sun: A tone and a half
Sun → Mars: One full tone
Mars → Jupiter: Half a tone
Jupiter → Saturn: Half a tone
Saturn → Fixed stars: Half a tone

 

There is no account of how he came up with this or how he could be this specific. Maybe he was
simply trying to listen to the celestial bodies and how they communicated by singing to each other.

1. Jamie James, The Music of The Spheres, Music, Science and The Natural Order of The Universe (Copernicus, New
   York, 1993), 30.
2.  Ibid., 38-39.