What It Is Not

By Ezra Sandzer-Bell

When we begin asking questions about the occult roots of music, it is helpful to hold one major truth in mind. There is no single verbal or symbolic key to understanding why music affects us in the way that it does.

We will never find the source code to musical intent expressed in written form. Likewise, we will never be able to create a visual code that expresses the true essence of music. At best, we might create some complex, esoteric system of correspondence where music is mentally encoded to trigger a complex chain of useful associations in our body and mind. However, this will always be a matter of projecting a self-designed system onto the “Uncarved block”.

On the other hand, we can separate all of the coarse elements of music, from tone frequency to notation to composition to performance to recording to publishing to promotion to culture-creation to conscious listening. We can research all of the ways in which sound is transmuted into Music, and how sound affects humankind, both physically and psychologically. In the Alchemical process, this stage of separating a composite substance into its parts is called Segregation.

Only when all of the coarse (outer) aspects of sound and music are sufficiently understood can we differentiate the influence of those processes from the subtler aspects of musical thought (inner). When the outer and inner aspects of music are understood, they fuse together as one.

COAGULA!

The Tone Color Alchemy program creates consistent 1:1 associations between sound and light signals, enabling personal reflections upon the affective (emotional/inner) qualities of sound. As we practice this meditation and go deeper into the inner worlds of Music, we have a common “tone-color language” by which we can share our discoveries with members undergoing the same process.