The Concealed Poet... Musician??

[Marvin Haines]

I've always been into classical music, and recently my interest has grown due to a series of improbable events which led me to attend or perform in over six classical concerts this year. Needless to say, I began composing.

And needless to say, I couldn't help myself from using Baconian numbers in my compositions.

Awhile ago, I shared a piece with some of you that I had made using a software called Musescore. In creating this piece, I played around a lot with the order and sequence of notes, but it hadn't yet occurred to me to play with the pitch of the notes themselves.

A couple of days ago, the spark went off in my head - and why hadn't I thought of it sooner? I could apply the 24-letter Elizabethan Gematria of Bacon and Dee to the grand staff!!

It's quite easy work - so easy that I don't even need to take the time to draw up a diagram. (Although that could be the laziness in me speaking!) Anyhow, each note on the scale corresponds to a number and a letter of the alphabet. Take for instance, the Simple Cypher. I assign the letter A and the number 1 to high C, which seems a logical starting point, as the Western mind automatically reads down rather than up, and high C is a benchmark near the top of the grand staff. If I were to use the Reverse Cypher, then, of course, I would have to assign the number 24 and the letter A to high C, and so on and so forth. There are as many combinations as there are cyphers.

Now, the fun part!

Using the Simple Cypher, what does this score translate to? 

  

Edited May 19 by Marvin Haines

[Light-of-Truth]

39 minutes ago, Marvin Haines said:

Using the Simple Cypher, what does this score translate to? 

When the time is ready, I will be here to see what it does!

Funny, within the first two or three years of my Bacon path elder Freemasons have expressed I needed to learn how to read music and recognize its place in the Sonnets.

I played trumpet in the 2nd and 3rd Grade in Elementary School. I was 2nd Chair! 🙂

Reading music was finger placement for me. How it relates to Elizabethan works such as the Sonnets?

Marvin, you will walk over and pass by many treasures in your life. I wonder what the Big one will be for you! 🙂

 

[Eric Roberts]

51 minutes ago, Marvin Haines said:

I've always been into classical music, and recently my interest has grown due to a series of improbable events which led me to attend or perform in over six classical concerts this year. Needless to say, I began composing.

And needless to say, I couldn't help myself from using Baconian numbers in my compositions.

Awhile ago, I shared a piece with some of you that I had made using a software called Musescore. In creating this piece, I played around a lot with the order and sequence of notes, but it hadn't yet occurred to me to play with the pitch of the notes themselves.

A couple of days ago, the spark went off in my head - and why hadn't I thought of it sooner? I could apply the 24-letter Elizabethan Gematria of Bacon and Dee to the grand staff!!

It's quite easy work - so easy that I don't even need to take the time to draw up a diagram. (Although that could be the laziness in me speaking!) Anyhow, each note on the scale corresponds to a number and a letter of the alphabet. Take for instance, the Simple Cypher. I assign the letter A and the number 1 to high C, which seems a logical starting point, as the Western mind automatically reads down rather than up, and high C is a benchmark near the top of the grand staff. If I were to use the Reverse Cypher, then, of course, I would have to assign the number 24 and the letter A to high C, and so on and so forth. There are as many combinations as there are cyphers.

Now, the fun part!

Using the Simple Cypher, what does this score translate to? 

  

Hi Marvin

Thanks for sharing this. I assume that the alphabet runs over two octaves? It would be helpful to see the way you assign notes to letters, and I hope you are going to post an audio file of one or two of your tonal alphabet experiments. 

Edited May 20 by Eric Roberts

[Allisnum2er]

Hi Marvin,

What a great idea !

I wondered if Francis Bacon could have concealed a message in his music.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ef-CfanV-Fs

If a message is hidden, you could be the one that will find it ! 🙂 

I love your idea/concept to apply the Tudor Alphabet to the Grand Staff.

And here is my answer to your question .😉 

 

[Allisnum2er]

By the way, it reminded me a passage of "De Furtivis Literarum Notis" (1602) by Giambattista della Porta.

 

[Eric Roberts]

2 hours ago, Allisnum2er said:

Hi Marvin,

What a great idea !

I wondered if Francis Bacon could have concealed a message in his music.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ef-CfanV-Fs

If a message is hidden, you could be the one that will find it ! 🙂 

I love your idea/concept to apply the Tudor Alphabet to the Grand Staff.

And here is my answer to your question .😉 

 

Hi Yann. The YouTube link you provided led me to this page: http://www.literaturepage.com/read/francis-bacon-essays-78.html

Anyone who doubts that Francis Bacon was capable of writing and directing for the stage should read this. He is in full command of the medium of theatrical performance.

[Eric Roberts]

1 hour ago, Eric Roberts said:

Hi Yann. The YouTube link you provided led me to this page: http://www.literaturepage.com/read/francis-bacon-essays-78.html

 

Anyone who doubts that Francis Bacon was capable of writing and directing for the stage should read this. He is in full command of the medium of theatrical performance.

Another reminder of SFB's theatrical prowess: The Masques of Sir Francis Bacon, J. S. L. Millar, 1951 Baconiana, No. 141, pp: 187-192

https://sirbacon.org/archives/baconiana/1951_Baconiana_No 141.pdf

 

 

 

 

Edited May 20 by Eric Roberts

[Marvin Haines]

13 hours ago, Allisnum2er said:

Hi Marvin,

What a great idea !

I wondered if Francis Bacon could have concealed a message in his music.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ef-CfanV-Fs

If a message is hidden, you could be the one that will find it ! 🙂 

I love your idea/concept to apply the Tudor Alphabet to the Grand Staff.

And here is my answer to your question .😉 

 

M-A-S-T-E-R-V-O-R-K-M-A-N

MASTER VORKMAN??

MASTER WORKMAN!!!

[Marvin Haines]

2 minutes ago, Marvin Haines said:

M-A-S-T-E-R-V-O-R-K-M-A-N

MASTER VORKMAN??

MASTER WORKMAN!!!

BUT now, in verse, I live again,

So, sing aloud my word;

They say the Master died in vain,

But still his voice is heard.

For it was more than Masonry

That made the Temple stand -

With this, I leave MY LEGACY,

The House Upon Flat Land!

[Marvin Haines]

Yesterday, I wandered over to a neighbor's house. He was having some guests over for booze and crackers, and I joined them (although I didn't have any booze.) This guy, who's an amazing metalworker (he has a whole shop behind the house and has made quite a name for himself in the galleries) told me about a project he was working on, which involved an encoded message. He said he'd give me the thing if I could figure it out.

I didn't try, though. It was shaped like a fish and had a suspiciously phallic appearance. It would have looked horrible in our living room.

Just a minute after he showed me the penis fish, a military jet flew over us. I said, "They're coming to teach us to love the Bomb!"

He said, "Mein Fuhrer - I can walk!"  

Edited May 20 by Marvin Haines

[Allisnum2er]

17 minutes ago, Marvin Haines said:

Yesterday, I wandered over to a neighbor's house. He was having some guests over for booze and crackers, and I joined them (although I didn't have any booze.) This guy, who's an amazing metalworker (he has a whole shop behind the house and has made quite a name for himself in the galleries) told me about a project he was working on, which involved an encoded message. He said he'd give me the thing if I could figure it out.

I didn't try, though. It was shaped like a fish and had a suspiciously phallic appearance. It would have looked horrible in our living room.

Just a minute after he showed me the penis fish, a military jet flew over us. I said, "They're coming to teach us to love the Bomb!"

He said, "Mein Fuhrer - I can walk!"  

I LOVE the story and I agree with you ! This would have been STRANGE in a living room ! 😄 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urechis_caupo

[Light-of-Truth]

https://www.anticstore.art/88551P

Dolphin - Italy 17th century

The dolphin appears with its tail raised, with spiny pectoral fins, prominent scales, its mouth half-open revealing the sharp teeth from which the water gushed.
The animal, mysterious and disturbing with a large head and threatening eyes, sharp teeth, a dorsal fin forming a crest, and a long sinuous tail well visualizes the monstrous character that Renaissance artists attributed to the marine world.

Although it is a cetacean mammal, the dolphin in the 16th and 17th centuries is mostly depicted with the scales, tail and fins of fish.
The artists were not concerned with a factual representation and based their creations on other fanciful depictions inspired by Roman’s representation. As Simona Cohen well explain in her book Animals as Disguised Symbols in Renaissance Art, artists depicted wild animals both fort he sake of some quest for scientific naturalism and for reason to adding symbols tot heir images; science and fiction coexisted.
Since ancient times, the dolphin has been regarded as a kind of personification of marine power. Its celerity and its jumps in the waves accompanying the ships certainly facilitated this analogy.
During the Renaissance was affirmed the ancient conception according to which the seabed was the exact reflection of the terrestrial world inhabited by a similar fauna, but frightening because unknown.
Sculpting the animals of the sea also meant appropriating a little of the wonders of the world, a fascinating production of an all-powerful, but capricious and whimsical nature.

 

Yea, kind of like a penis...

[Allisnum2er]

19 minutes ago, Light-of-Truth said:

https://www.anticstore.art/88551P

Dolphin - Italy 17th century

The dolphin appears with its tail raised, with spiny pectoral fins, prominent scales, its mouth half-open revealing the sharp teeth from which the water gushed.
The animal, mysterious and disturbing with a large head and threatening eyes, sharp teeth, a dorsal fin forming a crest, and a long sinuous tail well visualizes the monstrous character that Renaissance artists attributed to the marine world.

Although it is a cetacean mammal, the dolphin in the 16th and 17th centuries is mostly depicted with the scales, tail and fins of fish.
The artists were not concerned with a factual representation and based their creations on other fanciful depictions inspired by Roman’s representation. As Simona Cohen well explain in her book Animals as Disguised Symbols in Renaissance Art, artists depicted wild animals both fort he sake of some quest for scientific naturalism and for reason to adding symbols tot heir images; science and fiction coexisted.
Since ancient times, the dolphin has been regarded as a kind of personification of marine power. Its celerity and its jumps in the waves accompanying the ships certainly facilitated this analogy.
During the Renaissance was affirmed the ancient conception according to which the seabed was the exact reflection of the terrestrial world inhabited by a similar fauna, but frightening because unknown.
Sculpting the animals of the sea also meant appropriating a little of the wonders of the world, a fascinating production of an all-powerful, but capricious and whimsical nature.

 

Yea, kind of like a penis...

Hi Rob,

Here is the synchronicity of the day  !

Right now, I am studying "The Accedence of Armorie" by Gerard Legh and guess which blason is on page 57 ...

😊

EDIT :

"This is called the prince of fishes."

[Light-of-Truth]

2 minutes ago, Allisnum2er said:

Hi Rob,

Here is the synchronicity of the day  !

Right now, I am studying "The Accedence of Armorie" by Gerard Legh" and guess which blason is on page 57 ...

😊

The Dolphin, the Sea Penis!

"hee is ruler of the other,'''"

 

[Allisnum2er]

"By him the mariners know when they shall have TEMPEST, especially when they see him rejoyce, with shewing himself above the water."

https://ia801709.us.archive.org/7/items/nby_231406/_Cat_52_.jpeg

[Allisnum2er]

8 minutes ago, Light-of-Truth said:

The Dolphin, the Sea Penis!

"hee is ruler of the other,'''"

 

"Here you shall learn a rule, that is, when any fish is upright as this is, ye must terme it HARIANT."

HARIANT or HAURIANT

https://www.heraldryclipart.com/dictionary/dh.html

"A term applied to Fish when placed ERECT."

 

[Light-of-Truth]

14 minutes ago, Allisnum2er said:

"By him the mariners know when they shall have TEMPEST, especially when they see him rejoyce, with shewing himself above the water."

https://ia801709.us.archive.org/7/items/nby_231406/_Cat_52_.jpeg

T  T

SETTING FORTH IN THE ADVENTURER
BY WISHING WELL WISHETH LIVING EVER

OUR POET PROMISED THESE SONNETS
TO THE ONLIE AND INSUING ETERNITIE
THAT BEGETTER OF ALL HAPPINESSE

W Mr H

[Light-of-Truth]

11 minutes ago, Allisnum2er said:

"A term applied to Fish when placed ERECT."

This gave it all away:

"For as authors write, hee is not enseamed with much fatness, but is all of muscles and senues, wher-by his might is doubled."

Funny how the Dolphin has a "Royal" connection in emblems. 😉

 

 

[Eric Roberts]

18 hours ago, Allisnum2er said:

Hi Marvin,

What a great idea !

I wondered if Francis Bacon could have concealed a message in his music.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ef-CfanV-Fs

If a message is hidden, you could be the one that will find it ! 🙂 

I love your idea/concept to apply the Tudor Alphabet to the Grand Staff.

And here is my answer to your question .😉 

 

Hi L.O.T.  

RE: Sir Francis Bacon's Masque

Yann drew our attention to this piece last August, though somehow I missed it at the time. 

https://sirbacon.org/bacon-forum/index.php?/topic/248-a-masque-by-francis-bacon/

Yann, do you have any evidence that it was composed by SFB himself? The handful of references to it I could find list the composer as "Anonymous".

Interesting that Mather Walker doesn't mention this piece or its companion piece, Sir Francis Bacon's Masque II, in his extended essay, Was Francis Bacon a Masked Musician? https://sirbacon.org/mmusic.htm

However, there is a reference to both pieces in 1927_Baconiana_No 72 - Of Masques by Alicia Amy Leith (pp: 9-21) https://sirbacon.org/archives/baconiana/1927_Baconiana_No 72.pdf

 

 

[Marvin Haines]

The topic of Bacon as a musician has seen surprisingly little coverage, apart from the aforementioned articles. This all sounds remarkably interesting. I went through a phase several months ago where I was madly obsessed with W. Amadeus Mozart's Der Zeiberflute - or, as you guys probably know it, The Magic Flute. It seems like all the academics - even those who discredit our various theories of Masonic influence and symbolism - have accepted the inescapable truth that this particular Masque is not just hinting at those aforementioned symbols, but that it is, in fact, SCREAMING at us - telling us that for once we can forget our "heart to know" and just use common sense. 

I wish I could say the same for Shakespeare.

   

[Eric Roberts]

57 minutes ago, Marvin Haines said:

The topic of Bacon as a musician has seen surprisingly little coverage, apart from the aforementioned articles. This all sounds remarkably interesting. I went through a phase several months ago where I was madly obsessed with W. Amadeus Mozart's Der Zeiberflute - or, as you guys probably know it, The Magic Flute. It seems like all the academics - even those who discredit our various theories of Masonic influence and symbolism - have accepted the inescapable truth that this particular Masque is not just hinting at those aforementioned symbols, but that it is, in fact, SCREAMING at us - telling us that for once we can forget our "heart to know" and just use common sense. 

I wish I could say the same for Shakespeare.

   

A great deal of evidence has been accumulated in regards to this aspect of Bacon’s concealed (literary) activities. Parallel investigations have not been made into his possible activities as a concealed composer of musical works. So in this area the investigation is just beginning. The present article is merely a suggestive inquiry into this unexplored aspect of Bacon’s concealed authorship, and will have fulfilled its purpose if it moves others to carry the inquiry further.

Mather Walker, Was Francis Bacon a Concealed Musician? https://sirbacon.org/mmusic.htm

[Allisnum2er]

3 hours ago, Eric Roberts said:

Hi L.O.T.  

RE: Sir Francis Bacon's Masque

Yann drew our attention to this piece last August, though somehow I missed it at the time. 

https://sirbacon.org/bacon-forum/index.php?/topic/248-a-masque-by-francis-bacon/

Yann, do you have any evidence that it was composed by SFB himself? The handful of references to it I could find list the composer as "Anonymous".

Interesting that Mather Walker doesn't mention this piece or its companion piece, Sir Francis Bacon's Masque II, in his extended essay, Was Francis Bacon a Masked Musician? https://sirbacon.org/mmusic.htm

However, there is a reference to both pieces in 1927_Baconiana_No 72 - Of Masques by Alicia Amy Leith (pp: 9-21) https://sirbacon.org/archives/baconiana/1927_Baconiana_No 72.pdf

 

 

Hi Eric,

I do not know what to think.

It seems that you are right.

3 years ago, I learned that Francis Bacon played Viol/ Lute and I decided to read the passages of Sylva Sylvarum on the subject.

https://archive.org/details/sylvasylvarumorn00baco/page/n107/mode/2up

https://archive.org/details/sylvasylvarumorn00baco/page/n129/mode/2up

Then I discovered this site :

https://www.walesartsreview.org/live-the-society-of-strange-and-ancient-instruments-sound-house/

So one thing leading to another, I wondered if I could find a music for Viol or Lute created by Francis Bacon and this is how I discovered

Francis Bacon's Masque I.

I must admit that I take it for granted, and did not notice the "Anonymous".

I have just found Francis Bacon's Masque II by ... Anonymous 😥

Thank you Eric for the link to Baconania n°72 ,and for having found what seems to be the origin of the  titles given to these masques.

[Allisnum2er]

10 hours ago, Marvin Haines said:

This guy, who's an amazing metalworker (he has a whole shop behind the house and has made quite a name for himself in the galleries) told me about a project he was working on, which involved an encoded message. He said he'd give me the thing if I could figure it out.

I didn't try, though. It was shaped like a fish and had a suspiciously phallic appearance.

Hi Marvin,

This morning, at the awakening, a possible solution to this Aenigma popped up in my mind.

Yesterday, we were talking about Hiram Abiff.

What if the answer was in the legend of Hiram Abiff?

https://www.masonicworld.com/education/articles/OLD-LEGENDS-OF-HIRAM-BIFF.HTM

"The spilled molten metal would have killed Hiram, except that he was saved by the spirit of his ancestor, Tubal Cain."

Tubal Caïn and Hiram were metalworkers like your neighbor.

If his project, shaped like a fish with a suspiciously phallic appearance, has "two balls" it could be a visual pun, a reference to Tubal Cain (Two ball Cane).

Moreover, Fish means Fisherman and he could be playing with the double meaning of the word.

[Marvin Haines]

Hey, Allisnum2er!

Your theory makes a lot of sense, and I really think it's quite clever... although I doubt that Mr. Cedar Next Door was ever aware of the Hiramic Legend, let alone the Tubal Cain.

Why? Here's my logic:

- He once called Freemasonry a "cultish religion" to my face

- He seems to have never heard of Sir Francis Bacon

- He always says "Uh-huh" when I tell him something esoteric

I was partly joking when I said the fish looked phallic, and I somehow doubt that good old Mr. Cedar would have intentionally used an erotic symbol in his work - especially if the work was to be displayed in a house of good - as opposed to ill - repute. He was also shocked when I mentioned that my parents let me watch R-rated movies.

A funny aside: Sarah Winchester evidently had too much self respect to use the Tubal Cain symbol in her house - but she created a clever approximation of it in the shape of a stylized C wrapping around two balls. It appears in her stained glass windows and several other places: 

[RoyalCraftiness]

As has been noted here, check out Sylva Sylvarum. Music is Century II in Bacon/Rawley's S.S. It is the second of ten "centuries" which we can probably assume has a counterpart in the idea of line which defines a spectrum if we are to consider the 10 places of Greek tetrad. This is also the idea of 13 numbers yielding 12 intervals in the 12 basic polygons up to the dodecahedron. The music is divided in what we call temperaments. The Pythagorean idea was to employ the 3:2 frequency ratio, or harmonic mean. It is similar in thought to how Plato divided the line (the full spectrum of what exists) in his allegory of the divided line. We ought to appreciate how 1, 3, 5 relate in musical chords when we are considering harmony as a whole. This is reminiscent of the 153 discussion that was going on somewhere else the other day. 1,3 and 5 have an interesting relationship that involves cubes and numbers cubed.

In many ways you cannot separate music from the ideas found in things like the Holy Royal Arch "institution's " treatment of number which is likely being informed by a Jewish tradition. It is there as an evolving cornerstone idea (see below).

Bacon saw an application of the ideas in music to physical things, including globes (the planet), as is mentioned in experiment 222. It is pretty clear that he also may have subscribed, like many Rosicrucians, to the idea of the harmony of the celestial spheres (an idea popularized and plagiarized in England by Robert Fludd). There are plenty of musical examples in Michael Maier's "Atalanta Fugiens" that could be studied.

What you suggest about a parallel between the simple cipher and music is something that I wrote similarly about before here. It starts with the Greek Tetractys which is treated in a special way to employ the Pythagorean harmonic 3:2.

The sums in the harmonic Tetractys map onto the 5x5 block of character places shown which contains the 24 character alphabet. The Sum of that alphabet is 300 in simple cipher, the value of Tau in Greek. This is one origin idea for the primacy of Tau in the "Holy Royal Arch" which is the precursor to the non-operative (speculative) Freemasonry. 4T or 40 has a significant place here as the sum that captures all that is good. Incidentally, it also capture the Sumerian's Enki who was the "good Lord of the Earth" symbolized by 40 or the 4th decad). A block of 4 T(aus) will have 100 places in it which are symbolically arranged by presenting us with 4 spatial orientations of Tau that give us a square with an inner missing 4 characters (the inner tomb suggestion or the "holy of holies" reference). This mimics the 4 orientations of T which are given in the emblem of the Holy Royal Arch. The 100 character block can be seen as a 10x10 magic square with magic constant 505 and perimeter of 2020 (2T,2T).

Using each musical note in two octaves to map to a character is something you would have to be able to demonstrate was done. It is certainly something  that one can do on his own if one wants to see where that leads. It is not hard to think that a way to encode a message could be done this way. Since it is possible, it is entirely likely that someone has already thought of doing that in the past. 

I mention all this only because it is something that may be of use to you. Music does figure in all this number mania. The high occurrence of similarities and coincidences makes it exploitable in the suggestion that Deity is using geometry and maths as the natural building block (the perfect stone ashlar). Bacon was very much interested in human harmony as a politician. The letters and sounds that make up the "word of God" are thus symbols which fundamentally capture what is most basic, number, by being a higher transmission of it. The word captures sound, which is music resonating in our ears. When we speak we are in fact singing, or chirping, if you like. All is number in this way of seeing the world.

When invoking Francis Bacon you might want to compose using the key of F which has one flat, B. The Key is said to evoke serenity and calmness. That serenity is something that was seen as a virtue in contemplating death or the tomb. It is a genera that one might want to employ for the harp. The concept of diatonic and genera is one I think you can find esoteric references to in Poussin's painting, for example.

In Bacon's mind he was working ancient ideas to try and understand/describe nature. Nature was something that man needed to take control of and dominate. In that regard it was like an enemy in its natural state. It offered tempest and calamity if we were unprepared, and our reason could be used to help our prospects in this hostility. We can see how what was worldly was seen as something that was not the same as what was good/divine. It was full of harsh randomness and chaos. We needed order from chaos. This is part of the slogans of Freemasonry too.

Here's an interesting listen that contains a nice reference to Bacon at the 28 minute mark Plato vs. Machiavelli on Political Philosophy - YouTube. I must confess that I have not appreciated to what degree Bacon was like Machiavelli in his political thinking. It helps to explain why I have seen so much contradiction in him. We ought to think of virtu as potentially being force with Bacon. V V can be thought of as virtu and virtue, force and reason. It is not solely virtue we are after, but the force to tame nature to recue ourselves from needless pain. One can begin to see how he would have considered our mastery of natural philosophy as what God intended for man. The upcoming glorious 1000 year reign (ten centuries) of God would come with the advancement of science as we mastered nature using our divine tool kit. Something like that... Music is part of the tool kit.