seven colors, seven planets, seven n

[White, Rich]

The seven day week is not arbitrary but corresponds to the time between 
lunar phases (new, 1st quarter, full, 3rd quarter).  Month = moon, etc etc. 
 the calendar hides much ancient and largely forgotten knowledge, and it's 
generally not astrological claptrap....
 ----------
.*++From: owner-pynchon-l
.*++To: CO27447; SY19058
.*++Subject: FW: seven colors, seven planets, seven notes, septive?
.*++Date: Thursday, May 09, 1996 1:54AM
.*++
.*++<<File Attachment: HEADERS.TXT>>
.*++
.*++Brian McCary Writes....
.*++---------------Original Message---------------
.*++
.*++If Newton did want corrospondance between the notes of the scale and
.*++the colors, and from Malcolm Saunders' comments, it sounds like he did,
.*++then it seems to me he was trying to force to a somewhat arbitrary
.*++scheme, since there are eight notes in an octive.  Otherwise, of course,
.*++it would be a septive, right?  The note we all forget in these evenly
.*++tempered times would be the flatted seventh, which, in the key of C,
.*++those retentive Germans occasionally refered to as H, at least through 
the
.*++time of Beethoven.   It shows up all the time in pop music, in dominant
.*++seventh chords just before the resolution to the tonic (some sort of 
short
.*++story in that theme...) and corrosponds to the 14th overtone in the
.*++harmonic series, where the eighth through the fifteenth overtones make 
up
.*++the notes of the octave.  I can't recall when the harmonic scale was
.*++abandoned for the 12 note tempered scale, but for some reason, I thought
.*++it was after Newton.
.*++
.*++Which just goes to show that scientists are just as prone to 
ritualization
.*++and fetishism as anyone else.  I believe it was Kepler who "proved" that 

.*++there where only five planents, because there were only 5 perfect
.*++solids, which fit the known planitary orbits....
.*++
.*++Brian McCary
.*++
.*++
.*++I'm a little rusty on music theory, but I go along with the 7 note scale
.*++based on
.*++the old Greek modes.   Each of the seven modes began on a different note 
of
.*++the scale, though the two half-step intervals stayed always in the same
.*++place.
.*++(Try this using only the white keys of a piano.  Only the scale 
beginning on
.*++"C"
.*++will sound right.)  "We" selected one of the 7 modes to be our major 
scale.
.*++The 8th note, of course, was a repeat of the 1st, just like each Sunday
.*++begins
.*++another seven-day week.  (If a seven day week is not an arbitrary unit 
of
.*++time I
.*++don't know what is!)  I thought the German "H" referred to an enharmonic 

.*++note, not to a diminished seventh.   So I can see the kute 
korrespondence
.*++that Newton was seeking.  As for the conversion from the old mean-tone 
scale
.*++(in which each of the 12 intervals was equal) to the equal-temperament 
scale
.*++that we now use, didn't J.S. Bach (who died in 1750) have a large role 
in
.*++that?
.*++                -jm
.*++
.*++
.*++