“Music gives a soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination and life to everything.” ― Plato
Given its universal feature of harmony and maths can music be used to uncover the complexity of the text (not translation)?
As Plato said music, also known as sound, vibratin, frequency, pattern, is built into the building blocks of the universe. I am assigning various notes to the VM glyphs and basically seeing what happens based on variable assumptions of the glyphs. Many glyphs are unclear in their purpose, e.g, is ch the same as c+h or a seperate value, ee or e+e, iiin or i+in or i+i+i+n, how does cfh work etc?
By looking for instances of disharmony (and there certainly are some) I hope to find some answers. B->A# and G->G#->G are not comfortable combinations for sure! So far ch, q and k are posing the most problems. Project ongoing.
Bunny
Well, there has at least been an attempt to use the VMS as a basis for a symphony.
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The idea of the VMS being music appeals to me (probably because music appeals to me). I've never had enough time to work out if it could be notes, but it would be interesting to try.
Musical notes have also been used to create cipher symbols but I'm not sure where that started, historically. There is a huge amount of medieval music that has been preserved. They had quite a variety of notation systems.
@bunny, have you ever heard of a constructed language (conlang) called You are not allowed to view links.
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Login to view.? It’s an a priori conlang that uses the 7 tone musical scale as units of sound and meaning. It can be sung, whistled, or played on an instrument. I haven’t read about it extensively, but my understanding is that Solresol dates from something of a golden age of conlanging, when the idea of creating a neutral universal language for all of humanity, that gave no nation of people an advantage in learning and using it, was a popular and respected idea in mainstream Western intellectual circles. And even this was a secularized reworking of an earlier wave of medieval conlanging, which was concerned with rediscovering the language all humans spoke before the fall of Babel. The pursuit of “proto-Human” is considered as pseudoscientific as the quest for the Fountain of Youth today, but was at one time taken very seriously. The rise of natural human languages as linguae francae without much trouble has since pushed conlanging to the fringes. Modern science has also found little support for the idea that it’s possible to strip language of all cultural baggage (B.F. Skinner was probably the last public intellectual to seriously defend this idea, and he’s almost a century dead.)
I think the idea that vords could be chords to be played or sung has merit, and is compatible with the possibility that they encode meaning as well, or at the very least were designed to evoke a specific feeling in listeners.
The musical notation system was different in the late Middle Ages than it is today. The Mensural notation for example is the musical notation system used for European vocal polyphonic music from the later part of the 13th century until about 1600. In the table you can clearly see how more and more notes were added in the 14th and 15th century.
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![[Image: kyrie.png]](https://wwwhomes.uni-bielefeld.de/mwille2/VMS/kyrie.png)
Comparison of the spelling of two compositions by Guillaume Dufay. On the left a Kyrie in black notation (ca. 1430-1440), on the right a Kyrie in white notation (ca. 1472)
(12-06-2020, 11:51 AM)bi3mw Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Well, there has at least been an attempt to use the VMS as a basis for a symphony.
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Amazing! Im no musician whatsoever though, just guessing with 1 key on the computer keyboard at a time. with a mouse! I have no experience with reading music etc. as I said so hope that if I can hear pettern or clash then it is something that really can be picked out. I have devised two alternative sets of values which I am happy with, one with ch and the other with c+h values. Both seem to give acceptable outputs for various texts but keeping them running side by side. Altough there are differences it is only with some glyphs one set does not outperform the other as yet for melodious output, just not identical.
I have tried using the notes to distinguish unclear glyphs from different transcriptions and just unclear folios, some results below:
f68r3. 10 dcholay/l result suggests y is correct
f68r3. 11 doary/o result suggests y is correct
f76v. 7 okedar. da/y result suggests y is correct
f77v1. 38 r/solchedy r and s both give acceptable result
I noticed that for some unclear glyphs s/r or a/o either sat well. ch and c+h not so different either.
The main thing I have noticed is that there are not heaps of clashes which is what I would espect if random, so either highly refined mathemaical system or language containing - definately not random.
Bunny - lieral monkey with typewriter
P.S. Not looking at music as a code or medieval explanation or a solution, but the idea that anything can be input into the containers and meaningful output obtained. Notes input -> harmonic music output.
Bunny
You can convert just about anything to anything with a set of rules.
e.g DNA to musical notes. You are not allowed to view links.
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As far as converting voynich words to music, it's an interesting project.
Heres 3 ways of doing it:
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Have you thought about what preconceptions you are bringing to the table in terms of what sounds good to you.
How would it sound in a different scale such as the Hejaz scale or the pentatonic scale ?
Perhaps this list will be of use to you:
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(13-06-2020, 06:47 PM)RobGea Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.You can convert just about anything to anything with a set of rules.
e.g DNA to musical notes. You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
As far as converting voynich words to music, it's an interesting project.
Heres 3 ways of doing it:
You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
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Have you thought about what preconceptions you are bringing to the table in terms of what sounds good to you.
How would it sound in a different scale such as the Hejaz scale or the pentatonic scale ?
Perhaps this list will be of use to you:
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Thanks for the info. I had a quick look at some but not quite what I am about, they give quite complex output using predefined values someone else has decided. I'm looking at just a clean and simple output using specifically chosen input values I decide represent the glyphs best. So far results are promising, no symphony for sure but can see there is sense and pattern rather than random. I don't have a keyboard so just one finger virtual music making. If you just hit keys at random from even a restricted range of notes it does not guarantee music, so to get melody, even if sometimes like "The Rite of Spring" rather than Mozart, says something about the contents of the VM. I hope to be able to use the results as a tool to check unclear sequences of text in the manuscript. So far ch and c+h EVA both give results and where s/r, o/a or y/n are unclear in the manuscript the musical notes can sometimes separate the correct type, sometimes it doesn't matter and either work. Intriguing that the text seems quite flexible whilst retaining meaningful information - but that is a different arena for the manuscript.
The experiment is not to necessarily create real music or "solve" the manuscript, its to test the theory that the glyphs are flexible, anything can be input and real output attained. As for "preconceptions and what sounds good", as a novice to the world of music, I'm purely playing by ear! "Hejaz scale or the pentatonic scale", no idea what that even means, may as well be talking Martian, It really is a case of monkeys on typewriters, so if I get any sense it is purely because it is a property of the manuscript text.
Bunny- ear plugs provided