The Ancient Musical Code Cut Into A Church
May 3rd, 2006 | music, researchmaterial
He believes that the ornate ceiling of carved arches, featuring 213 decorated cubes holds a code for medieval music. His father Thomas Mitchell spent 20 years cracking this code in the ceiling and now Stuart is orchestrating the findings for a new recording called The Rosslyn Motet.
(Listen to The Rosslyn Motet at the link.)
They hope that the music, when played on medieval instruments in situ, will resonate throughout the chapel unlocking a secret in the stone.
The breakthrough to interpreting the notation came when Mitchell’s father discovered that the markings carved on the face of the cubes seem to match a phenomenon called Cymatics or Chladni patterns. Chladni patterns form when a sustained note is used to vibrate a sheet of metal covered in powder producing marks. The frequency used dictates the shape of the pattern, for example; the musical note A below middle C vibrates at 440 KHz and produces a shape that looks like a rhombus. Different notes can produce various shapes including flowers, diamonds and hexagons – shapes all present on the Rosslyn cubes. Stuart Mitchell believes this is “beyond coincidence” and has assigned a note to each cube.
Ernst Chladni first documented the phenomenon in the late 18th century – yet it appears to be present in a 15th century building. Which begs the question: “Was Sir William St Clair (the man who built Rosslyn Chapel) familiar with sciences far in advance of his time?”
Interestingly the Devil’s Chord – diabolus in musica – makes an appearance in the music.
“In the ceiling is this jump of an augmented fourth, in fact it opens up with an augmented fourth,” says Mitchell. The Catholic Church had banned this interval (seven semitones) from medieval music as it was believed to be disturbing and therefore diabolical… perhaps this explains why carvings depicting the green man, essentially a pagan image, exist alongside carvings of Christ in the chapel…
is the award-winning creator of graphic novels such as 
The DaVinci Chord.
Sounds like utter bollocks, but it makes for a good story. Hurry up and use it before Dan Brown, Warren…
SG
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Bizarre stuff.
–RC of strangeculture.blogspot.com
And yet they loved the mi MAJ 7th? silly christians
Very Hellraiser…
Rosslyn reloaded
Rosslyn Chapel was a destination for Templar enthusiasts, Masons and anti-Masons long before Dan Brown’s Da Vinci Code turned it into a hidden history tourist trap. People can find meaning in almost anything thanks in large part to a nervous…
stupid.stupid.stupid. tell sherry_shriner@yahoo.com, sounds worse then certain things she spouts out…however, if i lived in a cave and covered my body in orgone blasters”which were created for sexual purposes” originally…i’d probably see eye to eye.