The Resounding Enneagram: the Seven Note Musical Scale as a Model of the

Fourth Way.

By Dr Judith Crispin

In Beelzebub’s Tales to his Grandson,1 Gurdjieff adopts the seven-note musical scale to
illustrate the two primary laws governing the unfolding of cosmic processes, the laws of
seven (Heptaparashinokh) and of three (Triamazikamno). These laws, fundamental to
Gurdjieffian cosmology, also underpin the structure of western diatonic music. The seven
note diatonic scale together with triadic functional harmony have dominated the musical
language of the west since the 16th century, and music’s reliance on the laws of seven and
three is consistently evident throughout its entire recorded history, and across most of the
world’s cultures.

That Gurdjieff’s musical model has its origins in Pythagoras, is made plain by the fact
that he is mentioned by name in Beelzebub in the chapters on music.2 Also in these
chapters, Gurdjieff implies that many so-called advances in music – such as equally
tempered tuning, and modern instruments – have inadvertently excised many elements of
meaning in musical structure, and as a result, music is now less effective in its
transmission of esoteric knowledge. To compensate for the degradation in musical
cosmology, Gurdjieff utilized the nine-sided enneagram as a model of the dynamic
synthesis of cosmic laws. This figure is intrinsic to Gurdjieff’s teaching and, although it
is discussed here with reference to the laws of three and seven, it should by no means be
understood as representing only those laws.

The replacement of the musical scale with the enneagram, although useful in many
respects, nevertheless presents a problem in that the information is transmitted to a
significantly reduced number of sensory receivers. Musical meaning is delivered directly
to the emotional, physical and cognitive centres, its proportions are cognized by the ear,
the nerves of the body and, with recourse to a musical score, may also be decoded by the
eye. In contrast, the enneagram is experienced only visually and must be intellectually
decoded. Given that neither medium is perfect, the musical scale and the enneagram can
be thought of as different expressions of the same idea, thus each clarifies the other and,
at the same time, is the extension of the other.

Despite the shortfalls of modern music alluded to in Beelzebub, Gurdjieff notes that the
basic principle of the “alternation of centre of gravity sounds” remains the same.
Therefore, music may still serve “for an approximate understanding of how cosmic
substances of different density and vivifyingness are formed during the process of the
Most Great Trogoautoegocrat from what is called the flow of vibrations issuing one from
another, and how they unite and separate among themselves to form large and small
relatively independent concentrations, thus actualising the common-cosmic

1
G. I. Gurdjieff. (1993) Beelzebub's Tales to His Grandson. New York: Viking. pp. 745–
798.
2
Ibid. pp. 415–416.
 3
Iraniranumange” (reciprocal feeding/exchange of substances).

This paper aims to examine the cosmological model of the seven-note scale in its modern
diatonic context, its original Pythagorean conception, and as represented by the
enneagram – and further, to investigate both the natural and artificial articulations of
esoteric musical language in the harmonic series and in modern composition.

The seven-note musical scale is scaffolded by the fixed interval of the octave. Two notes
are an octave apart when one vibrates at twice the frequency of the other. Octaves can
therefore be expressed exponentially: 2, 22 , 23 , 24 , 25 , 26 etc. (Ex. 2.) As the simplest of
intervallic ratios, that of 2:1, the octave is the most perfectly consonant interval after the
unison. The other interval ratios of the seven-note scale reflect the following proportions
(Ex. 1)

C D E F G A B C

1 9/8 5/4 4/3 3/2 5/3 15/8 2

The diatonic scale is characterised by a well-known sequence of tones and semitones,

namely, tone, tone, semitone, tone, tone, tone, semitone. (Ex. 3 + 4)

The scale is comprised of a trichord and a tetrachord, separated by a semitone. The scale
as a whole is separated from its repetition an octave higher, also by a semitone. The
interval formed by the outside notes of the trichord is a major third, whereas the interval
formed by the tetra-chord is the tritone, or augmented fourth (three equal tones). (Ex. 3)

When one listens to these intervals the unstable and ambiguous nature of the tritone is
immediately apparent when compared to the major third. The octave is divided into two
equal halves by the tritone, creating a point of maximum stasis – here there is no

3
Ibid. pp. 811–819
tendency towards either direction and hence it can be seen as the most unstable of all
intervals. (Ex. 4)

In Gurdjieff’s system the two semitones represent points at which the progression of any
process may be deflected without the intervention of new sources of energy. In diatonic
music semitones have a similar significance, they are understood as weaker points in the
scale where the influence of surrounding notes may determine whether they rise or fall.
Like the tritone, the semitone has little magnetic orientation within the scale and can be
easily diverted from its original direction. One can easily perceive the physical tendency
for a particular note to rise or fall, when illustrated in sound.

Ex. 5 shows the directional tendencies of notes in various harmonic contexts. When
suspended above a dissonance a note wishes to wants to fall and, indeed, according to the
rules of 16th century species counterpoint this is a law of dissonance resolution.

The note C in the dyad formed by C and F# can either rise or fall depending on the
movement of the bass note. This dyad forms the interval of a tritone, the perfect division
of the octave into two halves, and accordingly, has no innate inclination to move in either
direction. The Dim 7 chord, also built on the tritone, is similarly static as is the
augmented chord in which the octave is equally divided into major thirds.

Ex. 6 shows another example of this ambiguity formed by the tritone between F and B.

Like Gurdjieff’s system, the movement from a lower octave to a higher also has a special
significance in music. A major triad is more or less stable depending on the octave in
which each note is placed – or in other words, depending on the position each note takes
in the chord. A root position major triad, where the bottom note is “do” and the top note
is a perfect fifth higher, is the most stable version of the chord, the fifth being the next
most stable interval after the octave due to its simple ratio 3:2. The first and second
inversions, shown in Ex. 6., are increasingly unstable as “do” moves further from its
original position. The most unstable position of the major triad is the second inversion
where “do” is in the highest position and the fifth is replaced by a fourth (4:3). So, the
stability of ascending intervals ensures in turn the stability of the triad, which historically
forms the basis of much western music.

Ex. 7 is a short exercise in species counterpoint in which the magnetism of certain

harmonies can be heard even with only two notes at one time.

The circle of fifths (Ex. 8) has great significance in western diatonic music. It shows the
progression of sharp and flat keys and is the basis of Pythagorean tuning, (which we will
talk about later). This figure is almost an exact reflection of the enneagram, but for the
mirror image of the central triangle, which in the circle of fifths points in both directions,
but in the enneagram points only up.

It is interesting to view the circle of fifths as it would appear on the enneagram (Ex. 9).
The downward triangle (in red) forms a very unstable chord against “do” as (a) it is
augmented (equal division of the octave into thirds) and (b) it contains the tritone. The
upward interval, by contrast, (blue) although also an augmented chord, contains the
relatively stable intervals of the third and minor sixth above “do”. The tritone is
presented in the enneagram as the exact polar opposite to “do” (green line). The unicursal
hexagram (black) contains the most consonant of the two whole-tone scales of the octave
– most consonant because it does not contain the tritone.
In Beelzebub’s Tales to his Grandson, Pythagoras, together with Kanil el-Norkel
established the ‘Adherents of Legominism’ club in Babylon. 4 Their purpose, in light of
the fact that large numbers of initiated beings were always killed in wars and other
catastrophes, was to effectively preserve esoteric truths for the welfare of future
generations.

Later in the same chapter, Gurdjieff describes how the Bukharian Dervish Hadji Asvatz
Troov, invents the vibrosho, an experimental musical instrument modelled on
Pythagoras’s Monochord.

This instrument consists of a rectangular resonant box over which is stretched a single
string which may be tuned by increasing or decreasing its tension. Although attributed to
Pythagoras, the Monochord is thought to date back as far as 3500 B.C. It is the oldest
way of tuning the 12-note chromatic scale and, as such, formed the basis for many other
methods of tuning, including just intonation, Pythagorean tuning and modern equal
temperament.

4
ibid. pp 415-416.
Through his experiments with the Monochord, Pythagoras established that, musical
intervals exactly parallel the characteristics of a single vibrating string. If the string is
plucked, first as a whole, then as one half, one third, one quarter and so on, the result is
an audible ascending series of harmonics. This occurs because the string vibrates as a
whole and, at the same time, as all of its parts – so the vibrations of fractions of the string
are partially audible in the whole vibrating string.

Followers of Pythagoras later developed this “super-string” idea into a comprehensive

theory of the harmony of planets, which came to be known much later as Musica
Mundana.
This famous Monochord diagram by Fludd illustrates a conception of universal music in
which certain planets and celestial bodies sustain a harmonic relationship to each other.
The lower octaves comprise the regions of the universe where substance predominates
over energy, and the higher octaves, where energy predominates over substance. Thus,
explains Fludd “If struck in the more spiritual part, the monochord will give eternal life;
if in the more material part, transitory life.” This eternal celestial scale, bears a striking
resemblance to Gurdjieff’s cosmic octave, if not in every detail, then at least in its overall
conception.

But without wishing to undervalue cosmic design, it is in the microscopic divisions

between notes that the information most practical for us is contained. Gurdjieff notes in
Beelzebub’s Tales to his Grandson, that the “contemporary tuning problem”, by which he
refers to the dilution of musical cosmology, arose from the fact that modern culture
received ancient musical information from two completely separate sources - the Chinese
(which posited 7 notes to the octave) and the Greek (which posited 5 notes to the octave).

The Greeks, and particularly Pythagoras, created a system of musical tuning in which the
frequency relationships of all intervals are based on the ratio 3:2 (the fifth) – which as we
have seen, is the next simplest ratio after the octave (2:1). One can construct a
Pythagorean scale by the following method:

(1) The second note is the pitch one 5th above the first, at a ratio of 3:2. If the first
note is D (200 hz), the second will be A (300 hz).
(2) Add another fifth above that. As the second note is A (300 hz), the third will be E
(450 hz). This note is in the wrong octave as only notes with a frequency below
400 hz (twice the starting note) will be in the octave begun by D 200hz.
(3) To place the E in the correct octave, we can halve its frequency to 225 hz.
(4) This process is continued until the full octave is complete.

In applying Pythagorean tuning to the seven-note scale, however, a problem arises in that
no number of 3:2 ratio intervals (fifths) will fit exactly into an octave. In Pythagorean
tuning, after twelve fifths we arrive at a pitch almost, but not exactly, equivalent to seven
octaves above the starting note. In western music twelve fifths and seven octaves are
considered to be the same interval but this view was not shared by Pythagoras. If we
continue constructing our scale on D, for example, the D arrived at after twelve fifths will
be 23.46 cents (approximately 1/8 tone) sharper than the D seven octaves above the
starting note. In other words, twelve fifths are not exactly equal to seven octaves. The
difference between them (23.46 cents) is called the Pythagorean comma.

One major difference, then, between the Pythagorean circle of fifths and the modern
circle of fifths is that the Pythagorean circle does not circulate – the circle is a spiral.
The pitch reached after twelve fifths is not intended to be exactly in tune with the pitch
seven octaves above the starting note. Or, in other words, twelve fifths extend further
than seven octaves.

The Gurdjieffian idea that the second semitone requires a greater shock than the first, is
illustrated by Pythagorean tuning in which the octave to octave ratio is not 2:1, but is a
fraction sharper (1/8 tone over 12 fifths). Thus the second semitone is, in fact, larger than
the first, and the octave above is not simply a repetition at double the frequency, but
constitutes an entirely different harmonic region.

To reconcile the misalignment of twelve fifths with seven octaves, 16th century music
theorists, decided to flatten each fifth by one 12th of a Pythagorean comma (a microscopic
interval of around 2 cents) to make them fit against perfect octaves. During this time it
had become fashionable to dispense with the metaphysical aspects of music in favour of
wholly practical considerations such as scales, dissonance and so on. Distorting the
interval of the fifth paved the way for the further degradation of musical tuning in the
creation of the modern equally tempered scale, which has dominated our musical
landscape ever since.

In the equally tempered system all ratios except the octave are ignored. The span of the
octave is divided equally into 12 parts, each semitone forms one interval of the 12th root
of 2, so that twelve semitones are exactly equivalent to one octave. In other words, where
Pythagorean tuning creates a kaleidoscope of intervallic relationships, equal temperament
arranges all its notes as multiples of the same basic interval. As no perfect ratio other than
the octave is possible in equal temperament, the result is a system where all intervals
sound equally out of tune in any key – for example the interval of a fourth will sound
exactly the same in all contexts.

The perfect octave ratio of equal temperament cannot be sustained alongside the perfect
fifth ratio of Pythagorean tuning. How then is it possible for music to accurately transmit
a complete cosmology, when the continuous succession of octaves relies in one way or
another on the distortion of perfect intervals. The answer cannot be found in the position
of individual pitches within an artificially constructed scale. Neither the circle of
successive octaves nor the spiral of successive fifths can accurately serve as a
comprehensive cosmological model. The deep mystery of musical language begins to
reveal itself only when two fundamental facts are recognised:
(1) that music itself has an intrinsic perceivable structure, independent of human
design, and
(2) the space between any two tones, whether an octave or a semitone, is always
infinite. This applies not only to the space between pitches separated horizontally
in time, but also the space between any pitch and its series of harmonic overtones.

The name of any note is only the name of its fundamental pitch. Above this pitch other
pitches are vibrating and are audible to varying degrees. As Pythagoras observed, these
pitches relate to their fundamental pitch in whole number ratios. (Ex. 11)

The higher pitches (or overtones) over a given fundamental are part of what we call the
Harmonic Series. This series is theoretically infinite, and is generated by the articulation
of any fundamental note. We can predict the position of overtones up to a certain point,
beyond which the intervals become too small to differentiate one pitch from another.

Ex. 12. shows the first sixteen overtones of the fundamental note C. The difference
between the overtones and their equally tempered equivalents are given in cents.
As previously stated, any two notes are an octave apart when one vibrates at twice the
frequency of the other, and we can therefore express these octaves exponentially: 2, 22,
23, 24, 25, 26 and so on. Unlike an artificial scale in which the ratios between adjacent
notes is the same in all octaves, the ratios between the notes of the harmonic series are
infinitely contracting – 2:1, 3:2, 4:3, 5:4 etc. This means that each successive octave
contains more overtones than the last. In other words, where artificial tuning systems
posit the same number of notes in each octave, the harmonic series reveals a pattern in
which the contents of successive octaves expands infinitely. Like Gurdjieff’s system,
each new octave symbolises a level of being one step further from the fundamental than
the last.

As the number of overtones increases with each new octave, the intervals between
overtones become necessarily smaller. By the eighth octave above a given fundamental,
the intervals between overtones are so small that the ear perceives them as a continuum
of rising vibration.

Octave 1= no overtones
Octave 2 = one
Octave 3 = three
Octave 4 = seven
Octave 5 = fifteen
Octave 6 = thirty-one
Octave 7 = sixty-three

Each progression to a new octave adds more and more pitches to the harmony of
existence. And this is truly, verifiably boundless.

On the physical level, the resonance of vibrating matter becomes audible as sound. This
sound is conditioned by the physical characteristics of the material in which it resounds
(i.e. the instrument). Restricted by the physical limits of its confines, the harmonic series
produced above the fundamental tone, never unfolds as a perfect arithmetical series. It is
deformed by the imperfection of the physical shell it inhabits and, because of this, we
hear only a small number of its component overtones, and of these, certain tones will
dominate at the expense of others. It is this imperfect resonance generated in a physical
body by the impact of sound, which we understand as timbre, or tone-colour. This is the
paradox of ‘objective music’ to which Gurdjieff alludes. ‘Objective music’ cannot be
wholly experienced through the physical senses as it must necessarily belong to a higher
octave, sphere in which energy predominates over matter.

Dane Rhudyar, in his study of the harmonic series, underscores the necessary existence of
an inaudible descending harmonic series (involution), which must balance the audible
ascending series (evolution). This may be likened to the balanced triangles depicted in the
circle of fifths. The enneagram, which as we have seen omits the downward triangle,
reflects our experience of the harmonic series as perpetually ascending. Dane Rhudyar,
explains the dynamic motivation of sound as the descent of energy as tone and its
subsequent ascent through the harmonic series as overtones.

The ascending and descending series are theoretically symmetrical in terms of their
intervallic content, but must generate completely different pitches. In an ascending series
from the fundamental C, the third partial will be G, but in a descending series from the
same note, the third partial will be F.

If you imagine the harmonic series as a vertical ladder, extending infinitely in both
directions, then from some central vantage point the rungs of the ladder would appear to
be increasingly closer together as they stretched away out of sight. This visual illusion
has its parallel in our experience of the harmonic series in which the distance between
any two pitches, while apparently decreasing, must of course be infinite.

We have discussed the expression of esoteric musical language in the seven-note diatonic
scale, the Pythagorean scale, the enneagram and the naturally occurring harmonic series.
I would like to conclude this paper by pointing out that esoteric musical language has
oriented and motivated western classical music for as long as the art-form has existed.
The significance of music as a cosmological model has been transmitted amongst
composers, from teacher to pupil in the manner of an oral tradition - an exact parallel of
the oral tradition we encounter in Gurdjieff’s system. Neither has the small, obscure
world of modern composition been indifferent to Gurdjieff’s articulation of musical
cosmology. Today I would like to play for you a recording of a violin concerto by the
Australian composer, Larry Sitsky, who was my composition teacher for more than a
decade and who introduced me to Gurdjieff’s ideas.

Sitsky’s Violin Concerto, No. 2, subtitled Gurdjieff, was composed in 1983 for the
Hungarian violinist Jan Sedivka, himself a student of Gurdjieff at Fountainbleau. Sitsky
met Sedivka at the Queensland conservatorium of music, where they were both employed
as lecturers in the late 70s. (digression about the policeman)

The work is in seven movements with a cadenza in the fourth movement, the place of the
semitone according to Gurdjieff’s system, in which a shock is needed in order to continue
in the same direction. Sitsky sets up this shock with snare and side drums followed by the
moto perpetuo cadenza. The end of the work implies a shift to a new octave through the
repeated use of ninths. In a letter to Sedivka during the composition of the concerto
Sitsky writes “whether the ascent to the next octave is necessary, unsure.”

It is important to note that the influence of Gurdjieff on modern composition has been
primarily creative, that is, unlike the valuable arrangements of Thomas de Hartmann,
through which he intended to preserve Gurdjieff’s contributions, modern composition has
no archival aspirations. The small number of composers who have found resonance with
Gurdjieff’s ideas, prefer on the whole, to ensure the future transmission of those ideas as
encrypted symbols within musical art-works. After all, one may reasonably argue that the
purest transmissions of religious and esoteric knowledge, from antiquity to the present
day, are found not in doctrines but in art.