The Law of Octaves

The Law of Octaves

From 'A Question of Presence', by Sergio Antonio

Those who know a little about music theory know that an octave is the distance between two equal notes, for example, the distance from one do (C) to another do immediately above or below.

The sound is created by vibrations. The more rapid the vibration, the higher the pitch. If the vibration of the first do is, say, 1000, the vibration of the next higher do will be double—2000. In this case the scale is ascending: do - re - mi - fa - sol - la - si - do. If the scale were descending (do - si - la - sol - fa - mi - re - do), it would take us to the immediately lower do, with half the number of vibrations (500, in our example).

Gurdjieff said that the major scale is an ancient representation of an objective law: the law of octaves. An octave, in the Fourth Way, refers to a complete process of an evolutionary or involutionary nature. An octave is any activity with a beginning and an end, on any scale. There is the octave of washing dishes, of solving a mathematical equation, of writing a poem, of going out to dinner. There is the octave of a career, a marriage, a lifetime.

The seven notes that make up an octave don’t represent equal distances. In particular, there are two intervals (mi-fa and si-do), where the distance between the notes is much smaller, about half that of the others, which are also slightly unequal.

In music, an interval is the distance between any two notes. In the Fourth Way terminology, “interval” specifically refers to these two anomalous distances, the one between the mi-fa notes and the one between the si-do notes.

Why is this important? How does it affect us? Because the two intervals mi-fa and si-do represent the only points at which an octave, a process, stops or deviates—the mi-fa near the beginning of the octave, the si-do toward the end (have you already noticed the position of the two spheres on the angel's trumpet?). This means that unless we recognize the intervals and exert our will, then the activity or aim we are engaged in won’t reach completion.

In this sense, intervals are responsible for the diets that we did not complete, the piano lessons and the foreign language classes that we abandoned. But also, on a smaller scale, for the thought that we left halfway through, for the effort to be present that somehow vanished, for that last pot on the stove that we forgot to wash or, on a larger scale, for the religions that, from preaching love, turned into fanaticism and then to persecution and extermination.

At each interval mi-fa and si-do, the line of action can deviate and a new octave begin. The result is a broken line, which instead of continuing straight toward the goal, after several intervals bends in the opposite direction.

In the passage below Gurdjieff describes the law of octaves as it is felt psychologically, both in relation to our individual spiritual work and on a larger scale:

After a certain period of energetic activity or strong emotion or a right understanding a reaction comes, work becomes tedious and tiring; moments of fatigue and indifference enter into feeling; instead of right thinking a search for compromises begins; suppression, evasion of difficult problems. But the line continues to develop though now not in the same direction as at the beginning. Work becomes mechanical, feeling becomes weaker and weaker, descends to the level of the common events of the day; thought becomes dogmatic, literal. Everything proceeds in this way for a certain time, then again there is reaction, again a stop, again a deviation. The development of the force may continue but the work which was begun with great zeal and enthusiasm has become an obligatory and useless formality; a number of entirely foreign elements have entered into feeling, considering, vexation, irritation, hostility; thought goes round in a circle, repeating what was known before, and the way out which had been found becomes more and more lost.

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Image: Angel Israfil,” early 15th century. Freer Gallery of Art, Washington