Books/2013.10-MusicalGematria/info.txt
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ISBN-10: 1940630029
ISBN-13: 978-1-940630-02-1
Musical Gematria
40 pages
DESCRIPTION (162 words):
In modern times we are accustomed to one set of characters for writing words (the alphabet A through Z) and another for writing numbers (the digits 0 through 9). The ancient Greeks and Hebrews, however, used the alphabet for both words and numbers. So their numbers looked like strange words, and their words looked like strange numbers. And every word naturally had a numeric value. The study of these numeric values of words is called gematria (”geh-MAY-tree-uh”).
The ancients put gematria to use: they apparently used numeric values of the names of Greek gods as dimensions in the Parthenon. And Jewish mystics in the Middle Ages studied the meanings of the numeric values of the Hebrew names of God.
This book presents a way of doing musical gematria that takes words or phrases in general and names in particular, and generates graceful and musically useful themes. It uses an elegant method that honors the ancient traditions of gematria while incorporating modern insights.
BIO:
William Zeitler is one of the few professional glass armonica players in the world. Trained as a classical pianist, William earned his degree from the California Institute of the Arts. He discovered the glass armonica in 1995, and has gone on to perform worldwide, including at the Kennedy Center and with the Blue Man Group. He and his armonica were featured in the History Channel's Franklin Tech. He can also be heard in major film scores including Beautiful Creatures and HBO's Taking Chance. He has composed extensively for the glass armonica, and recorded eight CDs with it to date.