Music, in all its forms, is an essential part of the world of RHAPSODY. It is a way of channeling power; as Rhapsody tells Achmed early in their journey along the Root, "Music is nothing more than the maps through the vibrations that make up all the world. If you have the right map, it will take you wherever you want to go." Here is some of the real-life music theory that helped inform the musical aspects of the RHAPSODY Trilogy.

The Guido Scale

The music theory utilized in RHAPSODY and its sequels is based in large part upon the real-life works of Guido d'Arezzo [Guido of Arezzo] ca. 991-1033 A.D. [?], one of history's greatest musicologists.

While the ancient Greeks used tetrachords, a series of four tones, the scale that Guido devised used six tones [hexachords]. Guido's hexachordal theory produced a set of scales, later to be known as the Church Modes, or the Guido Scale.

UT, A DEER, A FEMALE DEER?

Guido d'Arezzo was also famous for his techniques of teaching sight singing. He is credited with the invention of solmization, assigning syllables for each of the six tones of the hexachord to the first syllable of each verse of the St. John Hymn, a musical piece that was very well known at the time.

This is where we get Ut [later changed to Do] Re, Mi, Fa, Sol, and La, sometimes also called Ela. The name solmization comes from the fourth and fifth syllables, sol-mi. Later, when the seventh tone of the diatonic scale was added into popular use, the initials of the Latin words in the last line of the song, Sancte Ioannes, were combined, for Si, later changed to Ti.

THE GUIDONIAN HAND

The followers of Guido d'Arezzo came up with the idea of representing scale pitches on different joints of the left hand fingers to teach memorization of the scales. The teacher would point with his right index finger to each of the left-hand joints, and the students would sing the pitch that correlated to it.

SO WHAT DOES THIS HAVE TO DO WITH RHAPSODY?
[for those familiar with the book]

In Cymrian lore, while Lirin Singers always used the diatonic scale [the octave], the human population of Serendair ascribed to the hexachordal [6-note] scale. Gwylliam, the last king of the Island, who eventually led the Cymrian population to safety in the new world and into the disastrous war three centuries later, was an architect who understood the connection between music and mathematics, and the applications of both to engineering. He considered the hexagon to be the strongest architectural shape, and built much of the inner structure of Canrif accordingly, including the gazebo in Elysian. The hexagonal shape was used to help the structure withstand the musical vibrations of the wind, and so that each side equally supported the weight of the building.

COLOR MYTHOS

Musical notes also applied to the wave frequencies of light as well, also known as colors. Each color of the rainbow was related to a specific musical tone [six again, as blue and indigo were divided as the sharp and flat of the same note]. Each note had a corresponding trait, with a positive or negative side of trait as well, except for violet, the last and rarest note of the scale. [Think positive and negative as in atomic charges, not good and bad.]

COLOR	TRAIT	POSITIVE	NEGATIVE
Red	Blood	Saver	Letter
Orange	Fire	Starter	Quencher
Yellow	Heat	Saver	Quencher
Green	Grass	Hider	Scryer
Blue:
sharp	Cloud	Caller	Chaser
flat	Night	Caller	Stayer
Violet	( The New Beginning )

Rhapsody was the sixth child in her family, and her personal tone, or Naming Note, the vibration to which she was attuned, was la, or ela, the sixth note of the scale, though birth order and the note one is attuned to are not always related. It was extremely rare that someone was born attuned to this note, and it was considered a sign of a special gift or trait. Royal children or people born to leadership were often attuned to ela, which is why purple was worn as a royal color. In the color mythos of the Island, it was believed that people who were attuned to the wave pattern of violet light were the New Beginning, often prophets, heirs to thrones, saviors, change agents, leaders, or those who would be sacrificed to save something, or bring about a new beginning. Because they were both the end and beginning of the rainbow, they embodied the traits of all of the color patterns. Throughout the trilogy you will see Rhapsody demonstrate each of these color traits at one time or another.

Achmed, a firstborn, was attuned to ut, the first note of the scale. In this lore he would have therefore been attuned to the wave pattern of red, or blood. A person so attuned can be positively focused, a blood saver [a healer] or a blood letter [a skilled killer].

Grunthor's personal note [one that we hope he doesn't sing too often] is fa, attuned to green. People so attuned are skilled at grass hiding, blending into the foliage or the earth, and grass scrying, being able to see innately what hides within the same foliage or earth.

Ashe, what little we know about him, has very blue eyes, a sign of his attunement to the fifth color. The blue color trait has two variations, in addition to the positive and negative aspects. Light blue is known as the cloud trait, with the positive aspect of calling clouds, or obscuring something in mist. Chasing clouds, the negative aspect, describes a tendency to clarify. The indigo aspect of the color relates to night. Night callers bring darkness or ending into a situation, while night stayers hold those things off.

THE DHRACIAN HAND

In RHAPSODY, we see Achmed perform [or attempt to perform] the Thrall ritual, the rite by which members of the Dhracian race can hold a F'dor demon-spirit against its will, chaining it to its human host so that it cannot flee death. [As you probably can imagine, this will be seen again.] During this ritual the left hand is used to ensnare the vibrations given off by the F'dor. The ritual uses the real-life Guidonian Hand method as its basis for the song that catches and ensnares the demonic spirit. Now the question is--how do you hold on to it?

For this and other answers to questions posed in RHAPSODY: Child of Blood, look for PROPHECY: Child of Earth, the second book in the trilogy, scheduled for release in July 2000.

Hope this combination of real-world and Cymrian mythos gives you some insight into where the magic in the story comes from.

-- Elizabeth Haydon