The World of Cantoria
At its most fundamental level, sound is vibration - a disturbance that travels through matter in waves. When something vibrates, it creates alternating areas of high and low pressure in the air, like ripples in a pond. Our ears detect these pressure changes as sound. This is the physical truth that underlies everything in music.
Now, let's build our creation myth on this physical foundation:
In the beginning, there was silence - not the absence of sound, but the absence of matter for sound to travel through. Then came the First Pulse - the primordial vibration that brought matter into motion. This pulse wasn't just sound; it was the fundamental force that gave structure to the universe. Each pulse created waves, and where waves met, they created patterns. These patterns became increasingly complex, eventually giving rise to all forms of matter and life.
The first harmonics emerged naturally from this pulse, just as they do in physics. When a string vibrates, it doesn't just produce one frequency - it naturally creates overtones at specific mathematical ratios. In our myth, these could be the first "regions" or "forces" of the world, each with its own character but all mathematically related to the fundamental pulse.
To ground this in musical terms: When you play a low C on a piano, you're not hearing just one note. You're hearing a complex blend of frequencies that include C an octave higher, G above that, another C, E, and so on. These natural harmonics give each note its rich, complex character. Our world could mirror this natural hierarchy of harmonics.