CYCLE THIRTEEN: MUSICAL CATEGORIES

1. Since I classify music in relation to the four principal elements, viz. fire, water, vegetation, and air, it behoves me to subdivide it into four categories, viz. rhythm, melody, harmony, and pitch, and to equate each of these categories with a corresponding type of music, viz. dance, vocal, instrumental, and solo, since dance music is predominantly rhythmic, vocal music predominantly melodic, instrumental music predominantly or, rather, preponderantly (in its subjectivity) harmonic, and solo music preponderantly pitchful.

2. Likewise I contend that just as there are four main kinds of music, so there are four main categories of instruments corresponding to the elements, viz. percussion, keyboards, strings, and wind, the first category effectively fiery, the second effectively watery, the third effectively vegetative, and the fourth effectively airy.

3. Hence we can distinguish the dance category of percussion-based rhythmic music from the solo category of wind-centred pitchful music, further distinguishing each of these noumenal options in time and space from the vocal category of keyboards-based melodic music and the instrumental category of strings-centred harmonic music 'down below', in what amounts to phenomenal alternatives, in volume and mass, to the more absolutist categories 'up above'.

4. Broadly, the elemental distinctions between these four principal kinds of music, viz. rhythmic, melodic, harmonic, and pitchful, are such as to warrant their being respectively equated with the following descriptive genres, viz. Jazz in the case of rhythm, Pop in the case of melody, Classical in the case of harmony, and Folk in the case of pitch, as we move from dance to solo via vocal and instrumental or, in equivalent musical-instrument terms, from percussion to wind via keyboards and strings.

5. In respect of the four main disciplinary divisions which correspond to the elements, viz. science, politics, economics, and religion, I would have no difficulty in associating Jazz with science, Pop with politics, Classical with economics, and Folk with religion, since the combination of rhythm and dance with percussion in the case of Jazz makes for a fiery, and hence scientific, parallel; the combination of melody and vocals with keyboards in the case of Pop makes for a watery, and hence political, parallel; the combination of harmony and instrumentality with strings in the case of Classical makes for a vegetative, and hence economic, parallel; and, last but hardly least, the combination of pitch and solo with wind in the case of Folk makes for an airy, and hence religious, parallel.

6. Thus I conclude that Jazz is a scientific kind of music, Pop a political kind of music, Classical an economic kind of music, and Folk a religious kind of music, with Jazz and Pop corresponding, on the female side of life, to fire and water, but Classical and Folk corresponding to vegetation and air on what amounts, by contrast, to its male side, a side rather more physical and metaphysical in its phenomenal subjectivity and noumenal subjectivity than either metachemical or chemical in relation to noumenal objectivity and to phenomenal objectivity.