Akasha Project is a musical venture of the sound artist Barnim Schultze. The first tracks appeared in 1996 and '97 on various compilations. In 1998 his first album as an artist: "MDMA Tuning" appeared, developed in collaboration with the music researcher Hans Cousto. Since this time Akasha Project has dealt exclusively with tones drawn from nature and their effects, working closely with Cousto - the discoverer of the planetary, molecular and atomic sound frequencies.
Tell us about the origin of name Akasha, what does it mean and why did you choose it?
For me the "Akasha" means the level of the reality in which all oscillation is. In my musical work as Akasha Project I try to express this perception with music.
Your music is based on cosmic octave. Can you tell us more about the theory of spheres? How the music of the spheres is related to the earthly music?
In 1978 the mathematician and musicologist Hans Cousto discovered the principle of the cosmic octave. He gave to the world an easy, understandable mathematical system which enables to transpose intervals from the nature in octave-analogous tones and make it audible. From the point of view of the cosmic octave the universe is a large sea of oscillation in which the person shows a holistically embedded resonance point. If one goes one step further, many of these so-called harmonic concert pitches derived from the nature "swing" in harmonious relations to functions belonging to our body. The octave-analogous frequency of the earth year, the earth’s rotation around the sun, becomes audible in the 32nd octave as a tone C-sharp with 136.10 Hz.
Hertz, shortened Hz, is the physical unit for the pitch and means oscillations per second.
With this frequency of 136 oscillations per second the potassium sodium exchange also takes place in our body cells.
If one hears now this annual tone which finds ritual and magic use (e.g., the OM of the Tibetans) in many cultures since millenniums, our cellular system does not have to come too largely exert, because as a result of the frequency result principle it "swings" and feels fine. The frequency of the day tone of 24-hour durable earth's rotation corresponds octave-analogously to the resonance maximum of our DNA.
The archaic, psychic draughts which influence our kind to think and to act are reflected by the tones of the planets. In the alternative medicine these cosmic concert pitches are used successfully for many years.
 Human hearing is limited from 16 Hz to 20 kHz so how do frequencies, out of that range, get implemented into your music? What kind of gear (instruments) do you use in the process?
I work with quite normal electronic music instruments. Because I play a lot live, I work with electronic hardware instruments like groove boxes and synthesizer. But every musical instrument can be used for cosmic music. The mathematics of the cosmic octave makes possibly to assign very long cycles not only to an octave-analogous tonal frequency but also to a rhythm speed (bpm) and a suitable colour for the planetary years, the surrounding of the planets around the sun.
We can also bring very quick molecular and atomic oscillations by transposing in the hearing area.
As an example here are the calculations for the earth year:
An earthly year lasts 365.24219 days this are 31 556 925.5402 seconds.
Frequency measured in hertz (Hz) means oscillation per second.
Time and frequency behave vice versa proportionally to each other what means if I take from a second number the reciprocal value forms I receive (pocket calculator 1 / X keys) a frequency in hertz.
If we form from 31 556 925.54 seconds the reciprocal value we receive = 0.00000003168 Hz.
Because the human ear is able to processed signals in a range of approx. 20 hertz to maximum 16,000 hertz, we can not hear a tone which amplitude last over one year.
And exactly there the thing with the Cosmic Octave begins. If I double this frequency I get the same tone one octave higher. This still does not make it audible, but if I repeat this process 25 times I reach in the 25th octave a musically useful rhythm speed.
The earth year in the 25th octave = 63.80 bpm,
accordingly in the 26. Octave = 127.60 bpm
Doubling I further, I find in the 32nd octave a clearly discernible tone - a note C-sharp with 136.10 hertz. If I do the play even further, finally, I reach in the 74th octave an octave-analogous colour of the sun surrounding of our home planet, in this case the colour blue-green with 500,837 nanometres of wavelength.
Now one can also work out a suitable concert pitch A.
The concert pitch A which is fixed today mostly to 440 hertz knows no relation to nature on in contrast to other physical dimensions and was fixed virtually bureaucratically.
In furthered times many important composers use her "own" concert pitch A which, intuitively often lay near cosmic circumstances. The concert pitch corresponding to the earth year A has a frequency of 432.10 Hz. If I shift my synthesizer in the master tune of the 440.00 hertz on 432.10 hertz and then play the note C-sharp, I can hear the octave-analogous frequency of the earth year.
 In what way this kind of music influences the audience? Sound is very powerful so what do you think the role of the music should be in the society beside its entertaining character and hearing pleasures?
By the frequency result behaviour our nervous system synchronises itself with every oscillation input.
That is the reason why we all love music. The brain is sculptural. That is his areas grow by demand.
A life long learning and growth process. If one hears a lot of music with natural overtones, the perception also refines with the time. To perceive more of the reality releases us from too confine to virtual draughts of thought and the fears linked with it. The fear to be wrong and not to be loved resolves all the more, the more I learn to get involved in the harmonious oscillation sea of the universe.
You take part in B.E.L. (Brain entertainment wave Laboratory) project. Can you tell us more about the concept and performances? Do you collaborate with any other musicians familiar with cosmic octave and would you recommend some for listening?
B.E.L. is a very fascinating project. 4 musicians experimenting together live with the oscillations of the cosmic octave. Without previous practicing are B.E.L. Concerts free improvisations which opens new levels of musical resonances. Till present there are 2 official CD releases of B.E.L.
The studio production "The Sound of THC" – Insolation Chilling and the live recording of a concert at the Fusion festival in 2005 – "IN OVO" – KW001, Klangwirkstoff Records.
As a Live Act I am working together with a lot of other musicians. Among the rest, with the baroque musician Christine Brelowski, the E-Bow Guitarist ERU, B. Ashra, Steve Schroyder, the gong player Jens Zygar, the vocal shaman papajeahja, the overtone singers Chri Amrhein, the quadro artist Wolfman.
I‘ve read that you are also giving lectures so would you please recommend us the literature on cosmic octave, the origin of planetary sounds and molecular music for the further exploration since many of us won’t get a chance to hear you lecture?
Beside all books of Hans Cousto the website www.planetware.de is an important source of information about the cosmic octave. There are all tuning data’s and many texts of Hans Cousto published. More Information’s: www.klangwirkstoff.de and www.akashaproject.de as well as www.overtone.cc/profile/akashaproject and www.myspace.com/akashaproject.
For the acoustic deepening of the matter publications are also recommended all CDs releases by Klangwirkstoff Records and Planetware Records.
Your last album “H2 The Quantum Music of Hydrogen” get released recently (Nov 2009). In what way hydrogen atoms inspired you?
Now with the setting of molecular and atomic oscillations is a completely new Level of cosmic resonances reached. In his book „The cosmic octave“ from 1984, Hans Cousto calculated (on the pages 180 and the following) for the first time the musical intervals of the absorption spectrum of the Balmer series, one of 5 spectral series of the hydrogen. Between 1993 and 1999 he extended the calculations on all tones of the whole spectrum of the hydrogen atom. If we examine the spectral lines of the hydrogen, we see a number of narrowband spectral peaks (maxima), whose appearance can be described in simple mathematical series.
These series are named after their discoverers (Lyman, Balmer, Paschen, Brackett, Pfund). They represent the electron transitions within the atom and are in a sense its "fingerprint". Transposed to approximately 40 octaves down, these spectral peaks are perceived by our ears as sounds.
With the calculations of the octave-analogue frequencies of the hydrogen atoms Cousto provided an important indication that even at the quantum level of atoms, the harmonic laws retain their validity.
The world of the smallest things moves in musical intervals like third, fifth and seventh.
As I understood this, it was clear for me that I wanted to hear the sound of the electron jumps of the hydrogen. As a musician and friend Cousto’s I devoted myself with all my energy to this job.
This was in 1999 and of course I could not imagine then that it would last 10 years, until the production of the quantum music would be concluded. 10 years in which the sounds of the hydrogen interweaved in varied, magic manner with my life. Looking back I recognise the strong transformatoric strength which is inherent in this acoustic basic matrix and I do not come but to find out that the many meditations with the quantum music has extended my perception of the world.
Because the hydrogen music contains very small natural intervals, so the hearing of such music is an active training for our ears respectively of our hearing bark. Thus the acoustic perception can receive a finer grid from the world. This affects again with the time all areas of being and enables to perceive more "undertones" also at other levels.
Hydrogen is the atomic “stem cell” of our universe. All matter and thus the world in which we live, and ultimately we ourselves were created from Hydrogen. Meditations with the sounds of hydrogen can give an impression about what holds the world in its core together.
Are there any new ideas you are working on at the moment? What are your plans for the future?
As is said the production planetary and molecular sound structures only one part of my work as Akasha Project. The appearance and the interaction linked with other musicians and the audience is also very important. In my live performance I follow the Akasha oscillation onto many levels.
From deepest atomic sound-meditations up to ecstatic groovy Trance floor.
Thank you very much for your time and I hope this interview will get more people interested in what you do.
Links:
Akasha Project
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I like Burnim's approach to it very much!