Dear list,
As being a professional classical musician myself
,I indeed too once had the idea that Voynichese had something to do with
music,
I came to that because Kircher was involved
with (or even the inventor of I believe) the "automatic water-powered organs " in the
Italian renaissance.
Maybe Marci involved Kircher because he
thought it had something to do with these organs.(or that they were "invented"
already before).
I remember I was quite enthousiastic about the
musicidea that day.
First there was this text on the site
mentioned above:
The main part of the instrument has the form of a grotto, in
which Pan the satyr plays his flute, accompanied by the cuckoo's call and the
rooster's crow.
In addition, there is a smaller organ with an effigy
of a nymph, known in the Greek mythology as Echo.
Hear how he satyr
plays a simple theme on his flute, and how the nymph responds with her
echo.
Well, No Pan in the VMS as far as I can see but
the birds are there and the nymphs ofcourse and a lot of echo...or
repetition.And a lot of organpipes too.
Second;It's all about water and air in these
organs that should be visialized in the VMS as the stripes
or lines coming out of the tubes as being water
and the dots as being air .Counting the
groups of nymphs could have to do something with tones,voicings or
gathered tones.
The water in the organ was goin' from one
basin to the others wich could explain the tubes or even the holes in them.And
the wheelwork as showed needed in the organ or paddles have similarity with
f.i 79v above the nymph with the cross .
Third;The gallows could function as
keys,representing a modus or as director wich hexachord to be used in
solfeggio.
hmm, hope I don't go to technical here;In modern
musicnotation notes can't be affected by former ones but in these antique
notations it can, so f.i. the VMS EVA "89" could be infected by the
combination of groups in front of it.
At that time btw, modern musicnotation
was just invented and every country or cultural centre had it's
own one or was still using older ones.Many different techniques were used
before an International standard could arise.
And last but not least;The stars used on the
plain text pages on the leftside.Something one can find also in books of
chants or recitation so it was easy to remember where to look for the
next one.Maybe Voynichese is text and music together....even mingled...there's
lots of repetition in music,so..
As I said, I skipped the musicidea long
ago , but maybe I have to dive into it
again now knowing Ethel V also was a musician....also because I have the
feeling these days the VMS isn't that old at all! :-)
Cheers,Johannes.