Yesterday's and tomorrow's geniuses are living today, which is why I took advantage of an opportunity to interview Barbara Hero, the inventor of a midi keyboard she names the Pythagorean Lambdoma. The great philosopher Pythagoras lived about 2500 years ago, yet his name still inspires people, today. Barbara discovered his work when reading Manly P. Hall's book, The Secret Teachings of All Ages, in the 1970's. She was fascinated by his color-coding of the musical notes.

"Pythagoras was a healer who used a lyre to create chords on his instrument to reduce anger to peaceful behavior," she explains. "He must have been mild mannered and dedicated to his mission on Earth, that of preparing his students to live a wise and harmonious way of life."

Barbara Hero is an artist, composer, mathematician, writer, and the inventor of the midi Lambdoma keyboard.  She was educated at UCLA and Bennington College, received her BA degree in Commercial Arts at George Washington University, her MA degree in Education, also at GWU, and another master's degree in Mathematics Education at Boston University. Based on her impressive credentials, her life is well within the mainstream. But those familiar with the mind and body's inner mysteries know that genius inspires by something from beyond the mainstream. Intense personal experiences, out of step with the mechanical drone of ordinary cause and effect, skew one's perception towards unique ideas.

Every musical artist has a moment when music first reaches deep into the psyche to release a flood of inner creativity. Barbara's first moment came when she received piano lessons at the age of three. She would hear her mother's friends playing classical piano music, and she composed some pieces of her own, by ear. She practiced and played until she was twelve years old, when she was performing before an audience in a school auditorium and was overcome with stage fright. The trauma caused Barbara to withdraw from music. Now, all four of her children play various musical instruments and sing.

During her mid thirties, a desire to find a connection between the visual and aural arts led Barbara to relearn the piano, and then music theory and composition, at the New England Conservatory of Music. There, she came across a book about the Lambdoma Matrix by Seigmund Levarie and Ernst Levy, Tone: A Study in Musical Acoustics.

There is much we can learn about modern people from their views of past personalities. Barbara's perspective on Pythagoras' personality and education is revealing. She sees Pythagoras as a Master or Avatar, similar to Jesus, in terms of their parents' predictions for their then future roles in the world. She also notes that Pythagoras traveled to Egypt to study in the temples, learning secrets from the priests, and it was when he returned to Greece that he founded his own school, where students were bound to silence for five years.

She recalls her discovery, during the 1990's that the seven rays of Alice Bailey's metaphysical model appear on the Pythagorean color-coded matrix. This discovery inspired a profound spiritual experience. Barbara felt transported into the past, where Pythagoras could directly help her bring the Lambdoma wisdom to light in the twenty-first century. "I feel that I am somehow carrying on his work with the Lambdoma," she says.

For readers not familiar with music scales, there are three in modern use; the tempered, just, and Pythagorean scales.  The Pythagorean scale of music bases upon a circle of fifths and fourths, and it is different from the Lambdoma scale.  The three modern scales end up with a fudge factor, called a "comma."  The Lambdoma scale of music bases upon fractions of a fundamental note, and possesses no fudge factor in the tones.  Thus the pure tones of the Lambdoma scale are more suitable for microtonal compositions than the three modern scales.

Since music is based upon ratios and proportions, it not only produces harmonic sound, but also harmonic architecture, blending the heard with the visual through frequencies (sound) and wavelengths (light). Barbara found the matrix composed of ratios (fractions) with music interval scales attached to each ratio, and the Lambdoma matrix became her canvas to color-code each musical note.

When people realize that sound can change individual consciousness from depression to joy, that it is a medicine of the soul, hence the mind and emotions, Lambdoma music will help us live in harmonious ways of life, in peace, with love toward ourselves and others. Barbara Hero's invention of the midi Lambdoma keyboard is a significant contribution to modern music and music theory, although today it is largely undiscovered. It is her hope that the Lambdoma keyboard will eventually find applications in mainstream music therapy and compositions.

Every day new music artists discover their inner desire to compose. Barbara offers this advice:

First, find your own keynote on the matrix from one of the four 8 x 8 quadrants within the 16 × 16 matrix: emotional, spiritual, physical, and oracle.

Second, find your own chord in your own chosen frequency.

Third, playing your chosen chord, hold it and, in a single word, name your present feeling. From here, you can change negative feelings to positive feelings through direct inspiration.

Barbara also advises analyzing the rows and columns of the keyboard. Those ratios ascending to the right are harmonic (more spiritual), and those to the left are sub-harmonic (more physical).

Finally, she suggests using the Lambdoma keyboard as a metaphysical tool. Choose the Oracle quadrant, find the most pleasant keynote there, and then find the chord. Ask yourself a question and then say [your word]. She uses this method for solving problems, whether scientific, emotional, spiritual, or physical.

I am glad to have met Barbara online and to benefit from her personal story, her advice, and the invention of her Lambdoma keyboard. She has successfully resurrected the ancient knowledge of Pythagoras, and having stepped outside of the modern mainstream, she has provided an important stepping stone for future generations to investigate harmonic integration. Thanks to Barbara Hero's understanding of Pythagoras' work, humans once again have the tools for harmonizing sound, light, and feeling.

Photos and images from Barbara Hero's website: www.lambdoma.com.