Submitted by Waspie Dwarf: A father and son team from Edinburgh think they have found a secret piece of music hidden in carvings at a famous medieval chapel in Midlothian. Stuart Mitchell, 41 and his father Tommy, 75, said they had deciphered a musical code locked in the stones of Rosslyn Chapel for more than 500 years. They will perform the music in May at a concert in the 15th Century chapel. Visitor numbers to the chapel have increased rapidly since it featured in Dan Brown's novel The Da Vinci Code. Stuart Mitchell discovered a series of figures which he calls an "orchestra of angels" at the base of elaborate arches round the altar, each angel holding a musical instrument. He worked with his father to decipher the patterns on cubes which jut out from the arches. Tommy Mitchell said the markings concealed a tune which they were determined to crack.

He said: "We were convinced from the position at the top of the pillars of the angels and they are all directly under the arches where the cubes occur that there was music there. "We got clues from other books as well. Over the years this became more of an obsession than anything else and we decided we had to find out what was going on."

View: Full Article | Source: BBC News

I'm excited to hear this musical code. I wonder if the Author left his name or not on the stone? I didn't read any references of who might have composed it.

You can listen to it here . It quite pretty, but I can't hear anything out of the ordinary. (which is no reference whatsoever )

Funnily, I stumbled over this just a couple of days ago.

From a UM post: Salt & Sound


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And this


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Coincidence? Mind you, I'm not buying into the Da Vinci Code thingy, but it's interesting, I think...

It sure makes me wonder why they would put it there.

Are the lyrics part of what they "decoded"? Is there a transcript of them anywhere?

The video of the salt and sound is interesting, thanks for sharing it.

Thanks, midgetron

I don't know about the lyrics, good question. I only found this little bit:

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on the Crystalinks website...

Hope that helps...

I liked the music. Very old church. Gregorian chant. Is it any longer than the short verse recorded here on this site???

cant wait !

Why are there lyrics... I don't think this could be what they found.

I doubt it. My guess is that they just chose some old latin text, so the choir didn't have to sing "Laaa lala laa..."

I would really be interested to hear this arrangment without the choir, perhaps played using the instruments the angel figures in Rosslyn are holding. The tune sounds familiar, but it's hard to place. *shrugs* There's supposed to be a performance at Rosslyn sometime this month, perhaps it will be televised or recorded. My thanks to Waspie Dwarf for the update and to SaRuMaN for this great site!

I get the sense that some people are waiting for some magical music combination of notes here.

I play music for a living.

There are only 12 notes, not counting accidentals.

If these guys have found some type of musical notation, which I highly doubt, then there isn't going to be anything mysterious about it. I suspect that this is simply a well organized and thought-out stunt in order to sell a book.

If the depictions not only showed musical tones, but frequency, then I might be inclined to think on it a little more.

This is hype and nothing more.

I think there's a little more that's going on here than meets the eye. I did an article about this last week on my blog
Grail Seekers about some inconsistencies in the news reports about the decryption. Supposedly, Stuart Mitchell replied to some of the questions I raised. Check it out and see what you think.

Everyone here seems sure on the actual music is gonna cause something, if there is a code maybe its in the written music, ABCDEFG,
just maybe.

I can't see why you'd want to hide a piece of music so elaborately....