A Treatise on the Ontology of Sound

A Treatise on the Ontology of Sound asks one question: how does a sound come to be sound for a subject able to hear and judge it? The treatise begins by refuting the doctrine of the fundamental tone and then builds its ontology in five steps: the field of the pre-ʿAyn; the achieved determination of the ʿAyn; its realization as the ʿAyn of Sound; its enactment in the Praxis of Sound; and its conditional, unresolved arrival as the Sound of the ʿAyn. Sound, it concludes, is calculated as Fₙ = F(Qₙ). The Sound of the ʿAyn works through QuarkTonal, the notational system behind the author's compositions released on Post-Orientalism Music. Its documentary record comprises 215 series, calculated and recorded in eleven volumes between 2020 and 2025. The volumes fall into five groups: Determination of the Harmonic Series (volumes 1–4); Forty Numerical Reconstructions of Medieval Islamicate Tuning Structures (volumes 5–6); Recursive Harmonic Series Expansion of Medieval Islamicate Tuning Structures (volumes 7–8); Harmonic Series Expansion of Individual Ratios (volumes 9–10); and Potential Sound (volume 11). Each of the two medieval groups includes a section on the philosophers whose tuning structures it reconstructs: al-Kindī, al-Fārābī, Ibn Sīnā, Khayyām, al-Urmawī, and Quṭb al-Dīn al-Shīrāzī. Source note: the structure follows the primary sources, and the native forms are preserved. Forty Numerical Reconstructions of Medieval Islamicate Tuning Structures is a direct reading of the treatises. Recursive Harmonic Series Expansion of Medieval Islamicate Tuning Structures draws its sequence and its harmonic-series design from them. The treatise is published with eleven audio sets, each documented in four sections: Audio: Catalog of Audio Recordings Text: Mathematical and Technical Appendix—Pitch Points, Frequencies (Hz), and Ratios Images: QuarkTonal Harmonic Analyzer—Image Documentation Video: QuarkTonal Harmonic Analyzer—Video Documentation

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Publication Details

Journal
Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research)
Published
2026-11-06
DOI
https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.24015460
Primary Topic
Musicology and Musical Analysis
Type
article
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article

A Treatise on the Ontology of Sound

Ehsan Saboohi
Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research)
Musicology and Musical Analysis
article

A Treatise on the Ontology of Sound

Ehsan Saboohi
article en

Abstract

A Treatise on the Ontology of Sound asks one question: how does a sound come to be sound for a subject able to hear and judge it? The treatise begins by refuting the doctrine of the fundamental tone and then builds its ontology in five steps: the field of the pre-ʿAyn; the achieved determination of the ʿAyn; its realization as the ʿAyn of Sound; its enactment in the Praxis of Sound; and its conditional, unresolved arrival as the Sound of the ʿAyn. Sound, it concludes, is calculated as Fₙ = F(Qₙ). The Sound of the ʿAyn works through QuarkTonal, the notational system behind the author's compositions released on Post-Orientalism Music. Its documentary record comprises 215 series, calculated and recorded in eleven volumes between 2020 and 2025. The volumes fall into five groups: Determination of the Harmonic Series (volumes 1–4); Forty Numerical Reconstructions of Medieval Islamicate Tuning Structures (volumes 5–6); Recursive Harmonic Series Expansion of Medieval Islamicate Tuning Structures (volumes 7–8); Harmonic Series Expansion of Individual Ratios (volumes 9–10); and Potential Sound (volume 11). Each of the two medieval groups includes a section on the philosophers whose tuning structures it reconstructs: al-Kindī, al-Fārābī, Ibn Sīnā, Khayyām, al-Urmawī, and Quṭb al-Dīn al-Shīrāzī. Source note: the structure follows the primary sources, and the native forms are preserved. Forty Numerical Reconstructions of Medieval Islamicate Tuning Structures is a direct reading of the treatises. Recursive Harmonic Series Expansion of Medieval Islamicate Tuning Structures draws its sequence and its harmonic-series design from them. The treatise is published with eleven audio sets, each documented in four sections: Audio: Catalog of Audio Recordings Text: Mathematical and Technical Appendix—Pitch Points, Frequencies (Hz), and Ratios Images: QuarkTonal Harmonic Analyzer—Image Documentation Video: QuarkTonal Harmonic Analyzer—Video Documentation

Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research)
Openalex Percentile: Top 2%
Musicology and Musical Analysis
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