Ramsay
A musical sound, thus illustrated, is composed of 25 circles of vibrations, and each circle is a more or less developed sound. There are, therefore, 25 sounds in one musical sound.1 When these 25 sounds, with 19 different ratios, are fully developed and standing in the same order and in the same proportions as that in which they naturally arise in a single sound, and in this fully developed condition all heard together, they produce one grand harmonious chord of chords.2 The reason is obvious; these 25 sounds are distributed over six octaves. As B, the seventh in the octave-scale, cannot be developed save at the distance of five and a-half octaves above the fundamental sound, so on that account it has no octave in the chord, having only one circle of vibrations in Nature's grand fugue. D, the second of the octave-scale, arises at nearly five octaves up, and has only two circles of vibrations; G and E arise in the fourth octave, and have three circles each; A arises in the third octave, and has four circles; C arises in the second octave, and has five circles; while F, the fundamental sound, the genetic root of the whole system, has the first octave entirely to itself. It has also the seven circles of vibration which embrace and enclose the whole six octaves, and give unity of structure to the whole system of vibrations. [Scientific Basis and Build of Music, page 17]
D. C. Ramsay originated an easy way to hearing this grand chord of chords by notching a lath of wood so that it would strike down at one stroke all the 25 sounds on the keyboard of the piano. The lath may be of half-inch wood, 3 inches broad, notched three-fourths of an inch deep. See Plate III. - Editor. [Scientific Basis and Build of Music, page 17]
What the Chord of Chords sounds like: http://www.svpvril.com/sharedfilefolder/Grand_Fugue-11-17-21-Stereo.mp3
Under the symbol of a music plant this plate gives us to realize the growth-like continuity of chords and scales. The roots of the three chords of a key are represented in F, C, and G of the key of C. The plant might be represented as a creeping stem, like the creepers of the strawberry, with its progressive roots struck into the earth; but it is better to show an upward stem with aerial roots, for such are the roots of the musical plant. The main stem of the plant has the three chords, F a C e G b D; that is, F a c, C e g, G b d, the subdominant, tonic, and dominant. The terminal chord, D f# a, is to show that the keys as well as the chords GROW out of each other. Include the side branches which terminate with the octave notes of the chords, read thus - F a c f, G e g e, G b d g, because a chord is felt to be most complete in its unity when thus shut in by the octave note of its root. This is the reason why the great three-times-three chord does not stop at D, the top of the dominant chord, but goes on to the sixth octave of the fundamental root, shutting all in by the great peacemaker, F, in order to preserve the unity of the effect which this chord of chords produces. Before D. C. Ramsay showed that the scale of Harmonics extended to six octaves, it was by teachers of the science of music only extended to four. [Scientific Basis and Build of Music, page 110]
See Also
chord
fugue
Ramsay - The Great Chord of Chords, the Three-in-One17
three-times-three chord