Barbara Hero
Barbara Hero | |
|---|---|
| Known for | The Pythagorean Lambdoma Harmonic Keyboard |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Music theory, harmonics, mathematics |
Barbara Hero was an artist, musician and mathematician known for her research on the Pythagorean "Lambdoma" matrix and for inventing the Pythagorean Lambdoma Harmonic Keyboard. She is listed in The Worldwide List of Dissident Scientists.
Work
Hero was the founder and director of the International Lambdoma Research Institute and of Strawberry Hill Farm Studios. Her work centered on the Lambdoma, a mathematical grid of whole-number ratios and their reciprocals attributed to Pythagoras. She used it as the basis of the Pythagorean Lambdoma Harmonic Keyboard, a microtonal instrument that generates harmonic and sub-harmonic interval tones, promoted for use in sound therapy and microtonal music. Hero connected these harmonic ratios to broader claims about number, color and cosmic order; such interpretations of Pythagorean harmonics as revealing keys to the universe lie outside the scientific mainstream.