Music Monday ~ Spoilt for choice....

With so many musical birthdays coming up I simply could not decide on one singer/musician/composer to feature, so listed the best known of the bunch, chronologically, by year.




January 27 1756 - Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart - composer.

January 27 1885 - Jerome Kern - composer/songwriter.

January 26 1908 - Stephane Grappelli - jazz violinist.
January 23 1910 -Django Reinhardt - jazz guitarist

January 28 1927 - Ronnie Scott - jazz saxophonist, jazz club owner.
January 28 1929 - Acker Bilk - jazz/dixieland/pop clarinetist.

January 25 1938 - Etta James - blues/soul/jazz singer.

January 24 1941 - Aaron Neville - singer, soul/R&B.
January 24 1941 - Neil Diamond - singer/songwriter, pop/rock.


January 26 1955 - Eddie Van Halen - guitarist/songwriter, rock.

January 25 1981 - Alicia Keys - singer/musician/actress, pop, rock.
January 29 1982 - Adam Lambert - singer/musical theater, pop, rock.


You can feel the waves of change passing through the music industry just by considering each variation of style represented by the artists in the list: classical in the 18th century to standard ballads, to jazz, to soul, to pop and rock and eventually to new stars of today and tomorrow, born in the 1980s, just now flowering. From Mozart (left) to Adam (right)-


All these artists have Sun in Aquarius, of course, and in the first decan (10 degree sector) of Aquarius. I'm not certain how much weight we should put on the decan theory, but it's something to keep in mind. Some astrologers favour the Chaldean system for calculating rulership of the decans, others favour a system based on tripicity (the elements). Using the latter, the first decan of Aquarius is said to represent the most Aquariusly Aquarius of the three 10 degree sectors, and is ruled by Uranus/Saturn. The remaining sectors - 2nd and 3rd are the Gemini/Mercury and Libra/Venus decans. Under the Chaldean system the first decan of Aquarius is ruled by Venus, arrived at using an order dictated by planetary speed. Bearing in mind that Venus rules the arts, including music, in this instance the Chaldean system appears more apt. (See The Decans in Astrology by Benjamin Dykes for more on decans).

(There are posts about Neil Diamond and Adam Lambert elsewhere on this blog, access via the label cloud in the sidebar.)

Signs within signs, wheels within wheels. Bells within whistles?

Pulling a slim bright yellow volume from my bookshelf I considered writing about its contents. "The Zodiac Within Each Sign" by Frances Sakoian and Louis Acker focuses on the division of each zodiac sign of 30 degrees into 3 cells of 10 degrees (known as decans or decanates), then into 12 two and a half degree cells (known as duads). I'm in two minds as to whether this astrological tool is useful. If we're not careful, bringing in everything but the kitchen sink could result in being able to make, or force, anything to mean anything. That's why I stubbornly stick to a minimalist system.

Still, decans and duads can be an interesting study, and I understand that it's a time honored system stemming from ancient astrological doctrine.

Each decan, or third of a sign is thought to have a different ruler. The first decan of any sign is ruled by the whole sign's ruler. Using myself as guinea pig, and for simplicity sticking strictly to the Sun's position: 27 January, 6.46 degrees of Aquarius, first decan, ruled by Aquarius's ruler Uranus. The second decan is ruled by the ruler of next sign in the same element - Air in this case, so it's Gemini's ruler, Mercury. The third decan is ruled by the ruler of the next Air sign Libra, so = Venus.

Taking another example - Aries: 1st decan ruled by whole sign ruler: Mars. Second by the next Fire sign Leo's ruler: Sun. Third decan by next Fire sign's ruler, Sagittarius = Jupiter.

And so on for each of the 12 signs. Diagram below is from the excellent website Skyscript.




Taking the system a layer deeper, duads split each sign into 12 cells. One theory is that rulership of each 12th goes like this - first 2 and half degrees ruled by whole sign ruler. Second by the next sign on around the zodiac, moving one sign for each 2 and half degrees. there's a helpful list to assist in calculation at Wikipedia HERE.

This system reminds me of.....



Using myself as an example again, as my Sun is at 6.46 Aquarius I'm in the third duad of Aquarius, ruled by Aries. Taking whole sign ruler, decan ruler and duad ruler into consideration gives me a Uranus/Mars or Aquarius/Aries flavour. Which is fine because my Moon and Saturn are both in Aries, so it would have been apparent without the decan/duad calculation that I have both Aquarius and Aries traits. Things might not be so simple for another person though.

I'll try my husband's chart - Sun at 1.48 Aries - first decanate ruled by Mars - he's an Aries-Aries. 1.48 Aries puts him in the first duad also, so again Aries, he's a triple Aries! That didn't tell us much that we didn't know already, and by the way he also has a strong Pisces presence in real life.

My mother's Sun was at 4.16 Libra - first decan - A Libra-Libra. Second duad though so duad ruler is Pluto (Scorpio's ruler - next sign along). Now that fits - and yet her Mercury was in Scorpio, so we could already have known she'd have a touch of Scorpio.

My father might be a better example - Sun was at 18.52 Aquarius which is 2nd decan, ruled by Mercury (Gemini's ruler). He's 8th duad, ruled by Virgo's ruler - Mercury again! Now I don't see that as accurate for him. He wasn't a great communicator, he was a quiet, shy guy. He was a self-employed master baker for most of his life, then a sub-postmaster, so I guess he was versatile (a Mercurial trait), but I'd have seen a better reflection of him had his duad ruler been Moon/Cancer.

Anyway, the theory is that taking into account another, more subtle, layer of traits associated with the ruling sign of your natal Sun's decan and/or duad could explain why your basic standard Sun sign description isn't a good fit. There are many other, possibly better, reasons of course. And the system of decans and duads can be used not only for the Sun's position, but for every planet and point in the natal chart. This promises to throw up an unintelligible soup, which doesn't appeal to me one bit, and could end up making anything mean anything.... and nothing!

As it happens, I did once make use of this system in a 2007 post about Dick Cheney: see here. I made it work for me then. If you go in deep enough, almost anything can be made to work in favor of the result you want to see, and that's the problem with bringing in too many astrological tools and methods. There's more than enough potential for complexity in a straightforward natal chart, no bells, no whistles.