The 432 Hertz Tuning Theory Part 1 (of 3).
Is it just garbage, superstition swallowed by those who can't think logically? Yet another conspiracy theory? With all due respect... Let's explore the possibilities.
[# worth noting from the outset: the only scale you'll find that has C=256Hz and A=432Hz is PYTHAGOREAN - and virtually NO-ONE uses that temperament now, not even New Age 432ers!]
Okay, first, to set a few things straight. A Hertz is a value of so many cycles per second, (picture a wiggly sine wave and count the crests) used to measure the pitch of musical notes. Nothing magical about that. So what is a second? Apart from being 1/60th of a minute, and 1/3600th of an hour, 1/86400th of a day, 1/31536000th of a solar year - one can go on forever searching for a cosmic connection - is the second an arbitrary human invention of significance? So when talking about tuning a musical instrument to the pitch of A=432Hz, we're saying that it is vibrating at 432 cycles per second, which in itself is meaningless apart from being a handy reference point.
There is, however, some significance of the number 432, especially according to the Vedic Scriptures of ancient India. It is a multiple of 108, and both numbers crop up time and time again in different ways. The Jyotish section that deals with astronomy talks about the distance between the Sun and the Earth and other planets as 108 times the diameter of each celestial body. When Krishna appeared on this planet 5,000 years ago, He was reputed to have 16,108 wives, of who 108 were considered special favourites. Hare Krsna devotees chant the mantra on a string of 108 beads, and four such rounds (making 432) constitute a grantha. The four ages used to reckon Earth time are multiples of 432,000 years. Other examples of Vedic numbers said to possess special powers are multiples, especially three or more, such as 111 and 7777, etc. Such numbers are considered to have an auspicious quality, inviting good fortune - or simply what we as westerners call a lucky number.
The traditional method (according to http://www.planetware.de) of tuning to pitch as used historically by learned Vedic musicians was by meditation, (the heart chakra being resonant with the vibration of the Earth orbiting the Sun) perceived/received as a note equivalent to C# at, and I stress, this is only their opinion, as it is a little too convenient to be blindly accepted as it's hard to verify, 136.1 Hz. (hear it here). The problem I have with this being the principle behind the 432 method is of how this C# note is referenced to A. It only works using the Equal Temperment system as used in the West which certainly wasn't around when mystic yogis were flying around on magic carpets! You can check this by setting your tuner (try the Waves app, it's great) to A=432Hz instead of the default 440, and of course it will give the value of C# as 136.1Hz. The spiritual music of the East is based on harmonic resonance, the notes determined by ratios which is why the sitar has moveable frets, unlike the machinelike division of the Octave into equal parts in Equal Temperament. You may be familiar with the child's toy which consists of a simple corrugated plastic pipe, not unlike a vacuum cleaner hose, which is vigorously twirled around the body to produce a musical note that changes according to speed. This natural phenomena is the organic basis of music. Using the ratio method of harmonic tuning, if you call C# (the sadje, or father note, the basis of the sitar) the third note of the A major scale, you obtain the value 135Hz for C# using the ratio 5:4 for major thirds. Correspondingly calling C# the Tonic or root note of the scale means that A becomes the minor sixth note, therefore the ratio 5:3 gives an A note of 435.52Hz, not the 432 hertz touted by conspiracy theorists. Either way there is a discrepancy. So much for their being "in tune with the Universe via the Heart Chakra"?
(Edit: this system clearly breaks down using ratios to determine notes that naturally vibrate in harmony. Mathematically it only stacks up using Equal Temperament, but then all the notes are slightly out of tune, as far as frequencies vibrating together, synchronously in harmony with each other. Well pardon me, but isn't that what music is all about?)
To illustrate the potential absurdity of ascribing a magical power of so many vibrations PER SECOND, we need to be very careful, lest we fall into the unsafe practice of "magical thinking" (a term used in psychological character analysis). Perhaps if the frequency was calculated using Vedic time divisions there could be some sort of better argument? As it turns out, the second being related to the Vedic unit, my fears were unfounded! The closest counterparts are a smaller fraction, a 'vipala' at 4/10ths of a second, and the next proximal value is a 'prana', of 4 seconds duration. (Incidentally, the smallest time value used in Vedic calculation is this: 100 lotus petals stacked on top of each other, pierced by a needle as fast as possible - the time taken to go through one petal - 1/33,750ths of a second). Anyway, using this method of 432÷4/10ths actually surprised me as it gave an exact result - 172.8Hz is F in the 432 method, but only if you're using the Western Equal Temperament System. This is an unreconcilable anomaly because the two systems aren't complimentary. "Never the twain shall meet"
source
As for the anti-fascist cr?p floating around about Hitler's implementation of the reference standard of A=440Hz to control people by making them ill and weak or some such nonsense - it was being used way before he was even born! The Europeans adopted it in the 1830's for orchestras, although they now tune slightly flatter at around 435 vibrations per second, and yet others such as the Boston Symphony Orchestra tune higher at 444Hz to get a brighter, "livelier" sound. To this day in Austria at the revered home of classical music, you can pick up a phone in Vienna and dial 1507 and hear the pitch of A=435Hz. The American Federation of Musicians adopted the 440Hz standard in 1917, and in the year that war broke out, 1939, it was internationally accepted. Herr Hitler may very well have played a role in that as part of worldwide agreement but saying that he is responsible for it being used as a tool for control of the masses is quite fanciful by any stretch of the imagination, unless he had the final casting vote, or power to veto (on a side note, notice how the words vote and veto have the same letters? That's how "magical thinking" can lead you astray). Honestly, some people (me included) would be a lot better off not doing drugs and the internet at the same time.
You can see the results of a study conducted to statistically determine if different tunings had any effect or made a difference. Bear in mind that it was looking for negative results. source
The test subjects listened to samples of the same song at different pitch shifts. I do question the validity of such a test result when the song used is familiar and therefore would sound "wrong" in a different pitch, to practically everyone except the most tone deaf. Still, it's interesting to note that lowering the pitch was dramatically more popular than raising it - giving some credence to the current fad of it being hip to prefer the 432 tuning.
But wait, there's more.. Yet again is another standard called amongst other names the Scientific or Philosopher's method of tuning, based on multiples of numbers http://www.perfectthird.com which gives A=426.6 recurring as the value generated by the "Pythagorean" triangle. I've put the name in quotation marks because Pythagoras didn't come up with the idea at all - it was lifted from the Vedas where it appeared hundreds of years before in the writings of Shulba Sutra by Baudhayana, 8th century BC. As a long time fan of alternative tunings especially non-ET, I don't dismiss using 432 hertz as a reference point as long as it is used with harmonic ratio tunings. I find the C and E on keyboards annoyingly out of tune, to the point of questioning whether pianists are even musicians. Perhaps ambidextrous sequential note demonstrators would be a better term. Play any major third interval on an organ and you will hear the distinctly unpleasant wobbling or oscillation from the wavelengths clashing because they're out of period frequency with each other - to the value of 13%, enough to produce such an effect. Now, THAT, I believe, is enough to make the general population ill and weak - but you can blame whoever invented equal temperament for that, not Hitler.
(much later edit: I found this which covers similar ground but in a snobby atheistic s??t-head know-all egotistical manner and mood. It actually made me rethink about everything I said, just because this person sounds like a real a??hole. He fails to grasp the spiritual significance of the vibration Om - or is ignorant and doesn't even know what it is and how it is connected. I am HOWEVER now even more convinced that in adopting the C#=136.1Hz tuning [if that really is the pitch of ॐ] unless Equal Temperament is thrown out and replaced with Pure Tuning, aka Just Intonation, everything "gained" is lost to the "out-of-tuneness" of the scale)
Is it just garbage, superstition swallowed by those who can't think logically? Yet another conspiracy theory? With all due respect... Let's explore the possibilities.
[# worth noting from the outset: the only scale you'll find that has C=256Hz and A=432Hz is PYTHAGOREAN - and virtually NO-ONE uses that temperament now, not even New Age 432ers!]
Okay, first, to set a few things straight. A Hertz is a value of so many cycles per second, (picture a wiggly sine wave and count the crests) used to measure the pitch of musical notes. Nothing magical about that. So what is a second? Apart from being 1/60th of a minute, and 1/3600th of an hour, 1/86400th of a day, 1/31536000th of a solar year - one can go on forever searching for a cosmic connection - is the second an arbitrary human invention of significance? So when talking about tuning a musical instrument to the pitch of A=432Hz, we're saying that it is vibrating at 432 cycles per second, which in itself is meaningless apart from being a handy reference point.
There is, however, some significance of the number 432, especially according to the Vedic Scriptures of ancient India. It is a multiple of 108, and both numbers crop up time and time again in different ways. The Jyotish section that deals with astronomy talks about the distance between the Sun and the Earth and other planets as 108 times the diameter of each celestial body. When Krishna appeared on this planet 5,000 years ago, He was reputed to have 16,108 wives, of who 108 were considered special favourites. Hare Krsna devotees chant the mantra on a string of 108 beads, and four such rounds (making 432) constitute a grantha. The four ages used to reckon Earth time are multiples of 432,000 years. Other examples of Vedic numbers said to possess special powers are multiples, especially three or more, such as 111 and 7777, etc. Such numbers are considered to have an auspicious quality, inviting good fortune - or simply what we as westerners call a lucky number.
The traditional method (according to http://www.planetware.de) of tuning to pitch as used historically by learned Vedic musicians was by meditation, (the heart chakra being resonant with the vibration of the Earth orbiting the Sun) perceived/received as a note equivalent to C# at, and I stress, this is only their opinion, as it is a little too convenient to be blindly accepted as it's hard to verify, 136.1 Hz. (hear it here). The problem I have with this being the principle behind the 432 method is of how this C# note is referenced to A. It only works using the Equal Temperment system as used in the West which certainly wasn't around when mystic yogis were flying around on magic carpets! You can check this by setting your tuner (try the Waves app, it's great) to A=432Hz instead of the default 440, and of course it will give the value of C# as 136.1Hz. The spiritual music of the East is based on harmonic resonance, the notes determined by ratios which is why the sitar has moveable frets, unlike the machinelike division of the Octave into equal parts in Equal Temperament. You may be familiar with the child's toy which consists of a simple corrugated plastic pipe, not unlike a vacuum cleaner hose, which is vigorously twirled around the body to produce a musical note that changes according to speed. This natural phenomena is the organic basis of music. Using the ratio method of harmonic tuning, if you call C# (the sadje, or father note, the basis of the sitar) the third note of the A major scale, you obtain the value 135Hz for C# using the ratio 5:4 for major thirds. Correspondingly calling C# the Tonic or root note of the scale means that A becomes the minor sixth note, therefore the ratio 5:3 gives an A note of 435.52Hz, not the 432 hertz touted by conspiracy theorists. Either way there is a discrepancy. So much for their being "in tune with the Universe via the Heart Chakra"?
(Edit: this system clearly breaks down using ratios to determine notes that naturally vibrate in harmony. Mathematically it only stacks up using Equal Temperament, but then all the notes are slightly out of tune, as far as frequencies vibrating together, synchronously in harmony with each other. Well pardon me, but isn't that what music is all about?)
To illustrate the potential absurdity of ascribing a magical power of so many vibrations PER SECOND, we need to be very careful, lest we fall into the unsafe practice of "magical thinking" (a term used in psychological character analysis). Perhaps if the frequency was calculated using Vedic time divisions there could be some sort of better argument? As it turns out, the second being related to the Vedic unit, my fears were unfounded! The closest counterparts are a smaller fraction, a 'vipala' at 4/10ths of a second, and the next proximal value is a 'prana', of 4 seconds duration. (Incidentally, the smallest time value used in Vedic calculation is this: 100 lotus petals stacked on top of each other, pierced by a needle as fast as possible - the time taken to go through one petal - 1/33,750ths of a second). Anyway, using this method of 432÷4/10ths actually surprised me as it gave an exact result - 172.8Hz is F in the 432 method, but only if you're using the Western Equal Temperament System. This is an unreconcilable anomaly because the two systems aren't complimentary. "Never the twain shall meet"
source
As for the anti-fascist cr?p floating around about Hitler's implementation of the reference standard of A=440Hz to control people by making them ill and weak or some such nonsense - it was being used way before he was even born! The Europeans adopted it in the 1830's for orchestras, although they now tune slightly flatter at around 435 vibrations per second, and yet others such as the Boston Symphony Orchestra tune higher at 444Hz to get a brighter, "livelier" sound. To this day in Austria at the revered home of classical music, you can pick up a phone in Vienna and dial 1507 and hear the pitch of A=435Hz. The American Federation of Musicians adopted the 440Hz standard in 1917, and in the year that war broke out, 1939, it was internationally accepted. Herr Hitler may very well have played a role in that as part of worldwide agreement but saying that he is responsible for it being used as a tool for control of the masses is quite fanciful by any stretch of the imagination, unless he had the final casting vote, or power to veto (on a side note, notice how the words vote and veto have the same letters? That's how "magical thinking" can lead you astray). Honestly, some people (me included) would be a lot better off not doing drugs and the internet at the same time.
You can see the results of a study conducted to statistically determine if different tunings had any effect or made a difference. Bear in mind that it was looking for negative results. source
The test subjects listened to samples of the same song at different pitch shifts. I do question the validity of such a test result when the song used is familiar and therefore would sound "wrong" in a different pitch, to practically everyone except the most tone deaf. Still, it's interesting to note that lowering the pitch was dramatically more popular than raising it - giving some credence to the current fad of it being hip to prefer the 432 tuning.
But wait, there's more.. Yet again is another standard called amongst other names the Scientific or Philosopher's method of tuning, based on multiples of numbers http://www.perfectthird.com which gives A=426.6 recurring as the value generated by the "Pythagorean" triangle. I've put the name in quotation marks because Pythagoras didn't come up with the idea at all - it was lifted from the Vedas where it appeared hundreds of years before in the writings of Shulba Sutra by Baudhayana, 8th century BC. As a long time fan of alternative tunings especially non-ET, I don't dismiss using 432 hertz as a reference point as long as it is used with harmonic ratio tunings. I find the C and E on keyboards annoyingly out of tune, to the point of questioning whether pianists are even musicians. Perhaps ambidextrous sequential note demonstrators would be a better term. Play any major third interval on an organ and you will hear the distinctly unpleasant wobbling or oscillation from the wavelengths clashing because they're out of period frequency with each other - to the value of 13%, enough to produce such an effect. Now, THAT, I believe, is enough to make the general population ill and weak - but you can blame whoever invented equal temperament for that, not Hitler.
(much later edit: I found this which covers similar ground but in a snobby atheistic s??t-head know-all egotistical manner and mood. It actually made me rethink about everything I said, just because this person sounds like a real a??hole. He fails to grasp the spiritual significance of the vibration Om - or is ignorant and doesn't even know what it is and how it is connected. I am HOWEVER now even more convinced that in adopting the C#=136.1Hz tuning [if that really is the pitch of ॐ] unless Equal Temperament is thrown out and replaced with Pure Tuning, aka Just Intonation, everything "gained" is lost to the "out-of-tuneness" of the scale)
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