Kara-Moon Forum

The song I'm currently working on is performed from the outset with the instruments tuned 8Hz below "concert pitch" so that A=432Hz rather than our current European/North American standard of A=440Hz.

While mixing with AKG K240DF semi-open headphones, I was aware of some irritation as I could hear the television in the background with its soundtrack music pitched at A=440Hz. The TV sound clashed noticeably with my headphone mix.

Then, the irritation stopped...?  I looked over, to see that my wife had changed the channel to "APTN", our Aboriginal Peoples Television Network, and most (not all) of the music in its soundtrack programming (at least during that time) was performed/recorded in the A=432 pitch in which I am working.
What the....? :D
If I find out what the story is (on their choice of alternate-pitched music), I'll post about it here.

Interesting.

I wonder how many people know that concert pitch used to be based on C = 256Hz (an exact power of 2), which would give A as approximately  431Hz

That's news to me.

Perhaps C=256Hz meshes with the concept that, at this pitch, the notes of the scale mathematically express the "Phi" relationship which purportedly reflects the relative measurements of objects in nature.
http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/perfect_spirals_030917.html
http://www.goldennumber.net/music.htm
Apparently, Bob Moog thinks there's something of value in this: http://www.seriouscomposer.com/PhiMusic.htm

Ha! I notice your second reference mentions a tuning of C = 256 ;D

The reason I knew about this was that when I was a child we had an ancient wooden-framed piano at home (it's what I played my very first tunes on). Being both old, and wooden framed it was impossible to tune it up to normal concert pitch, It's only half a semitone or so, but the extra stress of all those string would almost certainly have broken it's frame. The piano tuner contemplated tuning it down to B, but decided it would sound awful and thought lack of tension might also cause problems. Eventually after scouring London (where we lived at the time) someone was able to come up with an old C tuning fork, which then lived inside the piano.

P.S
The piano was apparently in the house when my parents moved in, and it stayed there when we left.

Yes... "The controversy over tuning still rages, with proponents of A432 or C256 as being more natural tunings than the current standard."

Interesting about the old piano, and old-school tuning fork.

The other quote from that same article that caught my interest: "A432 was often used by classical composers and results in a tuning of the whole number frequencies that are connected to numbers used in the construction of a variety of ancient works and sacred sites, such as the Great Pyramid of Egypt."
A pervasive historical/mathematical theme?

Just be careful if you want other people to play with you :) A lot of modern instruments (eg, sax, clarinet, various horns) can't be tuned to a tuning other than A=440 and stay in tune over the whole instrument. And pity the poor piano player who has to call in the tuner.

Otherwise, enjoy ... and I'm one who can't tell the difference ... well, at least I don't think I can :)

Agreed.
This brings us to a truly modern phenomenon - the wind controller and digital keyboard. Within broad limits, adjustable to any scale and pitch you please.
Not as "legitimate" as the acoustic instruments, perhaps, but a step toward artistic freedom... :)

This is a very interesting and educational tread, especially when Will brought up the old piano story.  My wife has a very old three-quarter-size upright piano; on a side note it is also very heavy! It is too old to tune to A440 because of the string tension but it never occurred to me to check it out.  So I just did and guess what?  It is tuned to A431.  How weird is that?

Anyway my guitar and her piano are mutually exclusive, as they sound terrible together do to the tuning. Note that it has nothing to do with our playing  abilities ::)

Wow! Spooky :o
In all these years, you are the first person I've come across with a similar situation!
I bet she was looking over your shoulder when you wrote that :P

Hmmm.
So when are we going to get a collab between your missus and Oren? ;D

You are the first person I’ve come across with a similar situation also.  This is getting weirder with each post :o    Below is a picture of that 8 ton behemoth with 88 keys.


No not really.  She has had only about 6 months of piano lessons when she was about 10 years old. She never saw a piano again until I bought her this one around 20 years later. When she retired a couple of years ago she had the time to put some serious effort into playing the instrument. She has done remarkably well.  She can not jam however.  I can not tell her to play say C-Am-Dm7-G7 as she has no idea what those chords are unless the notes are written on staff paper!  She can play almost anything if it is written correctly.  She is at the point that if a score has a mistake in it she can figure out what note is wrong and she corrects it.  I give her a lot of credit for her piano playing success.

Cool! I had heard (can't remember where...) that Mozart, Bach, and those oldsters who composed and performed on keyboard instruments tuned them to A=432Hz.

Sweet piano, by the way! Ever wonder where you'll find someone who can work with A=432Hz when it comes time to give it a tune-up? :D

Actually Oren we have a professional come in twice a year and tune it. 

We live very close to Rochester NY, the city that houses both the Eastman School of Music and the Hockstien School of Music; two world renown schools of music.  The piano tuner we use also tunes the pianos for those schools.  I’ll have to ask him what he tunes those pianos too! I know he tunes them once a month!

Woh! :o... 8)

I am very interested in this.

When I first saw some YouTube vids that presented the two tones, 432 and 440, I could easily tell they felt different, with the 432 feeling more pleasant. I was surprised by this.

Then the other day I was about to work on some music on ProTools and just started to hum a snatch of one of my melodies -- having heard no other music just prior -- and noticed it just felt good. My mind said: "This pitch just feels so nice and natural. I wonder if I'm singing in the "bad" standard tuning or something else, because this pitch I've spontaneously chosen feels natural and instinctive." I had one guitar that had been tuned to 432 a few weeks ago, and went over to it. I found I had been singing in 432, not 440! I think we probably shift ourselves away from an instinctive 432 continuously, just because of the sounds that are around us. I can certainly feel a difference. Though it's such a tiny increment, playing my bass in 432 feels basically different.

I am going to start trying to record in 432. I wonder if there are any keyboard controllers/synthesizers that let you tune to 432?

Kara, Moon, ElwoodBlues, MarcJX8P, and Folderol would be excellent sources of information on alternate synth tunings.

After some experimentation, I have found that producing the song in A=440 (for convenience with current instruments and software) is most productive. Then the file can be re-tuned to A=432, with excellent results. "Audacity" does it for me.
If you want to go this route, ask me for details...

I'm not to much in software synths, so can't answer this
But I do know that all hardware synths that I have used (and that's a lot  ;D ) have a master tune section

k

No problem with Zyn/Yoshi. Microtuning is available :)

Here is an interesting side note to this thread.  We just had our piano tuned.  The tuner also tunes the pianos of a couple of prestigious music schools in our area.  I asked him what he tunes them to and he said he tunes the solo grand pianos to 445Hz.  He says the musicians like that bright sound higher tension brings.  He also indicated that he has to go back and replace broken strings a lot because of the high tension.

Note that he still tunes my wife’s old upright to 431Hz.

Fascinating! I had heard that performing (as opposed to recording) orchestras favoured higher tuning because it "cuts" through ambient noise in a live venue, and holds the attention of the audience better.

And, oddly enough, rock musicians will tune their basses and guitars a full semi-tone lower for more impact and a "full" sound... ???... :D

Further to this thread:

 A neighbour has been hospitalized with liver cancer and finally deemed untreatable, and sent home to put her affairs in order. She expressed an interest in the healing music she has heard on youtube, but said she found the segments to be too brief to really enjoy.
I contacted some site members who have a very large catalogue of instrumental music about using some of their material, and after their enthusiastic approval, I remastered 10 of their songs to A=432Hz. After three weeks of listening to the music on headphones for extended periods each day, she is pain-free, and feels an improvement in mood and energy. She actually went out to lunch with a friend recently.
Her plan is to contact the physician who treated her and request more tests, and perhaps further treatment, now that she feels strong enough to follow up on all possible strategies.

There is, of course, no way to determine how much (if any) influence the re-pitched music had on her improvement, but the experience has encouraged me to continue looking in to the possibilities.

Who knows what the mind is capable of given just the right stimulus, and I guess that somehow this is what this lady got.

Here is an example of a recording that was performed from its inception as an A=432Hz composition, with each instrument tuned down 8Hz below standard "concert pitch".
 (Regular forum contributors will recognize this as my K-M Review contribution - just remixed)
The composition is deliberately percussive and trance-like, to allow the effects of the lower tuning to be felt without tricky chord changes or unnecessary dynamics. Rendered in LAME VBR for maximum fidelity in a small file.

Download, give it a listen - or two - and see what you think...

Je vais tester...
 :-* :-*
Azell

D'accord... bon chance... :D

 8)
Y'know .... I've been interested in these concepts since you first brought them up, over here.
I'm particularly interested in this 'subliminal medical' application. It all sounds extremely plausible to me.

As a collector of both musical instruments and antiques I have, in my collection, a few rather old penny whistles. These are brass bodied and quite decorative, although a bit beaten up. Probably Victorian.
They all play just slightly too much 'out of tune' for modern pitch.
If I can ever find the time to spend, on a project like this, you are giving me reason to test the frequency ranges of these instruments. I am likely to bet my pocket money on them being in your 'A=432Hz' range.  :o

 ;)
James

James,

Those old whistles are fascinating! 8)

If you want to spend a few minutes testing them for pitch, here are three 30 second Ogg Vorbis files of A=432Hz, C=256Hz, and G=384Hz.
(generated in Audacity)

 :o
Excellent  ;D

I now have whistles in the keys of Bb and G .... matching the frequencies in your range.
The Eb one is slightly off, unfortunately.
If you ever want to put them to the test ... let me know.

The low one will play comfortably in Bb and Eb (and Fm)
the little high one will do G and C (and Dm)

 ;)
James

Wow! Those are seriously ancient whistles. How did you come by them?

Outstanding! :;
I'll see about a from-scratch A=432 composition in one of these keys, then request that you go berserk with some old-school whistle action...
Attached are the notes in what the 432 folks call Pythagorean tuning, and the associated chakras... by the stimulation of which all of us will grow very old and healthy and wonderfully weird...(http://www.freesmileys.org/smileys/smiley-green/greensmilies-028.gif) (http://www.greensmilies.com)
...a bit more about the theory of Pythagorean tuning: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pythagorean_tuning

Will,
just part of the junk that I pick up from trawling round flea-markets. Never paid more than a couple of pounds for them. As they are quite old they don't play too well. The beatings and dents don't help with the intonation.  ::)

Oren,
I'll be more than happy to join in with something although, be warned, these do not play too well, buddy.
Keep it at a leisurely pace.  :-X
The big Bb has a lovely low pitch to it whilst the little G is more like a piccolo.   :P

 ;)
James

Oren, You could record this at 440 Hz, 432 Hz or any other Hz and it would still sound great!

I am a believer that the body does respond to different frequencies, like fingernails on a chalk board, so it is possible that your neighbor was helped by the A=432 Hz.

James, do you have a chromatic guitar tuner?  Over on this side of the pond those tuners are tunable. That is you can adjust the A setting to any Hz. If you have one try setting it to A=432 Hz and play a note on one of your prize whistles. Is the tuner close to the note you are playing?  If not readjust the A setting and try again. Hopefully that would work for you. 

Thanks, Mario!

Your encouragement is appreciated, and your advice regarding getting the tuning under control makes sense.

My neighbor informed me yesterday that the cancerous tumor in her liver has disappeared. :-

She listened to the remastered music (lowered in pitch by 8Hz to A=432Hz) for an average of two hours a day for about 9 weeks. She credits the music with her recovery.
Keep in mind that the physicians had deemed her condition "untreatable".

It is my contention that music has the potential to be more than just entertainment, or a pleasant diversion. This experience lends creedence to that point of view...

Check out http://www.pentagonalskies.com (http://www.pentagonalskies.com).  It's a full-length rock opera completely recorded with the A=432 Hz tuning.  You can listen to the entire audio production while reading along with the book online (free of charge).  Definitely worth checking out!

Bookmarked for when I have time!

Welcome, Moche175, and thanks for your referral to "Pentagonal Skies".
An impressive piece of work - I'll refer others to the page! :;

Web -based streaming audio, full albums re-mastered to the lower pitch, A=432Hz...
http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=432hz+full+albums

Something called "Sonic Geometry". Seems to make sense, at least to a mathematically challenged plebe like me...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=FY74AFQl2qQ#t=922

More about the benefits of music produced in A=432 Hz...

http://www.collective-evolution.com/2013/12/21/heres-why-you-should-convert-your-music-to-432hz/

Interesting. Very interesting.