Re: 432 Hertz?

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R Rasa

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Jun 14, 2015, 12:14:10 PM6/14/15
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Hi John and Ralph,

Bastian, our synthesizer player, switched to using 432 for all his solo music some years ago. You can hear some tracks here: 
http://www.amazon.com/Etheric-Sea-Starseed/dp/B00P7N94TI/

Using synthesizers, sitar and tamboura, our tonic note is usually an Equal Tempered middle C or about 262, but that is because the sitar we use was set to about 262 by Hiren Roy, the guy who made it 45 years ago. Indian music doesn’t use a set frequency for the tonic (main note) of the scale. An Indian ensemble tunes to however the main instrument is tuned. The main instrument, sitar in our case, is initially tuned by the instrument maker. That frequency is chosen based on what sounds best for that particular sitar/instrument. I have two sitars, and one sounds perfect at about 262 (middle C in the normal A=440 system). The other one is nearly unplayable when tuned to 262, but rings out wonderfully when tuned to C sharp, or about 277. If I used the A=432 system for tuning either instrument, I would have to change its original setting a little. It’s not much to change, but it is certainly noticeable to me, and maybe to the instruments themselves. 

In Western music we are really used to A=440. I found a page where someone had a question about how used to it we are, and did a survey asking preferences for 440 music or 432. Not very scientific, but he found no strong preference:

I set up this tone generator in two browser windows side by side and put 262 in one and 257 in the other.

C 262 would be about 257 in the “432” tuning.
C sharp or 277, would be about 272 in the “432” tuning.

There is a real difference in tone between 440 and 432. My C sharp sitar is very sensitive to its tuning, and I think I could not tune it down that much and have it work properly. 

In any case, tuning drives me a bit nuts. Sitars have 20 strings that use wooden friction-held pegs. That means that when the air has some humidity, the wood swells and the tuning pegs get stuck. They can be incredibly hard to move. The pegs are tapered so you can move them in and out a bit so they grip better, but as you do that often, the wooden peg becomes very smooth. Consequently, every peg has to be rubbed in chalk regularly so it grips a bit. Tuning a wooden peg to just the correct micro-tone can be a challenge.

I’m tuning to the synthesizer’s tonic when we perform, or vice versa (if the Sitar is in good tune, we retune the synthesizer). Tuning the synthesizer means clicking its “cent” button up or down. In the digital realm, a musical half step (C to C sharp) is divided into 100 cents. Most people can’t hear the difference when you change the tuning up or down one or two cents. I recently read that humans can’t hear a change of less than 6 cents. Maybe that’s true when hearing two tones one after the other (you may have a hard time telling which is higher or lower in pitch), but when the synthesizer is only one cent off from the sitar, I can hear it. Maybe it’s years of playing sitar and listening carefully to the harmonics. Despite the challenge, Sitar is an amazing instrument to tune. Each sympathetic string corresponds to one of the fretted notes played on the instrument’s main string. When tuning the sympathetic strings, you play the note on the main string, and then adjust the sympathetic string to match. The really mystical thing is that when you get the sympathetic string just right, the sound of the note on the Main String becomes symphonic - at just the correct tuning, the sympathetic string matches the frequency of the main string, and a chorus of harmonic overtones ring out. This makes tuning fairly straightforward - just keep adjusting until the overtone chorus rings out - on each note. With 13 sympathetic stings, it’s a workout, but a good sitar holds its tune well. And of course, sitting in the middle of all that sound while tuning or playing, is always a kind of sonic massage.

Changing from 440 to 432 is about 32 digital “cents”. That’s an enormous amount if I think of adjusting a sitar. Given the way sitars are designed, I wouldn’t want to do it. When I retune to the synthesizer, I’m only moving a couple cents up or down. The sitar still responds well within that range, but moving it 32 cents to get to the 432 tuning system may just be too much. My C Sharp sitar was tuned down to C when it was in the shop before I bought it. I sat there trying to tune the guy, with no success, until we figured out that it needed to be tuned up a half a step, or 100 cents. Before tuning it up, I could play a note, and even though the instrument was in tune to itself, the overtones just would not ring out. For some wondrous reason, bringing the whole instrument up to C Sharp brought all of the tonal relationships together in such a way that suddenly the harmonic overtones played. 

That makes me question the notion of using 432 as a basis. If I’m not mistaken, I think that 432 Hz tone came from the German musician/mathematician Hans Cousto who figured out that the frequency of the earth’s rotation was a multiple of 432. 432 is hence called the Earth tone. I think you could imagine that tuning all music in accord to the vibration of the earth’s rotation would make some sense in terms of building harmony, but I wonder if that isn’t just a Western notion of order and harmony. I sit in my office with an elaborate bird feeder attracting some 23 different birds - all with their own song. I never checked it out, but I think the “tonic” note of a particular bird is probably determined by the structure of that particular bird’s vocal chords, and so its tone is a product of evolution, which seems to enjoy chaos and change rather than uniformity. There is already a number of musicians who feel our Western tuning system (apparently initially strongly imposed by the Nazis), is just too regimented. Changing the tonic would not change the regimentation - only the point at where the “marching” starts. If every bird has it’s own tonic, and every human voice has it’s own tonal range, I think promoting individual diversity rather than uniformity may serve us better in the long run.

Amor illuminatio hilaritas et pasta volans!

Rasa



On Jun 7, 2015, at 11:12 PM, Ralph Fucetola JD <ralph.f...@usa.net> wrote:

Applying Human BioAcoustic theory to 432, dividing down the octaves (which means repeated division by 2) we get down to a Brain Wave Multiple of 27 (4th octave below middle C). Some more information on BioAcoustics: http://www.rebprotocol.net/papersaboutsharry.pdf

Frequency 27 is 3 x 3 x 3 and is in the note of A. A close Frequency Equivalent is 29.98, Aluminum.



On Jun 7, 2015, at 7:35 AM, John van der Does <tpj...@gmail.com> wrote:

Probably Rasa would know the most. But what does anybody out there know about tuning music to 432 Hz, A below middle C, as opposed to 440 Hz?  Also it somehow 432 Hz seems to be connected with phi (1.618...) golden ratio in sacred geometry and the Schumann resonance (7.83 Hz) the earth vibration which is getting fucked-up by electronic pollution caused by cell phones, WiFi and microwaves, etc.

I came across the following:

http://www.projects8.com/sedona/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=40&

Remember King Kong died for your sins.

Keep the lasagna flying,

John

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"You should view the world as a conspiracy run by a very closely-knit group of nearly omnipotent people, and you should think of those people as yourself and your friends." --Robert Anton Wilson

Keep the Lasagna Flying!


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