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432 Hz tuning: The Music of SUPERCONSCIOUSNESS
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shamantrixx
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Posted : Dec 16, 2006 17:39
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To answer a question from other topic I've started new one. Hopefully some of you also have some prior knowledge of this topic and you're willing to share it with others. Here it goes:
Q: Have you noticed that mostly you can use only 3-4 notes for a bass line. The other notes just sound weird, muddy, flat or sharp?
Q: Considering the fact that sound is not linear why do we use a point in the middle of the spectrum (440 Hz) as a fundamental point to calculate the octaves up and down from this point? Shouldn't we start counting ascending from 0 Hz (just like we did with all measuring units)?
Q: Have you ever think about how can we divide an octave to 12 equal parts when sound is not linear? Did you know that equal temperament has only 1 pure tone in the octave and all other tones are ether sharp or flat?
Q: Why the hell do we use the "standard" tuning of 440 Hz when most of ancient instruments ware tuned to slightly lower setting, mostly to 432 Hz?
Q: Why you can't tune the guitar to play both E major and G major correctly? Even when tuned with precise guitar tuner E major is in tune but G major is slightly off...
This are the questions that i had no answers even after years and years of playing and making music. I've spent a lot of time investigating this questions and I'll try to sum it all up in this topic. Even thou I've spent a great deal of time answering this questions still more questions rise out of those answers and even now I'm not quite sure how deep the rabbit hole goes  So I'd like you to have in mind that this topic has a plenty of space to light up, explain, reexamine and put into context of how we can use this knowledge since most of the instruments, hardware and plug ins are tuned to 440 Hz and tend not to be user friendly as soon as you try to tune them in 432 Hz tuning.
If it's possible I'd like you to avoid the comments like "I think it's crap" or "I don't see how that relates with releasing a track on a label". I think that this topic is of mutual interest since we all make music and we should be interested in questions like this one. So here is what I have found out so far...
If we start counting octaves from 0 rather that from 440 Hz we find out that first octave is 0 to 27 Hz. This one is not audible but it sets the ratio for all other octaves. Those are 54, 108, 216, 432 Hz etc. Multiplications of 8 cycles gives the 432 (54 x 8, and 3 x 72). The number 432 is considered sacred in a majority of the major temple complexes of this planet. For instance, one side of the Great Pyramid in Egypt at its foundation is 432 Earth Units, or the major Toltec complex in Mexico with Pyramid of the Sun having an base of 864 units (2x432). But where did this number came from in the time when Hz unit was yet to be discovered? Well one of the ways is that there are 43,200 seconds in our time measurement of day (12 hours). This is a precise 432 decimal harmonic (100 x 432), and is also a mirror cascade image pathway for 8 Hz, as 5,400 x 8 Hz. The archaic Egyptian instruments that have been found are largely tuned to 432 Hz as well as ancient Greek instruments. Greek roots of music had the tuning of 432 Hz before our 440 Hz "standard tuning". Since 432 Hz (having 8 Hz coherence mirroring effect) touches the full twelve scale octave overtones of all music, whereas "our" 440 Hz only touches 8 overtones leaving out a vast section of the complete musical resonance. This 8 Hz of tuning difference makes a huge difference
The story about further relations of harmonics of 8 Hz and human genetics, architecture, cosmology and Earth itself is to be found at this web site: http://www.akasha.de/~aton/Unidance.html
So once solving the problem of tuning point we come to the question of how to divide the non linear sound in tones if we don't want to use equal temperament scale? And this is the place where Fibonacci can be applied. His sequence 1,1,2,3,5,8,13 etc. reveals the average ratio between the numbers in the sequence that we call "Golden Ratio". An excellent explanation with illustrations, charts, tables and calculations can be found here: http://www.hinduism.co.za/anahata.htm#1%20Natural%20Number%20Series%20defined
If we remember that 432 is 8 x 54 or 6 x 72, and that seconds are the decimal harmonics of 43,200 seconds in 12 hours period it's obvious that the tempo of 72, 108 or 144 bpm will be coherent with the sacred 432 Hz tuning. Our planet beats at 8 cycles per second (8 Hz is fundamental Schumann resonance) and so does the human conscience (8 Hz is the alpha brain wave rhythm in which our brain hemispheres, are synchronized or coherent). So slowly we can start connecting dots and begin to understand that western music "standard" tuning and scaling has led us not in the wrong alley but rather in the wrong universe.
If you take your time and do your homework the only remaining questions we can ask our self are:
- now when we see it what can we do about it?
- how to play PHI tones with KI-board?
- how to ignore the "standard" tuning that's installed deep in the core of sequencing softwares like Cubase, Nuendo, Sonar, Reason, A. Live...?
- how to pitch shift a sample tuned to 432 from 440 Hz?
- how to use microtonal scales to be able to play spiral of fifths instead of cycle of fifths?
etc.
As I've mentioned... this is a topic with vast empty space to fill and music to be made. Presets are yet to be made, instruments developed, rules discovered and music to be changed once again... hopefully once and for all this time.
This is really a great time to be alive... "can you see the excitement?"
  "It occurred to me by intuition, and music was the driving force behind that intuition. My discovery was the result of musical perception"
Albert Einstein, speaking about his theory of relativity |
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soulfood
IsraTrance Junior Member
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875
Posted : Dec 16, 2006 20:47
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Interesting stuff. What led us to change to 440 in the first place then? Is it a classical era thing or is it just a way of making things mathematically simple, obviously it's easier to go round in circles than to voyage down the never ending spiral, but would the spiral sound "in tune" to those with perfect pitch? |
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pants!
Started Topics :
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79
Posted : Dec 17, 2006 04:04
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wow great post
soulfood, a being 440hz is called concert pitch, you can read a bit about it here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concert_pitch#Historical_pitch_standards
im pretty sure albino has a mechanism for tuning it, theres a little panel at the back where you can set the hz. i think the virus does too. hmmm.
i wonder if you wrote a track with A=432 and it was played out if it would always clash or sound bad when being mixed in/out? |
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shamantrixx
Started Topics :
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549
Posted : Dec 17, 2006 04:23
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That's easy... people with "perfect pitch" usually can't stand the "standard" 440 Hz tuning. Some of the worlds best vocalists insist on tuning instruments on 432 Hz because "it's much easier to sing that way". Obviously they never tried to figure out why it's easier to sing that way but they know it just sound better this way.
So the answer is yes... person with "perfect pitch" is well aware that equal temperament and 440 Hz tune is quite out of tune.
Answer to the other question is not so easy to provide. Equal temperament is developed simply because it's easier to change the key of a song this way. Was the inventor of this equal temperament (J. S. Bach) aware of it's downside... My guess is that he was more concerned with how to easily transpose musical parts than how they will actually sound. Another possible explanation is that human hearing have actually evolved from his time and back then nobody could hear the difference. For instance... the Bible mentions only 6 or 7 colors. Today we can see thousands of colors since visual feedback is the most important of all human senses and thus has evolved most rapidly.
"Standard" tuning point is much, much younger. In fact it's been only 80 years that we use it. Until 1930 we didn't have any standard tunings simply because there was no need for such thing. To my mind this "standardization" is far from coincidence or non deliberate mistake, but that's just the way I feel about this... no arguments what so ever for this conclusion.
"It occurred to me by intuition, and music was the driving force behind that intuition. My discovery was the result of musical perception"
Albert Einstein, speaking about his theory of relativity |
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shamantrixx
Started Topics :
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549
Posted : Dec 17, 2006 04:46
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Quote:
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On 2006-12-17 04:04, pants! wrote:
i wonder if you wrote a track with A=432 and it was played out if it would always clash or sound bad when being mixed in/out?
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If you're asking from the perspective of dj-ing the answer is no! Sound systems of "party size" are a long way from being linear and are mostly mono. Beside that "normal" (for what ever that means) person is not able to hear clashing. Most of music consumers are not able to hear the difference less than 1/3 of a tone. But nevertheless... on the level of subconsciousness it will make a difference even in this circumstances. You know like... some tracks are nothing special but they just catch your attention and drive you without any obvious musical reason
Albino, Blue, Octopuss and many other plugs can be retuned. To tune down from 440 to 432 you can just tune down oscilattors for 0.31 tone (or -31 cent) so almost all synths can be re-tuned to some degree. To obtain well-tempered scaling is not so easy.
MicroTonic is excellent drum synth that can be tuned at will with maximum precision.
But to be able to produce entire track based on spirals is quite a challange if you use standard sequencers. So any idea is more than welcome...
"It occurred to me by intuition, and music was the driving force behind that intuition. My discovery was the result of musical perception"
Albert Einstein, speaking about his theory of relativity |
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Trip-
IsraTrance Team
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Posted : Dec 17, 2006 08:14
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Tuning in different parts of the world is different.
The concert pitch tuning-scale was developed and adopted in the 'western' part of the world. It was played in churches, chamber orchestras were playing by it - and musical instruments were tuned for that scale.
An octave, where first sound is half the frequency of the begining of the next octave - was divided to 12 equal parts.
In other parts of the world, other tuning techniqes exist and existed for a long time - and different music theory was developed too.
Arabic instruments are not tuned to 12 equal parts between notes in an octave, and of course the Indian instruments which contain more notes in an octave to begin with. Musical theory is different of course.
In africa, there were also instruments with less notes in a scale - and music was understood differently.
If you want to play your music in a different tuning scale - please do. "Standard scale" was chosen just because something had to be chosen... Just like 0 celcius in a scale was chosen to be 0 - or any other scale.
PS: Bach would always take sound into account - one can only hear it in everything he touched.
Crackling universes dive into their own neverending crackle...
AgalactiA |
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Spindrift
Spindrift
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Posted : Dec 17, 2006 14:50
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I find this very intersting and it's a shame it's so hard to change the pitch globally in the sequencer so it would be feasible to make tracks tuned to 432.
@shamantrixx
440 is actually still not a properly accepted standard, even if there has been a few attempt to establish it as such.
It's for sure the most commonly used but some orchestras use lower tuning, and some tune to A=430 when performing for example Mozart since that the pitch he used.
If you have a fairly old pitch fork it will most likely be tuned to around 430 hz, which was for a long time the most common tuning, just like 440 is now.
@Trip-
You are mixing tuning and scale. The issue here is not what scale is used but how it's tuned.
The point is that 432 makes sense mathematically while 440 doesn't, as well as many singer claiming that it feels more natural.
0 Celsius was not selected at random because something had to be chosen, it's the freezing temperature of water.
Sure it would work to have 0 to actually be a bit higher than the freezing temp, but it would make the scale nonsensical just like Farenheit and IMO it does make sense to base it on a value that can be easily referenced.
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Scala
Scala
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Posted : Dec 17, 2006 18:00
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Nice stuff , please continue dont stop... |
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Trip-
IsraTrance Team
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Posted : Dec 17, 2006 18:01
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And so he could pick any other liquid that freezes - I'm sure you understood my point here. What was chosen was apparently water, because it was visibly available - like ice. (it's something to base everything else on). Then why 440Hz doesn't make any sense ?
I'm sure you still hear it very well, and probably have heard for a very long time through old records till modern hits.
My example of scales was to show the different ways which humans could go with, in creating or expressing music. A different scale represents a different understanding - same way as different tuning.
It takes to read this one article to understand how many A's were back in the days before the standard:
http://www.uh.edu/engines/epi1305.htm
Crackling universes dive into their own neverending crackle...
AgalactiA |
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shamantrixx
Started Topics :
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Posted : Dec 17, 2006 18:15
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@ Trip: 440 Hz has no sense because the sound IS NOT linear and therefore you can't take a random point in the middle of the scale. Celsius is based of water freezing point (0 C) and water evaporation point (100 C). It follows the nature dividing two extreme points where water changes it's form from ice to liquid and steam. Below zero and above 100 is simply following the scaling set by primary 0 to 100 scale.
Also I'm aware that different scales exist in the world. Some of them have up to 54 notes per octave, but how can we use it still remains the question that yet has to be answered. For a start to be able to use pythagorian coma scale would be nice. If we could figure out how to do it.
"It occurred to me by intuition, and music was the driving force behind that intuition. My discovery was the result of musical perception"
Albert Einstein, speaking about his theory of relativity |
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Spindrift
Spindrift
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Posted : Dec 17, 2006 19:10
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Sure there has been many tunings, and 440 hz is still not a de-facto standard although it's by far the most commonly used since WWII.
Here is an article from article from someone actually specialized in the subject:
http://www.schillerinstitute.org/music/rev_tuning_hist.html
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In Beethoven's time, the leading acoustician was Ernst Chladni (1756-1827), whose textbook on the theory of music explicitly defined C=256 as the scientific tuning. Up through the middle of the present century, C=256 was widely recognized as the standard ``scientific'' or ``physical'' pitch |
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ansolas
IsraTrance Full Member
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Posted : Dec 18, 2006 00:45
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shamantrixx
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Posted : Dec 18, 2006 00:56
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Excellent links, tnx!
Does anybody know for some MIDI plug that can use SCALA tuning files in order to correct the pitch of notes before they enter a VSTi?
"It occurred to me by intuition, and music was the driving force behind that intuition. My discovery was the result of musical perception"
Albert Einstein, speaking about his theory of relativity |
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Terrafractyl
Terrafractyl
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Posted : Dec 18, 2006 02:01
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Very Interesting Thread!!
I have played in quite a few baroque ensembles playing at lower tunings... I played on an instrument tuned to 415. it was very wierd for me, but I think my ears have been well and truly indoctrinated to the ways of 440
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On 2006-12-17 04:04, pants! wrote:
i wonder if you wrote a track with A=432 and it was played out if it would always clash or sound bad when being mixed in/out?
If you're asking from the perspective of dj-ing the answer is no! Sound systems of "party size" are a long way from being linear and are mostly mono. Beside that "normal" (for what ever that means) person is not able to hear clashing. Most of music consumers are not able to hear the difference less than 1/3 of a tone.
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um i disagree with this though. I would Definatly know if a track was being mixed in that was 1/3 of a tone lower over a track in 440. it wouldn't sound very nice(to me)...
nonetheless this is a topic I have been interested in for a long time, I have often wondered if prehaps a better system than equal temperment exists... maybe there does after all
all the dude ever wanted... was his rug back...
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Colin OOOD
Moderator
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Posted : Dec 18, 2006 06:24
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Quote:
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On 2006-12-16 17:39, shamantrixx wrote:
If we start counting octaves from 0 rather that from 440 Hz we find out that first octave is 0 to 27 Hz. This one is not audible |
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Sorry Shamantrixx but this makes no sense. You can't start 'counting octaves' from 0Hz because 0Hz is not a frequency - it is the absence of a frequeny; "no vibrations per second". You get octaves by doubling or halving a frequency, ie. if A is 432Hz then the A an octave below it will be at 216Hz. Doubling 0Hz makes no sense. If this is the foundation of your arguments then you're on VERY shaky ground IMO.
As for "[/i]Since 432 Hz (having 8 Hz coherence mirroring effect) touches the full twelve scale octave overtones of all music, whereas "our" 440 Hz only touches 8 overtones leaving out a vast section of the complete musical resonance. This 8 Hz of tuning difference makes a huge difference.[/i]" I think you'll have to be a lot more specific if you want people to understand what you're talking about; this sounds an awful lot like mumbo-jumbo to me. "8 Hz coherence mirroring effect"? The natural harmonic series doesn't care whether the base pitch is 400Hz or 4000...
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