Nature and music

[firearm12]

As part of discussion in the thread bollywood and music of India, I am opening this one for discussion on nature and it’s relation to music.

I think it would be very important to understand nature and music relation. I don’t know how many of you aware but 432hz is considered universally the fundamental frequency of our planet and nature. All sounds in nature can be tracked to this frequency. The sound om is supposed to resonate at 432hz and thus bring us closer to nature.

now ‘A‘ note of modern musical instruments is tuned to 440 hz. Many people say this should not be desirable. i won’t write much. Please search for this in google.

here is one small article.

432 Hz Music: A Guide to the Theory, Science & Benefits

It is said that the 432 Hz music pitch may have benefits over the 440 Hz standard tuning because it's mathematically in tune with the Earth.

www.mindvibrations.com

do see this video also and figure if you like music at 432hz or 440hz. Please do vote in poll above the thread

Here is another article which has interesting mentions abput history of why or why no reason that 440hz was chosen as a standard, nazis involved here as well.

The great 440 Hz conspiracy, and why all of our music is wrong: Alan Cross - National | Globalnews.ca

Let's look into a mind-control theory involving music, Nazis and a deliberately mistuned piano.

www.google.com

 

[mpw]

We were interested in mice and adventures ..
But seriously...

I think not many people in this forum play an instrument and not many do live concerts too..

But your reading material looks interesting and is on my realist

Maybe someone with a lot of experience like @prem can comment ..
Or someone into music recording etc..

 

[prem]

I am not very aware of this mpw. All I know is there’s a schuman resonant frequency. There are these frequency generators available. Many times they are used in hospitals and meditation centres. Some audiophiles use this generator in their homes. I too tried it at home. But I was too scared to use it because if the frequency goes off a bit it can mess with your blood circulation. That scared me enough to not try it beyond 15 min. In that 15 min the sound changed for sure. But it was too early to actually figure out what was happening.

 

[firearm12]

Na its not about playing musical intruments or recordings, that even i am not expert, but anyone should be able to make out the sound difference in video and judge what was better. I feel any subject we are interested in we should know its history and basics, and music is no way different. Curiosity ia the key to understand anything.

I am not very aware of this mpw. All I know is there’s a schuman resonant frequency. There are these frequency generators available. Many times they are used in hospitals and meditation centres. Some audiophiles use this generator in their homes. I too tried it at home. But I was too scared to use it because if the frequency goes off a bit it can mess with your blood circulation. That scared me enough to not try it beyond 15 min. In that 15 min the sound changed for sure. But it was too early to actually figure out what was happening.

that schuman resonant frequency is the considered to be the resonant frequency of earth. Its around 8hz.

I am sure no one is interested in mathematics but from what little i know i can try to explain if someone is interested.

Lets start from a piano, each key on piano is related to a certain frequency which is determined by a matematical calculation depending on what the value of frequency of A4 key is. Its more clear if one looks at below table which lists all values for standard A4 (440hz) tuned piano. This is standard all across the world for moslty all instruments excluding indian.




Now everyone knows there are seven notes in an octave (ABCDEFG) producing seven different notes and if we go above or below the octaves, the pattern repeats and we get over tones of same notes, which then sound like same eg. We can have A1 A2 A3 etc each an octave higher than previous A note but they are considered same as they sound same (micracle of nature)

Now when we say to tune any instrument e.g incase of a piano this means to set the frequency of each key to a fixed value. If we do standard tuning (A4 to 440hz) it means setting the frequency of each key exactly as per above displayed table.

This is where it gets interesting. If you see the table A4 days 440hz which means C4 is around 261hz

Now if we change the frequency of A4 to 432hz instead of standard 440hz and recalculate the above table, we will get new C3 at around 256hz, and it will also produce a C somewhere at 8hz also (the schuman resonant frequency) which is just an overtone of C3. So schuman resonant frequency is related to 432hz.

In short actually its a highly debatable topic that why A4 was chosen as 440hz when many scientists and musicians confirm that 432hz was the better way all around. If i overexaggerate all music we listen normally is out of tune to nature. Can we go back to 432hz is more difficult because then all music intruments across the world need to be retuned, something not possible to do.

For anyone interested, John Lennons imagine was recorded with A4 at 444hz, another frequency thats considered closer to nature.

Anyone more interested should read this article below.

432 Hz - The Truth Behind Nature's Healing Frequency

Why is 432 Hz so powerful? We unearth the truth behind Verdi's 'A', the Schumann Resonance and the Earth’s frequency.

www.binauralbeatsmeditation.com

by the way this does not apply to indian instruments as they are not tuned as standard to 440hz. They do not have any fixed frequency for 'sa' in indian music. It can vary as per individual choice. But many indian classical musicians have also adopted now to tune to 440hz as its needed to fuse with other musicians and westerners.

To make it more interesting, Mozart, Bach, and Beethoven likely composed with an A4 pitch between 420 and 430, as 440hz was not standard then. So anyone listening to their works is not actually listening to what they intended.

 

[bornfi]

I am not very aware of this mpw. All I know is there’s a schuman resonant frequency. There are these frequency generators available. Many times they are used in hospitals and meditation centres. Some audiophiles use this generator in their homes. I too tried it at home. But I was too scared to use it because if the frequency goes off a bit it can mess with your blood circulation. That scared me enough to not try it beyond 15 min. In that 15 min the sound changed for sure. But it was too early to actually figure out what was happening.

I have a station created in Pandora based on Schumann’s wave and it plays some really nice stuff.

 

[firearm12]

I have a station created in Pandora based on Schumann’s wave and it plays some really nice stuff.

so does it reallly calm the nerves down.

 

[bornfi]

so does it reallly calm the nerves down.

Yes.

Short answer because was driving and don't have words to describe the feeling.

 

[moktan]

To make it more interesting, Mozart, Bach, and Beethoven likely composed with an A4 pitch between 420 and 430, as 440hz was not standard then. So anyone listening to their works is not actually listening to what they intended.

To make it more interesting, Mozart, Bach, and Beethoven likely composed with an A4 pitch between 420 and 430, as 440hz was not standard then. So anyone listening to their works is not actually listening to what they intended.

Thanks for this thread. Glad you brought this topic up.
Though not relevant to what’s being discussed , Bach wrote his Goldberg variations for the harpsichord but I quite prefer to listen to it being played on the piano ( Lars Vogt, Glenn Gould etc ) than on the Harpsichord ( I have heard the version by David Ponsford).

 

[firearm12]

Thanks for this thread. Glad you brought this topic up.
Though not relevant to what’s being discussed , Bach wrote his Goldberg variations for the harpsichord but I quite prefer to listen to it being played on the piano ( Lars Vogt, Glenn Gould etc ) than on the Harpsichord ( I have heard the version by David Ponsford).

I am all alien to western classical except Beethoven fur Elise and symphony 40 of Mozart.

what I feel there could be many reasons for your preference of piano version

1, as harpsichord is an ancient instrument and does not have any concept of loudness among notes, means all notes will sound same volume no matter how hard the key is pressed. It had double keyboard where it could play loudly on one keyboard and softer on other. Even then it creates problem with dynamics and also it tends to be brighter than piano in tone. So a soothing effect is lost in harpsichord and piano sounds more calm. it sounds monotonous for this reason.

2. Instruments change with time. harpsichord in Bach’s days would have sound different from what we hear as the instrument lost its popularity with time and all focus went to piano. No doubt it was due to the fact that piano sounded more melodious.

3. harpsichord is normally a double keyboard instrument and music written for it included instructions for double keyboard so that players can follow them. Also I read Bach did not define tempo of the music in the works you mentioned and that was left to the performer. it means that music written for harpsichord cannot be exactly played over piano and performer has to change it somehow to make it suitable for piano.


I searched on YouTube and found Richard Egarr version of Goldberg variations to be nice for harpsichord. Do check it out.

coming back to the thread, I think there are a lot of 432hz music (based on Schumann resonance) in youtube for western classical (though mostly digitally converted from 440hz) you can check them to see if they appeal to you more than 440hz versions.

 

[vivek_r]

I don’t think I have an opinion on 432 vs 440. However, when I go for concerts, among the most exciting things is:

Audience chatter. Orchestra walks in and people clap. Orchestra settles down and noise drops. The oboist plays A flat and all instruments tune around it. And the sound just swells. Some wind instruments play runs of notes. Magic.

Many a times even the actual concert is great

See this please.

I would urge and have been urging audiophiles to come for live Western classical concerts. It is unamplified music and you get to hear the splendour of tone. And depending on your seat microdynamics too (especially chamber concerts at Experimental theatre)

An interesting read.

Concert pitch - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

 

[Deleted member 15865]

I don’t understand the technicality of it. But my understanding is this tuning issue is specific to western music. Indian music, starting from Hindustani classical, is based on relative ratios between the surs and has no specific base tone universal for all. Usually the fundamental of the primary singer is used as the tuning basis for all instruments performing that piece. This will have its own advantages (flexibility and naturalness) and disadvantages (difficult in large ensembles?) Correct me if I am wrong.

P.S. I wish the test video had blind testing. I first read your post and so am prone to being biased in assessing.

 

[firearm12]

I don’t think I have an opinion on 432 vs 440. However, when I go for concerts, among the most exciting things is:

Audience chatter. Orchestra walks in and people clap. Orchestra settles down and noise drops. The oboist plays A flat and all instruments tune around it. And the sound just swells. Some wind instruments play runs of notes. Magic.

Many a times even the actual concert is great

See this please.

I would urge and have been urging audiophiles to come for live Western classical concerts. It is unamplified music and you get to hear the splendour of tone. And depending on your seat microdynamics too (especially chamber concerts at Experimental theatre)

An interesting read.

Concert pitch - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

Yup a live concert will always be breathtaking. Unamplified music is real music.

Btw its not A flat. Its A on the oboe (440hz). I think they use an oboe to tune other instruments is because of its clear penetrating sound so that it does not get mixed up in the sea of sound when everyone is tuning.

 

[vivek_r]

Sorry and thanks for correcting. Parallel conversation at home and some kid was mentioning something flat (A over middle C) and that crept here.

I saw a video once where they tuned with a piano.

All music is real music!!! Jazz piano or electric organ. Electric guitar! Love all. Only, unamplified music gives a sense of tone. That influences my music system (back to earth!) choices.

 

[firearm12]

I don’t understand the technicality of it. But my understanding is this tuning issue is specific to western music. Indian music, starting from Hindustani classical, is based on relative ratios between the surs and has no specific base tone universal for all. Usually the fundamental of the primary singer is used as the tuning basis for all instruments performing that piece. This will have its own advantages (flexibility and naturalness) and disadvantages (difficult in large ensembles?) Correct me if I am wrong.

P.S. I wish the test video had blind testing. I first read your post and so am prone to being biased in assessing.

Yes indian instruments are not supposed to follow this standard. But now a days many big musicians have also adopted to tuning to 440hz as it becomes easy to fuse with other unknown musicians. Also some instruments which have fixed tunes such as bansuri will have their A tuned to 440hz in factory unless custom made. From what i understand is that once 'sa' is established then tanpura is tuned to it, then performance goes. In vocal performances it may be true that vocalist wants the tanpura to be tuned according to his 'sa' but then if there are instruments involved that are not tuned with his 'sa' then problem comes, so indian music is also shifting its preference somewhere with standard 440hz tuning. Maybe some expert in indian classical music can explain better.

All music is real music!!! Jazz piano or electric organ. Electric guitar! Love all. Only, unamplified music gives a sense of tone. That influences my music system (back to earth!) choices.

Thats true. Once you listen to a real live instrument, its a very different experience which will tickle different senses inside our body. But still 440hz to 432hz counts there and can amount to tone changes. Few days back i tuned my guitar to 432hz, i can definetely say its a different experience, the tones of notes changes to something more appealing and surreal though not better for all music. Like they say there is no smoke without fire, so i feel its very important to know actually what happened. Remember before 20th century, there was no 440hz anywhere. Maybe this is also a reason why indian classical music is more soothing and hits senses more as there is no restriction for a fixed pitch.

 

[Deleted member 15865]

Yes indian instruments are not supposed to follow this standard. But now a days many big musicians have also adopted to tuning to 440hz as it becomes easy to fuse with other unknown musicians. Also some instruments which have fixed tunes such as bansuri will have their A tuned to 440hz in factory unless custom made. From what i understand is that once 'sa' is established then tanpura is tuned to it, then performance goes. In vocal performances it may be true that vocalist wants the tanpura to be tuned according to his 'sa' but then if there are instruments involved that are not tuned with his 'sa' then problem comes, so indian music is also shifting its preference somewhere with standard 440hz tuning. Maybe some expert in indian classical music can explain better.

Are you sure about this (Indian music shifting to a fixed tuning at 440 Hz)? Any documentary/anecdotal evidence of the same? I’d think it‘d be a very difficult transformation. Firstly, fixing any such base tone is counter to the ideology of Hindustani classical (and most of Indian music) and could rob it of interesting variety. For example, a female singer like Kaushiki and male singer like Rashid Khan singing the same raga - there’s an inbuilt variety that their different scales bring to respective performances (beyond of course the improvisational nature of Raga singing). But more importantly the artists who have spent a lifetime singing with their natural base tone will surely resist any such change.

In Indian music the tones/scales aren’t referred to in terms of Hz (though they’d correlate to some Hz), but in terms of the ‘Sa’ on harmonium or tanpura. As these are actually named by the particular particular key on the harmonium (safed 1, kaali 1, et al). Refer the table on https://swarganga.org/articles/icmconcepts/icm1.php.
Even flutes are made in many varieties using different ‘sa’ positions.

Remember harmonium is actually an instrument of non-Indian origin and is shunned by some musicians for its inability to produce microtones (Sruti’s). It also has its inaccuracies being build (like piano and organ) to what is called ‘tempered scale’. This article delves into this subject. http://www.22shruti.com/research_topic_9.asp. Reading it one feels that the problem isn’t only about the fundamental, but about the 12 tone equi-tempered scale itself.

Here’s the difference between the 12 tone equi-tempered scale and the Indian musical notes.

Topic 25: Difference between Equitempered notes and Indian Musical Notes – 22 SHRUTI

There are some interesting further mathematical details in the various articles on the subject in this resource page:

22 Shruti - Research Topic List

For example, the Pythagorean comma (error). It’s fascinating for those who love both music and maths. This fellow has built a 22 Shruti harmonium to reduce the errors.

 

[firearm12]

Are you sure about this (Indian music shifting to a fixed tuning at 440 Hz)? Any documentary/anecdotal evidence of the same? I’d think it‘d be a very difficult transformation. Firstly, fixing any such base tone is counter to the ideology of Hindustani classical (and most of Indian music) and could rob it of interesting variety. For example, a female singer like Kaushiki and male singer like Rashid Khan singing the same raga - there’s an inbuilt variety that their different scales bring to respective performances (beyond of course the improvisational nature of Raga singing). But more importantly the artists who have spent a lifetime singing with their natural base tone will surely resist any such change.

In Indian music the tones/scales aren’t referred to in terms of Hz (though they’d correlate to some Hz), but in terms of the ‘Sa’ on harmonium or tanpura. As these are actually named by the particular particular key on the harmonium (safed 1, kaali 1, et al). Refer the table on https://swarganga.org/articles/icmconcepts/icm1.php.
Even flutes are made in many varieties using different ‘sa’ positions.

Remember harmonium is actually an instrument of non-Indian origin and is shunned by some musicians for its inability to produce microtones (Sruti’s). It also has its inaccuracies being build to what is called ‘tempered scale’. This article delves into this subject. http://www.22shruti.com/research_topic_9.asp

I will try clarify again. Its true Indian music does not have fixed frequency on notes. It works on relative pitch system. Now this means that sa is not fixed at a particular frequency. It can change its position according to the singer or musician. sa can be anything and other notes are relative to sa. Compared to western, sa can be C it can be D it can be A flat it can be it can be anything arbitrary in between. Once sa is established other notes follow.

I am not saying that all indian music is moving towards tuning to 440hz. Ofcourse by design it can never move to such principle. It would be catastrophic. Indian music is based on melodies instead of chords and harmonies.

I just mean to say in todays world when there is lot of fusion happening, and where there are instruments whose pitch cannot be changed easily (reed or wind instruments), so such performers it becomes difficult to adhere to personal choice of sa when fusing together with westerners along with fixed pitch instruments.

As individual performers they are free as per their choice and they are free to tune their instruments also as per their choice.

Some indian instruments today are also being factory tuned mostly to 440hz.

Bansuri Tuning

The Bansuri is tuned according to North Indian Hindustani music. This is similar to the tuning of all the wind instruments of the world. So you can play any kind of music like Indian classical, western classical, jazz, arabic, etc. on these Bansuri. If you want to buy Indian bamboo flute then we...

www.punamflutes.com

Harmonium: Navigating the A440 Tuning Maze in Indian Music

www.musiciansmallusa.com

On the contrary this very fact that 440hz is not valid in icm, it can be a reason that indian music appeals more to mind and soul..... 440hz is a demonic freequency which was used by nazis to control over humans again i cannot verify it. If you read post 6, i have already excluded indian music.

 

[mpw]

I will try clarify again. Its true Indian music does not have fixed frequency on notes. It works on relative pitch system. Now this means that sa is not fixed at a particular frequency. It can change its position according to the singer or musician. sa can be anything and other notes are relative to sa. Compared to western, sa can be C it can be D it can be A flat it can be it can be anything arbitrary in between. Once sa is established other notes follow.

I am not saying that all indian music is moving towards tuning to 440hz. Ofcourse by design it can never move to such principle. It would be catastrophic. Indian music is based on melodies instead of chords and harmonies.

I just mean to say in todays world when there is lot of fusion happening, and where there are instruments whose pitch cannot be changed easily (reed or wind instruments), so such performers it becomes difficult to adhere to personal choice of sa when fusing together with westerners along with fixed pitch instruments.

As individual performers they are free as per their choice and they are free to tune their instruments also as per their choice.

Some indian instruments today are also being factory tuned mostly to 440hz.

Bansuri Tuning

The Bansuri is tuned according to North Indian Hindustani music. This is similar to the tuning of all the wind instruments of the world. So you can play any kind of music like Indian classical, western classical, jazz, arabic, etc. on these Bansuri. If you want to buy Indian bamboo flute then we...

www.punamflutes.com

Harmonium: Navigating the A440 Tuning Maze in Indian Music

www.musiciansmallusa.com

On the contrary this very fact that 440hz is not valid in icm, it can be a reason that indian music appeals more to mind and soul..... 440hz is a demonic freequency which was used by nazis to control over humans again i cannot verify it. If you read post 6, i have already excluded indian music.

Wow !

This thread makes for a good read..

 

[firearm12]

Here is a chart for frequency distribution of indian shrutis and western. Indian goes by ratios and western go by some magical mathematical no. These values are considering sa as C, make a note that next C after the octave is exactly double the origical C in both cases. Laws of nature are same whether its india or west.

 

[keith_correa]

I had short term obsession (story of my life! ) about this 432 vs 440 stuff a few years ago. At that time, I did a lot of reading from various sources and then concluded that it was all bunkum, IMO. I wish I had kept notes on what made me conclude this but when I read this thread I started searching some sites - I found this: https://jakubmarian.com/the-432-hz-vs-440-hz-conspiracy-theory/
From what I can remember, I think it pretty much sums up (and more!) what I concluded in the past that it was nothing but a conspiracy theory.

 

[firearm12]

I had short term obsession (story of my life! ) about this 432 vs 440 stuff a few years ago. At that time, I did a lot of reading from various sources and then concluded that it was all bunkum, IMO. I wish I had kept notes on what made me conclude this but when I read this thread I started searching some sites - I found this: https://jakubmarian.com/the-432-hz-vs-440-hz-conspiracy-theory/
From what I can remember, I think it pretty much sums up (and more!) what I concluded in the past that it was nothing but a conspiracy theory.

Nice article. Lets even agree 432hz is not better. But one important question arise what was the need to standardise (we dont standardise in india, it was not standardised in the west also before) . The writer himself says that he cannot comfirm there is no difference between psychological effects between 432 and 440hz. Lets say Bach was writing his tunes on 425, so why suddenly everyone was asked all around the world to listen to those in 440.

If it was not standardised, wont we have listened to some more variations in same music like we do in india. By standardising something like this havent that crippled musical expressions of musicians?

Writer says it was standardised on complaint of singers. Thats rubbish to me. Not every event has singers included. And by standardising they somehow diminished the value of historical musical pieces. Isnt it so. Afterall western music is fixed to a particular frequency.

Having said all this, personally i feel that some music can sound real surreal if it was on 432hz. It should be kept on the musicians and performers choice what to present to audience and on what frequency even if its not 432hz and something else. Stamdardization can cripple art.

I opened this thread to let people judge for themselves and discuss if they find 432hz music clip is better or not, but seems people are already devoted to the fact that what they are getting is good enough and do not want to experience anything new. Not much input is there for that judgement thats sad for audiophiles.