432Hz or 440Hz?
432Hz or 440Hz?
It’s not uncommon to hear someone say that they prefer music tuned to 432Hz. “It just sounds better to me”.
Could they really tell the difference in a blind test? It’s debatable.
Any debate about which is better, 432Hz or 440Hz, is missing the point.
Listening to sounds that are in tune with nature will have a positive effect on a cellular level. The listener can still enjoy the music were it tuned to a less ‘aligned’ frequency but this, as the study of cymatics and entrainment has shown, will cause incoherence. However slight.
A=432 Hz, known as Verdi’s ‘A’ is an alternative tuning that is mathematically consistent with the universe. Music based on 432Hz transmits beneficial healing energy, because it is a pure tone of math fundamental to nature.
The Universal Music of Sacred Geometry
According to Brian T. Collins, a musician and researcher, the standard pitch (A=440 Hz) does not harmonize on any level that corresponds to cosmic movement, rhythm, or natural vibration.
The greatest musicians, such as Mozart and Verdi, based their music on the natural vibration of A=432. It’s true that it is only 8 vibrations per second different from the standard tuning, but this small difference seems to be remarkable to our human consciousness.
There’s a growing musical and metaphysical movement for recovering optimal integrity in the music industry and spirituality through the 432 Hz tuning. In April 2008 Dutch journalist Richard Huisken founded the ‘back to 432 Hz’ committee, claiming that this original tuning was used in ancient cultures and is found on antique instruments like the Stradivarius violin.
Healing Benefits of 432Hz
According to Richard Huisken, music tuned to 432 Hz is softer and brighter, giving greater clarity and is easier on the ears. Many people experience more meditative and relaxing states of body and mind when listening to such music. The natural musical pitch of the universe gives a more harmonic and pleasant sound than 440 Hz.
432 Hz seems to work at the heart chakra, “the feeling”, and therefore could have a good influence on the spiritual development of the listener.
Guiseppe Verdi
The Verdi ‘A’
Guiseppe Verdi, the Italian composer, placed A exactly at 432 Hz. He did this because this tuning is ideal for opera voices.
Jamie Buturff, sound researcher, found out that some Tibetan monks used this tuning in their hand-made instruments. How they managed to make instruments and tune them without the aid of digital tuners is a question worth asking.
The 432 Hz tuning can be found throughout various religions and cultures of the ancient world. It seems that implementing it into the musical instruments was a good choice. Even today, many musicians report positive effects from retuning to 432 Hz, such as better audience response and a more laid-back feel to their performances.
Why 440 Hz?
This is because in 1885 it already had been decided that A at 440 Hz had to be the standard tuning. A year earlier, Guiseppe Verdi wrote a letter addressed to the Music Commission of the Italian Government. In the letter he writes:
“Since France has adopted a standard pitch, I advised that the example should also be followed by us; and I formally requested that the orchestras of various cities of Italy, among them that of the Scala [Milan], to lower the tuning fork to conform to the standard French one. If the musical commission instituted by our government believes, for mathematical exigencies, that we should reduce the 435 vibrations of French tuning fork to 432, the difference is so small, almost imperceptible to the ear, that I associate myself most willingly with this.” Guiseppe Verdi
Unfortunately, the great composer was unsuccessful in his attempt. The American Federation of Musicians accepted the A440 as the standard pitch in 1917. Around 1940 the United States introduced 440 Hz worldwide, and finally in 1953 it became the ISO 16-standard.
Before 440Hz became the standard, a variety of tunings were used. The controversy over tuning still rages, with proponents of 432Hz claiming it as being more natural than the current standard. Because of that, the “back to 432Hz” committee wants to get people acquainted with its qualities, and therefore hopes that the industry will change the musician standard.
To Understand the Power of 432Hz, let us learn about another frequency, 8Hz.
It is said that 8Hz is the fundamental “beat” of the planet. The heartbeat of the Earth is better known as The Schumann Resonance, named after physicist Winfried Otto Schumann, who documented it mathematically in 1952.
The Schumann Resonance is a global electromagnetic resonance, which has its origin in electrical discharges of lightning within the cavity existing between the Earth’s surface and the ionosphere. This cavity resonates with electromagnetic waves in the extremely low frequencies of approximately 7.86Hz – 8Hz.
It has been proven by scientific experiments that tuning into 7.83Hz, the planet's own magnetic frequency, people experience benefits like enhanced learning/memory, body rejuvenation, balance, improved stress tolerance, anti-jetlag, anti-mind control, and grounding. On the other hand, experiments conducted in which The Schumann Resonance (7.83 Hz) frequency was removed from the subjects environment. The subjects reported migraine headaches, emotional distress, and other health problems. This shows how important it is to be in tune with the Earth's magnetic frequency.
The “ordinary” thought waves created by the human brain range from 14Hz to 40Hz. This range only includes certain types of dendrites belonging to brain cells, predominantly within the left (the more rational) hemisphere of the brain, which is the center of activity.
If the two hemispheres of our brain are synchronized with each other at 8Hz, they work more harmoniously and with a maximum flow of information. In other words, the frequency of 8Hz seems to be the key to the full and sovereign activation potential of our brain.
8Hz is also the frequency of the double helix in DNA replication. Melatonin and Pinoline work on the DNA, inducing an 8Hz signal to enable metosis and DNA replication. A form of body temperature superconductivity is evident in this process.
On the musical scale where A has a frequency of 440Hz, the note C is at about 261.656 Hz. On the other hand, if we take 8Hz as our starting point and work upwards by five octaves (i.e. by the seven notes in the scale five times), we reach a frequency of 256Hz in whose scale the note A has a frequency of 432Hz.
According to the harmonic principle by which any produced sound automatically resonates all the other multiples of that frequency, when we play C at 256 Hz, the C of all other octaves also begins to vibrate in “sympathy” and so, naturally, the frequency of 8Hz is also sounded. This is why (together with many other mathematical reasons) the musical pitch tuned to 432 oscillations per second is known as the “scientific tuning.”
This tuning was unanimously approved at the Congress of Italian musicians in 1881 and recommended by the physicists Joseph Sauveur and Felix Savart as well as by the Italian scientist Bartolomeo Grassi Landi.
In contrast, the frequency chosen in London in 1953 as the worldwide reference frequency and which all music today has been tuned to, has come to be defined as ‘disharmonic’ because it has no scientific relationship to the physical laws that govern our universe.