432Hz

You may have seen an orchestra tune their instruments at the start of a performance.  Is there a specific pitch they tune to? Who sets that initial pitch?  How do we know if the principal violist is right?  Technically it doesn’t matter if the principal violist is “right”, what matters is whether everyone else is tuned to her.  However, most orchestra’s these days use a tuning fork for the violist to get a precise note. 

Generally, this tuning fork is constructed to vibrate a certain amount, ie. 440 times per second.  When tuning is done to this standard we say the orchestra is tuned to A440.  In modern history this has become the standard pitch for the note A. In 1953, a worldwide agreement was established setting A440 as the global standard.  As it turns out this note has varied throughout the centuries.  In general, there has been a phenomena of “pitch inflation”.  That is, a note played today is conventionally higher than how it was played in the past.   

The value of A had varied depending on the year and region.  A, equal to 435hz and 432hz were commonly used in the pre-modern era.  Recently 432hz or Verdi’s A, has started to gain notoriety.  Verdi apparently believed tuning to this note provided the best sound for singers’ voices in opera.  Many researchers today would agree.  It is commonly believed that music tuned to this frequency is easier to listen to, brighter, clearer, and contains more inherent dynamic range. Perhaps this is because the interval of the perfect fifth is particularly close to the golden ratio when A=432 is used.  Or perhaps it is because 432 Hz resonates with 8 Hz (the Schumann Resonance), the documented fundamental electromagnetic “beat” of Earth.  

Masaru Emoto (1943 – 2014) was a Japanese researcher who dedicated his life to the “language” of the water. What he discovered is that “water” has a memory and is able to store information.He found that water reacts differently according to the information it receives and will crystalize in more or less aesthetic forms accordingly.  When water is exposed to words of kindness, love, or empathy, it will freeze into very symmetric fractal snowflake patterns.  However when exposed to negative energy the crystals seem to lose all semblance of structure.  It is apparent that water responds to 432hz as it would to words of love.  Additionally water exposed to 432 music will retain its structure enough to postpone the spoil and rot of organic material submerged within (ZU, 2015).  As water constitutes about two-thirds of every human, it stands to reason that 432 hz music would have similar effects on our very physical make-up.
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It is becoming more common to hear that 432 Hz  has a positive influence on the spiritual development of the listeners.  Researchers find that subjects feel calmer, happier and  more relaxed when playing and listening to music tuned to 432 Hz (Calamassi & Pomponi, 2019).   Test it for yourself.  Numerous websites provide access to music tuned to 432hz.  How do you feel after listening?



Bibliography Calamassi, D., & Pomponi, G. P. (2019, July). Music Tuned to 440 Hz Versus 432 Hz and the Health Effects: A Double-blind Cross-over Pilot Study. Explore Journal, 15(No.4), 283-290. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31031095/ ZU, A. (2015, June). 432 Hz the tuning that resonates with life. https://www.zumusic.org/