Music and Frequency

[RockyStar]

Interesting

[PLX]

I set my digital tuner's concert pitch to 413Hz.

Have for many years.

I just think it "feels' better.

[harddriver]

Interesting indeed........harmonic dissonance...........

[harddriver]

[Watson503]

This is a subject I've found very interesting, there's an extreme metal zine I like to read called Bardo Methodology and the guy who writes it has brought the subject up in interviews with musicians who are also interested in this subject several times over the past couple of years. Kinda pressed for time as I should be working at the moment but here's just a bit I copied and pasted from a past interview in BM #3:

I’m not knowledgeable enough about musical theory to draw any meaningful personal conclusions, and my rather diligent attempts at fact-checking were somewhat inconclusive. While claims from seemingly credible sources go both ways, there’s undeniably quite a few remarkable correlations pertaining to the frequency in question – not to mention the number itself. Ultimately, judging by the available facts, I suppose it boils down to what one is willing to write off as purely coincidental. Taking a Nordic example, the following is an excerpt from the Poetic Edda:

Five hundred doors and forty
I think there are in Valhall
eight hundred Einheriar will pass through a single door
when they march out to fight the wolf
540 doors that each produce eight-hundred einherjar to face the Wolf Age – that’s 432,000. Which, as it happens, is the ‘number of the aeon’ in ancient Sumer and Babylon; ending one age and beginning another, the proverbial dawn of a new day. Rg Veda, the sacred texts of Vedic spirituality and the world’s oldest known written work, contains exactly 432,000 syllables. It’s also the amount of years in Kali Yuga – final stage of Mahayuga, the great cycle of ages which in turn lasts 4,320,000 years. Each twelve-hour day and night period consists of 43,200 seconds. There are numerous other examples – from ancient temples in India and Indonesia having 432 Buddha statues, to golfing brand Wilson determining that a golf ball with 432 dimples went farther than any other. Proponents of Pythagorean tuning believe it to be mathematically consistent with the universe, and thus in perfect tune with the human body and mind.

– I thought that if there’s any truth to this, it must be a useful means for someone who wants his music to resonate with the sinister and numinous in nature – a good way to reach the gods through sound, so to speak, and such was its purpose on the album. There’s much debate about whether this is truth or myth, which data is correct; scientific, spiritual… whatever, I don’t care about that. I tried and it immediately felt as if the songs had more room to breathe.

The reason given for why Pythagorean tuning supposedly sounds more pleasant to the ear is that it’s based on a cycle of perfect fifths, which is the musical interval that corresponds to a pair of pitches with a frequency ratio of 3:2. I have no idea what this means. Nevertheless, studies have shown how frequencies in different tones have inherent characteristics which all interact uniquely with humans. Music researcher Maria Renold conducted a series of aural experiments on more than two thousand people in several countries over twenty years. She would subject volunteers to sounds tuned to either A440 or A432 – with notes in varying order and conveyed through different instruments, in a bid to neutralise preferential prejudice. The results were quite remarkable, she found that about ninety percent favoured the Pythagorean variety, using terms such as ‘right, complete, pleasant, radiant, peaceful, harmonious’. 440 Hz was equally polarising, mostly rendering feedback along the lines of ‘irritating, unpleasant, aggressive, making one stressful and nervous’.

[RockyStar]

I set my digital tuner's concert pitch to 413Hz.

Have for many years.

I just think it "feels' better.

Elaborate

[PLX]

Elaborate

At the time I did that, I was learning a lot of Nuno Bettencourt riffs and the legacy Van Halen stuff, which was all tuned a half-step flat
( A = 415.3047hz )

But as we all know, the Van Halen stuff off the first 4 albums was really all over the place when it comes to Ed's tuning on each individual song.

I settled on a tuning that works pretty well across all those tracks without constantly re-tuning a guitar with a floating Floyd tremolo system.

[RockyStar]

Elaborate

At the time I did that, I was learning a lot of Nuno Bettencourt riffs and the legacy Van Halen stuff, which was all tuned a half-step flat
( A = 415.3047hz )

But as we all know, the Van Halen stuff off the first 4 albums was really all over the place when it comes to Ed's tuning on each individual song.

I settled on a tuning that works pretty well across all those tracks without constantly re-tuning a guitar with a floating Floyd tremolo system.

Cool deal. Makes sense!