I have met some very competent musicians who have found 432 tuning to be powerfully effective. When I dug into this, I discovered they were tuning the other notes in the scal to frequencies in whole numbered cycles per second, using tables being passed around. So the real change was in the qualities of intervals; many of these became far more resonant than the compromised resonant qualities we get with equal tempered tuning. This trade-off was once well known in the musical world, but it is now long forgotten. I consider "432" to be a symbol that suggests the restoration of forgotten methods for tuning scales, rather than a literal value to be used to proportionally change the frequency of every note.
The “432 Hz vs. 440 Hz” conspiracy theory
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Re: The “432 Hz vs. 440 Hz” conspiracy theory
#52Earlier quoted context omitted.
Just curious - what exactly is a double music major? (I always have heard of double majors as being separate subjects.)
I think they mean that chose to major in , with music as a second (additional) major.
Possible also they got to different music degrees, in say, Composition/Theory and Trombone Performance.
Re: The “432 Hz vs. 440 Hz” conspiracy theory
#53Just wait until the conspiracy nuts learn about the tunings that affect the distance between notes, not just the shift! (I'm surprised my double music major is useful somewhere).
Just curious - what exactly is a double music major? (I always have heard of double majors as being separate subjects.)
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Re: The “432 Hz vs. 440 Hz” conspiracy theory
#54Fascinating stuff. I have never pondered the arbitrariness of musical tunings (probably because I am not a musician).
However, if these tunings and notes vary so much, what does it mean when one claims that they have 'perfect pitch'? Is it an ability that uses the relative distance between notes? That is, given an A they can identify the C?
Re: The “432 Hz vs. 440 Hz” conspiracy theory
#55Just wait until the conspiracy nuts learn about the tunings that affect the distance between notes, not just the shift! (I'm surprised my double music major is useful somewhere).
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Re: The “432 Hz vs. 440 Hz” conspiracy theory
#56There has been considerable pitch inflation over time... Back in the 1700's tunings as low as A400 weren't unusual, and even lower wasn't unheard of.
Re: The “432 Hz vs. 440 Hz” conspiracy theory
#57As a Frenchman, I chuckled at "In Britain, however, the French standard was interpreted in an erroneous way, due to which British orchestras commonly tuned to A = 439 Hz." NOTE: I hope the word chuckle isn't interpreted as condescending, I only meant that this story is almost a perfect parable for our relationship with Great Britain throughout history, one of mutual defiance and refusal to acknowledge the other party…
> our relationship with Great Britain throughout history
I've been watching some episodes of "Yes Minister", a British comedy show from about 30 years ago, and it's weird how much is still relevant.
Re: The “432 Hz vs. 440 Hz” conspiracy theory
#58As a Frenchman, I chuckled at "In Britain, however, the French standard was interpreted in an erroneous way, due to which British orchestras commonly tuned to A = 439 Hz." NOTE: I hope the word chuckle isn't interpreted as condescending, I only meant that this story is almost a perfect parable for our relationship with Great Britain throughout history, one of mutual defiance and refusal to acknowledge the other party…
As a Brit, my reaction to a Frenchman is one of disgust as I reach for my insults. Yet there are few countries I would turn to so quickly in the search for a sane and good friend. Perhaps it is easiest to say: Where the USA has Russia, we have France. Where the USA has Canada, we have France.
Does it work the other way? I'm Canadian and a huge part of our culture is defined by the ways we are unlike Americans.
Can't imagine Anglo-French culture works quite like that.
Re: The “432 Hz vs. 440 Hz” conspiracy theory
#59A second is also pretty close to the time between adult heartbeats at rest. There is some evidence that the human heart rate can quicken or slow in accordance with rhythm in music. Wonder if that changes anyone's argument in here.
Re: The “432 Hz vs. 440 Hz” conspiracy theory
#60As a Frenchman, I chuckled at "In Britain, however, the French standard was interpreted in an erroneous way, due to which British orchestras commonly tuned to A = 439 Hz." NOTE: I hope the word chuckle isn't interpreted as condescending, I only meant that this story is almost a perfect parable for our relationship with Great Britain throughout history, one of mutual defiance and refusal to acknowledge the other party…
It's not just French/Britain. The book "How music works" describes how each country and, hell, cities, had different tunings, so an Italian singer with a perfect pitch visiting Germany cannot really perform. Maybe just the local organ builder had a different tuning fork when building the church and everyone tuned from there :)
Similar to how people didn't have standard time until relatively recently and the one clock at the town square can be off by quite a bit with the next town.