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The “432 Hz vs. 440 Hz” conspiracy theory

jakubmarian.com

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Re: The “432 Hz vs. 440 Hz” conspiracy theory

#301

Post by teilo »

tetraodonpuffer wrote: post #82
haberman wrote: post #43

> orchestras specializing in older music may sometimes tune in the tuning close to the one for which the piece was originally written, which may range from 415 Hz to 470 Hz). I can say as someone who performs a lot of Baroque music (c. 1600 - 1750) that there is a relatively common standard of A=415 for music of this period. A=415 is often referred to as "Baroque pitch." This mainly applies to ensembles that speciali…

it also depends if you are performing in ensembles together with historical instruments that can't change their pitch, or on those instruments on their own, for example for organs you can find examples up to A=465 This said I think it's more fun to talk about temperaments than absolute pitch, after all unless you have absolute pitch I don't think you can hear much of a difference between something played at 432 or 44…

Yes, but temperament is really only a part of the discussion when we are talking about instruments that can actually be tuned to different temperaments: pianos, harpsichords, organs, etc. Strings and woodwinds, for example, cannot.

Re: The “432 Hz vs. 440 Hz” conspiracy theory

#302

Post by harrumph »

zodiac wrote: post #258
raldi wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right, the second sentence describes a conspiracy theory, and the end of the article dismisses this theory. The person you were replying to concurs with this dismissal, and presents additional evidence.

No I think the person I was replying doesn't know that the article dismisses the conspiracy theory. I might be wrong > I have no idea why this laughable article/idea persists

You are wrong about that. This is the third or fourth time I've seen this dippy nonsense in print, and I wish it did not persist. Its central sin is that it obscures the mundane, industrial-based reasons for the tuning standard's emergence.

Re: The “432 Hz vs. 440 Hz” conspiracy theory

#303

Post by pge »

phire wrote: post #176
mrb wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"if you take a track and play it a little bit faster or slower it still sounds great or awful as at the default speed in most cases." Yup. Another example: in most of the world (where the television system is PAL or SECAM) movies are played on TV or released on DVD at 25 frame per second. But to achieve this frame rate, they take the theatrical film release at 24 fps and speed the video and audio up by 25/24th (4.17%…

Of course almost nobody knows this because nobody notices it. Though, I can now instantly tell if I'm watching a PAL or NTSC version of Star Trek TNG based on the the first few bars of the opening song. Which is weird, because I don't even have pitch perfect hearing and I'm not even that musically inclined.

Might not be the change in pitch you are noticing but the speed of the music

Re: The “432 Hz vs. 440 Hz” conspiracy theory

#304

Post by pimlottc »

phire wrote: post #176
mrb wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"if you take a track and play it a little bit faster or slower it still sounds great or awful as at the default speed in most cases." Yup. Another example: in most of the world (where the television system is PAL or SECAM) movies are played on TV or released on DVD at 25 frame per second. But to achieve this frame rate, they take the theatrical film release at 24 fps and speed the video and audio up by 25/24th (4.17%…

Of course almost nobody knows this because nobody notices it. Though, I can now instantly tell if I'm watching a PAL or NTSC version of Star Trek TNG based on the the first few bars of the opening song. Which is weird, because I don't even have pitch perfect hearing and I'm not even that musically inclined.

I know what you mean, when I was living in Australia I could swear the voices sounded off on The Simpsons.

Re: The “432 Hz vs. 440 Hz” conspiracy theory

#305

Post by sesqu »

nonbel wrote: post #295
sesqu wrote: post #288

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I understand you correctly, you are advocating for defining the second such that its length varies, but its connection to a day does not? And you would also introduce locality to the definition? edit : Or perhaps you meant to tune variably, and not redefine the second. That sounds more sensible, but not as practical.

Here is the scheme which I am thinking may better link timekeeping to biological clocks: A day is defined as sunrise to sundown. A night is defined as sundown to sunrise. Every day consists of 12 hours. Every night consists of 12 hours. Each hour consists of 60 minutes. Each minute consists of 60 seconds. There are always 60*60*12 = 43,200 seconds each day and night. Within a given day or night every second is of equ…

I see. I can't really get on board with a system where half an an hour at lunch is twice as long as half an hour at dinner, and I have a suspicion that it would actually further mire arguments about music pitch, but it's certainly a funny thought.

Re: The “432 Hz vs. 440 Hz” conspiracy theory

#306

Post by rspeer »

mxfh wrote: post #285
rspeer wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's something special about 432 Hz that has nothing to do with how the music is perceived -- if you're tuning the traditional way, by forming fifths above and below A as ratios of 3/2 and 2/3, then a lot of the numbers you hit are nice integer numbers of hertz as well, because 432 is 2^4 * 3^3. Meaningless in practice, but it makes it convenient to describe the tuning of, for example, a stringed instrument.

If it's a high composite number is all you need, then why not define 440 Hz as any highly composite number of your liking, ignore the SI-related-fractions and don't worry about odd ratios anymore. Or is this more about an issue with cumbersome input on digital (tuning) devices? Just to pick two: 45360/100 is not that far away either 55440 (a superior highly composite number , 2ˆ4 ⋅ 3ˆ2 ⋅ 5 ⋅ 7 ⋅ 11 ) would have a bui…

Well, we've never really used prime factors of 7 and 11 in Western music.

Even introducing the factors of 5 creates centuries of complications (temperament) that caused us to finally give up and throw out all the integer factors, replacing them with the twelfth root of 2.

(Anyone who wants to reply saying that factors of 7 explain "blue notes", please be specific about how this works. I think this is a fictitious idea in music theory that propagates itself because it would be really cool if it were true, but the usual explanations produce false predictions.)

Re: The “432 Hz vs. 440 Hz” conspiracy theory

#307

Post by harperlee »

jmiserez wrote: post #261
nullc wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"mpv -speed 1.1 file.webm" ... get 10% of your watching things time back, it does pitch correction, often its unnoticeable. Technology can work in your favor too!

VLC can do this too: Speed up: ] key Speed down: [ key Normal speed: = key

I am used to speed up things, but last weekend I suddenly realised I can also slow down engrenages (a French show recommended in another HN thread, by the way) and suddenly I can understand so. much. French. It's like magic!

Re: The “432 Hz vs. 440 Hz” conspiracy theory

#308

Post by harperlee »

ytpete wrote: post #243
tikhonj wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm guessing you've watched a lot of Star Trek? I figure this is just the human mind's wonderful proclivity towards learning patterns. I was actually thinking about a similar but less subtle example: I use a transit system that involves tagging on and off with an RFID card (Clipper on Caltrain). When you tag your card, it makes one of three different noises depending on what happen—and I couldn't possibly tell you wh…

I wouldn't be surprised if there was some psychology behind the choice of sounds when you tag the transit card. Just like visual "affordances" in UI design, there may be certain audio characteristics that people will associate with "good" vs. "error," for example. I recall one study showing that people almost universally feel certain shapes and word sounds are "friendlier" than others (albeit by very subtle margins).…

I can list at least three linked ones: with two beeps, if the second's pitch is higher, means "on" or "ok" or "up", whereas if the second's pitch is lower, the other way around.

A fantastic book on how these are all related is "metaphors we live by". I'd expand on this but I'm typing on mobile and on a hurry. But seriously: read the book. It takes a long afternoon. It's great, short, illuminating, and not excessively dense or padded.

Re: The “432 Hz vs. 440 Hz” conspiracy theory

#309

Post by ptaipale »

nkrisc wrote: post #299
ptaipale wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The one whose inheritance is next squandered on highly priced meditation chakra recordings and excessively expensive hoax high-end audio equipment? (From Youtube to purchasing mail order junk...)

Who's to say you're going to inherit anything anyway? Maybe they've willed it all to charity.

And I might not even care so much about the inheritance, but I might want the old parents to have something saved up for the old age so they're not completely at the mercy of the welfare system...

(Not something I worry about personally, parents long gone).

Re: The “432 Hz vs. 440 Hz” conspiracy theory

#310

Post by tpeo »

timehastoldme wrote: post #242
tpeo wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, I'm assuming that the ease or difficulty of recognizing the difference between two notes bears some proportion to difference between their frequencies (the frequency of one minus that of the other), and not just their relative frequencies. The intervals in the 432Hz are "tighter" in the sense that, because the interval they correspond to in 440Hz is smaller for every possible interval, there are more notes in 4…

Ok, I see what you mean. Then most songs would sound 'better' a half-step down, etc.

I wouldn't say that's the case for most songs, but rather only for simple melodies. But yeah, a graver voice would sound better in most cases.

Consider the beggining of Bach's "Little" Fugue in G Minor (BWV 578), where the subject of the fugue is first introduced by a soprano voice and then repeated by an alto voice, while the soprano voice does the coutersubject. I'd say that, played in isolation, the melody sounds better when sung by the alto voice. But lowering the whole Fugue by a half-step wouldn't make it much better.

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