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The “432 Hz vs. 440 Hz” conspiracy theory

jakubmarian.com

311–320 of 332 posts

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

#311
I helped do a lot of costumer relations for a music instrument maker who makes fixed-tuning instruments (which cannot be retuned by players, it's a fine art).

By nature of the instrument, we had a lot of relatively mystical-minded customers, and a solid subset inquired about the availability of instruments tuned to a 432 Hz reference.

What was interesting is that there is indeed a difference in 'feel' (character, vibe...) for most acoustic instruments when you tune them down e.g. to an alternative, lower, pitch reference. (Because most aspects of the system are either non-linear e.g. our sensitivity to various pitches, and maybe some sort of psychoacoustic quasi-significance assignment... ... or because simply they are changing one term in a function, e.g. given a fixed thickness of vibrating membrane, tuning it to a different pitch yields a different relationship to the many 'modes' in the system akin to standing waves... etc etc etc)

There's nothing mystical about it all of course... but the vibe changes, and many people prefer a slightly lower pitch, and now it is 'carried' by the instruments.

Then you get fuzzy thinking... I like this better, it feels better, QED an alternative pitch reference is the key to life itself.

What's funny in my experience is that our specific instrument did not have a fixed equal tempered tuning anyway, for technical reasons... so even with a 432 Hz A reference, the pitch values for say C# or F# were not === what they 'should' be according to 432 Hz adherents.

But try explaining that gently to an adherent... especially in the context of kindly debunking their mysticism around this topic...

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

#312
post #305
post #295

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

>"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"

Move to the equator? J/k, I would not think this system would be law, or used for all purposes. Despite the huge pain that dealing with timestamps from various locations can sometimes be today, I suspect my scheme would make it more difficult to synchronize long distance activities.

It would more be a chill, get back to nature, type of timekeeping. Used at resorts and rehab centers.

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

#313
post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I'm sorry for being wrong then, but I'm still a bit confused - which part of the article is inaccurate?

> Its central sin is that it obscures the mundane, industrial-based reasons for the tuning standard's emergence.

The article claims that tuning standards emerged because pitch inflation lead to problems for singers, is that inaccurate?

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

#314
post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> For NTSC, the film release is sped down by a much smaller amount (0.1%) during the 3:2 pulldown to adjust from 30 to the exact 29.97 fps that NTSC needs. No. For NTSC they just drop (throw away) 1 frame from every 1000 frames, so there's no speed-up or speed-down in audio track.

There must be a speed-up since the audio track is not divided into frames. Dropping a 33ms chunk of audio would be very noticeable.

No, you don't have to alter audio in any way, you just leave it untouched.

Let's say you have 100 seconds of film material with corresponding audio duration. That would be exactly 2400 frames, because film is 24 fps. When you do 2:3 pulldown (that's one of the methods used to do telecine, i.e. film conversion to television format) you'll get back exactly 3000 video frames. But in NTSC format, (if you'll leave audio untouched, i.e. it's duration didn't change, it's still is 100 seconds) for 100 seconds of video duration you must display 2997 video frames, not 3000. So you just throw away 1 frame from every 1000 frames to get the exact 29.97 fps.

Doing this, at worst case you'll get audio/video desynchronization of 33 ms, which I don't think is noticeable (I tend to visually notice desynchronization when it's at about 100 ms or more). But if you'll drop that 1 excessive frame in the middle (not at the end) of the sequence of 1000 frames, you'll get audio/video desynchronization which only varies from -16 ms to +16 ms. Which is not worth the trouble of fixing this by going the other way around it: leaving video untouched and slowing down the audio by 0.1%.

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

#315
post #310

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

With respect to recorded music it tends to be the opposite: if you pitch up a track then the rhythm feels tighter and the vocals more steady, because the differences between the intent and the performance are relatively smaller. Hence an old studio trick dating at least back to the Chipmunks was to record in a lower key. Listener discrimination seems relatively less important in practice, on the other hand.

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

#316
post #108

I have been following this for years, being both a sound engineer and a bit of a hippie who knows a lot of other hippies. The basic issue is that 432 is a numerologically interesting number compared to 440. So if it's more interesting it should be better for artistic purposes, goes the argument. However this falls flat as soon as you consider that the 432 is only interesting relative to the completely arbirtrary dura…

"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%…

There's a really interesting video by Matt Parker about why 29.97 is the magic number.[1]

[1]: https://youtu.be/3GJUM6pCpew

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

#317

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Another example is the kind of dastardly television trick of increasing the speed of a television program to shorten it and thus increase the amount of advertising space that can be run alongside the program. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z6i1VVikRu0 This video claims that TBS is currently increasing the speed of Seinfeld episodes a whopping 9%, reducing a 25 minute episode to some 22.5 minutes.

You absolutely see it in TBS broadcasts of Family Guy, where they can get away with speeding up the show without impacting its look and feel tremendously.

Can't skip frames when there are none.

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

#318
post #313

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I'm sorry for being wrong then, but I'm still a bit confused - which part of the article is inaccurate? > Its central sin is that it obscures the mundane, industrial-based reasons for the tuning standard's emergence. The article claims that tuning standards emerged because pitch inflation lead to problems for singers, is that inaccurate?

No apology needed!

And yes, the tuning standard emerged from the wishes of the owner of a single mallet instrument factory in Chicago named Deagan.

http://richsamuels.com/nbcmm/deagan/index.html

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

#319
post #217
post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nah. We evolved to be superstitious. It's evolutionarily advantageous. Why? Because it's much less costly to develop a random incorrect superstition than it is to miss an important correlation. How harmful is it to meditate to 432Hz compared to... well maybe without that superstition they wouldn't even meditate at all. It's probably advantageous, even though it's bullshit. As long as they aren't engaging in harmful b…

I would argue that "not letting it go" is equally harmless and to be permitted to the same degree that you propose otherwise.

Sorry for the late response, but correcting someone often has social costs. It takes time and energy, and can cause people discomfort and can weaken friendships.

It can also make them stronger, I'm not proposing you always ignore superstitions. Just ignore them when there's a cost and minimal payoff.

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

#320
post #46

Decided to try searching this and found this lovely site: > 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 https://attunedvibrations.com/432hz/ Oh new age pseudo science. My mom loves this stuff and I never fully understood why. My sister gets…

Eh-- pick your battles. If family members get a positive placebo effect from listening to "5 Hours High Quality BEST 432hz Meditation Healing Chakra" on YouTube...Who cares?

It's the same reasoning behind Steve Jobs choosing quackery over medicine to treat his cancer.
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