I came across this on the motherearthradio.de radio website. Would be interested in the forum’s scientists and/or musicians take on this.
“Thinkers, physicists, mathematicians, therapists and musicians have been studying a wide variety of frequencies for a long time.
We have 440 Hz, the current concert pitch for music, 432 Hz – the Vivaldi tuning, the earth tone, Pythagoras’ starting frequency and now: 429 Hz – the frequency of water – Faslak’s tone.
All the music in Mother Earth Radio’s program is tuned down to this new, ideal chamber tone. Why this is not only interesting for the musician in you, but possibly for you as an individual, and why this results in what you get to hear on Mother Earth, you can find out here!”
In 1939, the tuning pitch a was set at 440 Hz at the international concert pitch conference. However, 440 Hz or even higher vocal tones are out of the question from a biophysical point of view, as music based on them causes stress. A tuning pitch of 432 Hz is currently considered natural.
The engineering firm Lachmann calculated the ideal root note of 429 Hz (Faslak’s tone) on the basis of the periodic table of elements. This fundamental tone is resonant with all elements such as carbon, oxygen and water. This is why 429 Hz music triggers the state of complete calm and contentment described by Democritus, which he called “euthymia”.
That’s why every single music track in the program was analyzed individually and tuned as closely as possible to Faslak’s sound.”
Interesting. in point of fact in some cases it can be very simple to convert between a particular recording’s tuning and 429 to try: if you use vinyl and have speed adjustment on TT, if recorded at 440 (you may need a frequency meter to check, with some clear notes to assess), if you reduce speed to 32.5 rpm that would drop tuning to 429. It would also reduce tempo by 2.5%, but you’d soon get used to that.
With ripped/downloaded digital files you could use a program like Audacity to lower the frequency by 2.5% ( if 440), without altering tempo.
Some time when I have time to play I might have a go!
It’s all pseudoscience, so, therefore, impossible to comment on meaningfully from a physics point of view, but this statement in particular is definitively wrong. 440Hz is the A above middle C: a very easy note for female (and pre-pubescent male) singers to hit.
I also don’t seem to be able to find any current engineering companies called Lachmann on the web, which further raises my scepticism levels. On the radio station’s website, there is a blog post whose summary refers to “Crystalline water II – hexagonal water – Sylvio Lachmann explains how Professor Wolfgang Ludwig has been studying energized water since 2002.” which just sounds like more pseudoscience to me.
I’ve heard proponents of 432Hz state their case before, but this is the first time I’ve seen anyone claiming that a lower frequency is even better. Some Baroque ensembles tune to A=415Hz (for historical reasons) which, I suppose we must assume, would be even more biologically helpful!
From a hifi point of view, this sort of thing reminds me of the ‘digital music is bad for humans’ claims of Peter Belt and his followers, I think?
I prefer Bach played on organs tuned on a=465. It sounds fundamentally better.
In my small Gregorian chant group we just pick a finalis as we like based on those present (do they prefer to sing high or low), the venue and also the physical condition since a cold or a flue does not help to sing high.
Gosh, 465 is very high! I’m not blessed (= cursed) with perfect pitch, so I don’t notice these things like some people do.
Chant is particularly flexible in terms of pitch - in fact, historically, I’m convinced it was always meant to be so. Much more convenient to pick whatever range suits the singers at the time. Rather harder to do with an orchestra, though!
The bit about 429 Hz might be pseudoscience (and certainly superficially suggests itself as that to me, though I haven’t looked into it at all), but the difference between how music sounds with the slightly different tunings and which any given person may prefer is an interesting question. I suspect that for anyone musically trained or with “perfect pitch” based on learning at 440, or any other reference, anything different would likely sound wrong.
Indeed, though there’s a difference between what tuning system is being used and what the tuning reference is.
The tuning system used in more or less all pop/rock/jazz and post-Baroque classical music is equal temperament (all adjacent semitones are the same ratio apart from each other). Other tuning systems are available, such as Pythagorean, Werckmeister, meantone and many more. With the right instruments, any of these systems can be used with the tuning reference as A=440Hz, 432Hz, 415Hz or any Hertz you fancy. Using a particular tuning system in no way means that you have to use a certain tuning reference.
In my case, I have good relative pitch but not perfect pitch, so I can therefore tell when a piece is played with non-equal temperament since I can tell the intervals between notes are different. Without a separate tuning reference to compare with, though, I can’t tell in the slightest what tuning reference is being used in any piece of music.
From what’s described in the original post, it seems clear that what the radio station is doing is just tuning down entire tracks, i.e. changing the tuning reference but not the tuning system. People like me, therefore, won’t be able to tell the difference without using a separate tuning reference.
I’ve found that demonstrations of the whole ‘432Hz is better for humans than 440Hz’ theory involve playing a 440 piece of music immediately before the same piece at 432. In that case, the second one obviously sounds slightly lower which carries with it subconscious suggestions of being more relaxed, calmer etc. Heard out of this context, though, anyone without perfect pitch isn’t going to be able to tell the difference.
I’d suggest playing them completely separately with hours, if not days, between. That way you’d have a chance of a more absolute judgement, rather than always comparing A with B or B with A.
Either way, I don’t think there’s any more to this idea than unsubstantiated claims and a pile of dubious pseudoscientific flannel.
My favourites in my local church there is a new organ being build and the intonation is being done at the moment: Werckmeister III.
These old tunings are so inspiring! Playing a piece of Byrd / Bull / Sweelinck on meantone is a revelation. It makes one understand that well tempered is actually imperfect.
If they’re variations on Chladni figures (transducer in water making ripples, perhaps?), the amount of ‘harmony’ depends solely on the size of the reflecting container.
Once again, a proposed ‘explanation’ prompts many more questions than it answers.
in my local church there is a new organ being build and the intonation is being done at the moment: Werckmeister III.
