h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I'm very interested by the difference between A=440hz, post 1939 international standard and A=432hz which were the natural harmonies up to that year.
I find the 432hz tuning a clearer, brighter richer and deeper sound than the more aggressive, clanky 440hz.

A=440hz was promoted by PR man Joseph Gourbles of the Nazi party and Rockerfeller aggreed that 440hz was to be selected as world standard.

I'm having difficulty researching this subject as there isn't a great deal of info around.
I'm compiling a list of musicians that record in 432hz and they are very accumplished musicians.
I would enjoy chatting to anyone who knows of the healing properties of 432hz.
Or just contact me hear what I know of the subject.

Editorial Note: This conversation has been moved from 'How to Contribute' to 'SEx - Science Explained'.

thought this rang a bell (so to speak). Wilhelm Reich. Orgone energy. The one guy who managed to get his books burnt not only by Nazi Germany, but also by Soviet Russia AND the United States of America.

his theory was that health-giving orgone energy is all around us and healthier people have more of it than others. he built the Orgone Accumulator mainly to give Hawkwind a song title (I jest) and partly so that somebody could sit inside it and the orgone would accumulate in their body, providing a healing boost and zapping disease. If I remember rightly, he thought 432hz was the optimum frequency for healing orgone energy and designed kit to work at this frequency. Can't quite remember exactly why the Nazis exiled him and burnt his books, but they thought he was a big threat. I wonder if this was why they wanted nothing to do with 432kh as nay sort of marked frequency?

I presume you are talking about the pitch of the note A, which is the tuning note for orchestras.

Pitches have varied widely over the years, being very low or very high. Renaissance pitch was usually higher than current standard while Baroque pitch was lower.

In general, the higher the number, the brighter the sound, until you get used to it. Then you need to push the pitch higher again to make it sound brighter.

Pitch eventually was standardised at 439 Hz, but this was changed to 440 Hz by the BBC because it was easier to synthesize electronically with the equipment at hand (a reference pitch of 1,000,000 Hz and a lot of electronic dividers and multipliers).

Nowadays, orchestras are pushing the pitch up again, so that European orchestras tend to tune at 442 or 443.

I've looked at sites claiming that 432 Hz is naturally a better pitch than 440 Hz. They are almost completely wrong in every detail.

The higher the frequency, the "brighter" the sound, so 440 is a brighter sound than 432.

There's no one frequency that suits the voice best, since within any tuning, there are 12 separate keys. Setting the tuning to A = 415 Hz, and singing in Bb, for example, is exactly the same as using a tuning of A=440 and singing in A.

The sites also claim that 432 is mathematically a more harmonious frequency than 440. This is ludicrous because it is based on the completely arbitrary definition of the length of a second, which is nothing to do with nature. If mankind had defined the second as being something different, then the numerical values of all pitches would be different. So maths doesn't enter into it.

There has been a history of pitch changing over the years, but it is nothing to do with health or "human energy", or Nazis trying to impose their will on the human race.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concert_pitch#History_of_pitch_standards_in_Western_music