Tuning to A - 432 Hz and not 440 Hz

[micmike]

Has anyone had much experience with this? Or any strong beliefs on true pitch? It's pretty fascinating to read about. I wonder how much it really makes a difference.

 

Read about 432 Hz here

[songsforbears]

Sounds like they've got too much time on their hands.

[Jkater]

Being slightly sharp on purpose is a way to add a little "brilliance" to a note especially in the higher register (orchestral players know about this) but being FLAT is just being out of tune. Gee!

 

The only reason I know for changing pitch would be if one instrument just can't tune to the others (like an old piano in a rehearsal room) and you want to be together.

[the_bleeding]

... too much time on hands. Not enough time spent playing.

[docjeffrey]

Radiohead tunes slightly sharp on some of their songs--or they do it in post.

 

Anyway, try to play along with The Bends some time. It pisses me off.

[westonjay]

There have been plenty of players that have tuned up or down by a few cents for example Dimebag. However it can only work on manually tuned pitched instruments that are tuned by the player before and during each performance. So if a band contains keyboards or other instruments that are pre tuned then it will just be out of tune. Maybe once it was a valid system but these days A=440 and with so much modern technology and instruments based around A=440 it would just sound out of tune.

[BoredGuitarist7]

That website seems sort of like the Nubmer 23, if anyone has seen that... Looking for everything 432 relates to.

[Mr Songwriter]

This prompted me to place small battery powered sound generators in the flower beds on my farm where I kept bee hives, and to discovering a whole new world of plant and bee intelligence.

 

Yes, that seems perfectly sensible!

 

 

*Retunes all guitars to 432 Hz*

[sqrnookle]

Total, utter BOLLOCKS.

 

Apparently, 100 years ago people could differentiate between 432hz and 440hz BECAUSE IT SOUNDS SO MUCH BETTER NO RLY BELIEVE ME HERE IS FACTS ABOUT IT WITH ARBITRARY MEANINGLESS COINCIDENCES*.

 

Two serious comments:

1) I doubt most bands seriously tune fractionally out (especially only on selected songs); more likely the master tape has been sped up or down marginally during mixing/mastering.

 

2) That said... I know that Tommy Emmanuel - when performing and recording solo - tunes his two main acoustics at (two different) non-standard frequencies, ostensibly because those particular guitars seem to resonate better (and I'm willing to believe him ).

 

 

_______

*proof of stupidity: according to this site

The speed of light is 186,000 miles per sec (guess what the square root is) 432 ! 186,000 mps also equals 1 foot per nano second, we can have a look at why imperial measurements are so significant later on.

Never mind that that's an approximation of the speed of light in the first place... miles and seconds are totally human constructs. There is nothing amazing about two arbitrary scales having a coincidental factor.

[Jim85IROC]

If what they say is true about A=432 until a hundred years ago, I would like to hear some classical music with the entire orchestra tuned to A=432 to see what it sounds like. With the whole orchestra in tune, nothing will be "out of tune" and could provide quite a nice sound.

[Burningleaves]

It was a fun read. Thanks.

[JohnCub]

Hmm, this just got me thinking.

 

One of my acoustics resonates a G#. Like, when I fully mute the strings and tap the body the "note" is a G# according to my tuner. Now I wonder if I were to change the tension by tuning to something else, would this change? Interesting. I may do that, though I do dislike alternate tunings and "dropped anything."

[jrockbridge]

I prefer tuning down really low with an acoustic. Then, I go to the beach and talk to the whales through my guitar.

 

:poke:

[nwtsnma]

 

... too much time on hands. Not enough time spent playing.

 

 

you could equally say that about the person that assigned letters to frequencies and invented an entire geometry based upon that

[hshaitan]

Right... that article was insane. It almost sounds like they are trying to invoke some sort of witchcraft to make magical music...

[nwtsnma]

 

Right... that article was insane. It almost sounds like they are trying to invoke some sort of witchcraft to make magical music...

 

 

kind of like pythagoras was doing

[Ratae Corieltauvorum]

There's a whole lot of stuff about 432.

 

My buddies wife, a Moscow conservatoire trained pianist has two pianos at home, a samick she teaches on is 440 and her Yamaha is tuned to 432

 

http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=432Hz&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a

[Hupia]

If you're really interested in tuning perfection... listen to Harry Partch's music. You might not like it, but he re organized the tuning system so that it was perfect mathematically (which our standard tuning system is not). He even built his own instruments adapted to it.

[jrockbridge]

^ Maybe you've got to be a math wiz to understand Harry Partch's music.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mOHBqFevy0k

[YOUTUBE]mOHBqFevy0k[/YOUTUBE]

[Armchair Bronco]

If you want to play along with AC/DC, you need something like a Korg CA-30 tuner. It lets you tune up (or down) to the whacked out tunings that AC/DC used, allegedly by accident.

 

The story is that everyone else would tune up to the first guy who showed up in the studio. So AC/DC has songs at 429 Hz, 432 Hz, 447 Hz and everything in between.

[jrockbridge]

 

If you want to play along with AC/DC, you need something like a Korg CA-30 tuner. It lets you tune up (or down) to the whacked out tunings that AC/DC used, allegedly by accident. The story is that everyone else would tune up to the first guy who showed up in the studio. So AC/DC has songs at 429 Hz, 432 Hz, 447 Hz and everything in between.

 

 

 

Actually, the early AC/DC studio tracks were often sped up or slowed down slightly so that Bon Scott could more easily sing the vocals. At least, that's what I've read.

[Armchair Bronco]

^ Yeah. If Bon Scott had been drinking the night before, they slowed things down. If he had been doing amphetamines that morning, then they speeded things up.

[jrockbridge]

Here's an example of music in A = 432 Hz tuning. I do not find it more appealing. In fact, I find this sounds a bit shrill to my ears. But, maybe that's just because I'm not used to it.

 

[YOUTUBE]A-g9fVmHT1o[/YOUTUBE]

[mrbrown49]

I'm not sure this applies as much to modern music, but I've talked to some classical musicians who've studied this. Apparently it made a big difference in tone on the old world stringed instruments.

[MatteusNova]

 

If what they say is true about A=432 until a hundred years ago, I would like to hear some classical music with the entire orchestra tuned to A=432 to see what it sounds like. With the whole orchestra in tune, nothing will be "out of tune" and could provide quite a nice sound.

 

 

No problem, try and find some Baroque play on periodical instruments, from say 1660 to 1710 you can find that Italina, French, German, English etc all had A tuned to a different frequency. I have quite a few of recordings like that.