# A=432hz "Scientific Pitch" Valid or just another number?



## Doug Gifford (Jun 8, 2019)

I'm a firm believer in the validity of temperaments. Scientific Pitch? Not so much. But I know people who are wedded to this notion.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_pitch


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## Mikev7305 (Jan 6, 2020)

I tried keeping my acoustic Tuned to 432 for a while, and I found it easier to sing to mainly. It is a pretty relaxing sound. But music doesn't always need to be relaxing, sometimes I want angry or awkward sounding. Its an odd thing, but I wasn't ever satisfied with anything other than calming music on it. 

I also think it's all arbitrary. A cycle of a wave over a second, who decides the length of a second? What if way back we decided that instead of a day being split into 24hrs of 60 minutes of 60 seconds, it was 20 hours of who knows how many minutes and seconds. And a second instead lasted 1.3175839x the length of our normal second. Then the "scientific pitch" would be different as well because the common denominator would be different. 

It's just an easy way to do quick math on round numbers is all I think. 

Now let's talk about tuning our instruments to intervals of the schummann resonance 7.83hz. Maybe that will do some magic for the world?


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## bw66 (Dec 17, 2009)

I know a few people who have "discovered" A432 and swore by it's superiority for weeks on end... until they didn't.

Our brains crave novelty and often equate "different" with "better", so the first time it hears A432 it says "Whoa!" Once it gets used to A432, it hears A440 and says "Whoa!", but not quite as loud.


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## Mooh (Mar 7, 2007)

I'm not concerned about it at all. To me, it's all just frequency, all of which is governed by physics but manipulated by mankind for its pleasure. Standardizing concert pitch, a clever contrivance of man, works for the convenience of all. My general feeling about it is get over it and get on with making music. It's okay to do it differently, but expecting anyone else to bend to a new standard is ridiculous. 

Though I can certainly hear the difference, I never tune outside of 440 unless another instrument I'm playing with is not easily tuned. I've done sessions with various folk instruments, accordions, pianos, and keyboards that were sharp or flat and forced everyone else to tune to them. That's fine in the moment, for the moment. If I'm left for long periods without a tuner or reference pitch, something I've done while camping/cottaging a few times, I've noticed that I naturally drift flat a bit. Not sure why other than my ear isn't perfect. Generally though I carry a tuning fork if not an electronic tuner.


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## Mikev7305 (Jan 6, 2020)

Mooh said:


> If I'm left for long periods without a tuner or reference pitch, something I've done while camping/cottaging a few times, I've noticed that I naturally drift flat a bit.


That happens to me all the time. Every restring I tune to what I guess is correct tuning and I'm never sharp, maybe 10% of the time bang on, but usually somewhere between Eb and E. So maybe 432 is a more natural frequency to me


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## gtrguy (Jul 6, 2006)

Makes scientific calculations easier, musically meaningless.


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## 2N1305 (Nov 2, 2009)

I tune to whatever song I'm playing to. Or recently, my piano. On which I don't know how to adjust the pitch (Casio CDP-100)


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## Paul M (Mar 27, 2015)

I can't recall which company, (kurzweil? Sequential circuits??), but in the 80's one synth manufacturer set the default pitch to A=442. Not enough to sound horribly out of tune, but enough to make the synth sound a bit brighter and stand out from the competition.


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## starjag (Jan 30, 2008)

Science. Lol. It's a useful number when you want to play with others.


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## mawmow (Nov 14, 2017)

I guess it inspired James Taylor for his « sweetened tuning »…


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## Brian Johnston (Feb 24, 2019)

There's a reason why Rockefeller (a non-musician) put in the money and clout to push toward 440Hz. Why? People don't even know that down-tuning and frequency changes were done purposely on albums for decades.


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## Hammerhands (Dec 19, 2016)

My guitar teacher tuned to A444 and I usually tune to that.

But you tune to the piano if there's a piano.


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## Delores Streisand (Nov 4, 2018)

The time period of a “second” is essentially a completely arbitrary duration. So any particular number of cycles per second is also arbitrary. I don’t see how any one tuning reference is more “scientific” than another.


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## mrmatt1972 (Apr 3, 2008)

Scientific pitch is just math people playing with numbers. The whole idea is that every “C” is a whole number. concert pitch changed over the years based on the strings available to orchestra players and the size/volume needed. Higher pitched notes travel better and seem louder, too high and strings break. 440 is a nice compromise but far from the only option.


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## Robert1950 (Jan 21, 2006)

I am going to wait on this until there verified, repeatable, peer-reviewed scientific evidence supporting a calming (ASMR) response to A432.


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## Mark Brown (Jan 4, 2022)

Delores Streisand said:


> The time period of a “second” is essentially a completely arbitrary duration. So any particular number of cycles per second is also arbitrary. I don’t see how any one tuning reference is more “scientific” than another.


That is true in the sense of the perceived mathematics. Thet truth ends when you consider the sonics of it. I'm not saying I know the bloody difference however one cannot say there is not. Right or wrong it generates a whole new auditory response.


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## BlueRocker (Jan 5, 2020)

I will resist the government A432 mandates. A440 is a natural right.


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## Doug Gifford (Jun 8, 2019)

BlueRocker said:


> I will resist the government A432 mandates. A440 is a natural right.


fwiw, the two people I know who play consistently in 432 and preach its virtues also attended the trucker protest in Ottawa last year.


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## Always12AM (Sep 2, 2018)

I am not playing Brian May inspired Gustav Holst scores for arenas full of music professors and architects. So I’m more than happy with my little 440 headstock dinger.


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## paraedolia (Nov 26, 2008)

The A432 thing is homeopathy for musicians
Pseudoscientific garbage






(and so is ASMR BTW)


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## laristotle (Aug 29, 2019)

meh .. close enough for rock n' roll


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## Delores Streisand (Nov 4, 2018)

Mark Brown said:


> That is true in the sense of the perceived mathematics. Thet truth ends when you consider the sonics of it. I'm not saying I know the bloody difference however one cannot say there is not. Right or wrong it generates a whole new auditory response.


Well, yah. I know the difference. A=432 is lower than A=440. A=420 or A=450 would sound different than A=440 too. All of those numbers are completely arbitrary, though. There’s no “science” behind choosing one over the other.


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## Mark Brown (Jan 4, 2022)

Delores Streisand said:


> There’s no “science” behind choosing one over the other.


There sure isn't!


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## Moosehead (Jan 6, 2011)

Music Tuned to 440 Hz Versus 432 Hz and the Health Effects: A Double-blind Cross-over Pilot Study - PubMed


The data suggests that 432 Hz tuned music can decrease heart rate more than 440 Hz tuned music. The study results suggest repeating the experiment with a larger sample pool and introducing randomized controlled trials covering more clinical parameters.




pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov





google science research first link I clicked on. Not saying I’m convinced but there is some research behind it. 
I did it years ago. Matches better with the CFH pantera album but that’s about it. My trial wasn’t exactly scientific. Just thought I’d google it to stir the pot.


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## Doug Gifford (Jun 8, 2019)

Delores Streisand said:


> The time period of a “second” is essentially a completely arbitrary duration. So any particular number of cycles per second is also arbitrary. I don’t see how any one tuning reference is more “scientific” than another.


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## Delores Streisand (Nov 4, 2018)

Doug Gifford said:


> View attachment 446512


Exactly.

Scientists have developed a very exact definition for a completely arbitrary period of time. There is a physical basis for the concept of a “day”… the time it takes the earth to rotate around its axis. As originally determined, even that is rather imprecise. But setting that aside for the moment, it‘s completely arbitrary that society decided to divide a day into 24 hours, an hour into 60 minutes and a minute into 60 seconds. If 20 hours in a day, 100 minutes in an hour and 100 seconds in a minute had been chosen, what we know now as 432 Hz would be 186.624 Hz. Suddenly the idea that the math is looks much nicer, which seems to be the whole reason behind 432’s magic, is out the window.

Society has also chosen base-10 as the most common number system. If we’d chosen a different base, the 432 math also doesn’t look very nice.

These are all arbitrary decisions of people that make 432 seem nice from a math standpoint. It’s nothing based in science or nature,


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## Hammerhands (Dec 19, 2016)

I recall reading 60 is a common denominator of two different older numbering systems [maybe base 5 and base 12] that were combined by Sumerians? A mathematical cultural union. 

12 is more practical to use than 10 if you don't have decimals because it is has so many divisors.

[You need to have zero before decimals are practical and it took a while before zero became a thing.]


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