The 432 hz effect.. please help!

As a non-musician this makes no sense. The original was a better version of Marooned but mainly because it was higher-quality.

I'm quite happy however they've been tuning it after the 40s, I don't have a single thing before 1950 on my player.

Okay, a thing or two for all of you who either believe or not in this theory. Read it, damn.

1. A certain frequency (yes, even the frequency of the sound) can have effect on objects and living creatures, including humans, furthermore including human thoughts, state of mind and indirectly, health.

2. A frequency of 432 Hz is absolutely irrelevant on that matter.



A 'frequency healing' is often lumped together with other modern movements and philosophic schools such are New Age, alternative therapies, neuro-linguistic programming, transcendental meditations, various methods of self-help and so on. Add into that crystallotherpay, aromatherapy, homeopathy, pyramidal forces and other things.

99% of all that is rubbish.

The problem is to determine which one percent is right.

Some things are undeniably utter bullsh*t, such is astrology.

Some things might have some scientific plausibility. Ideas about UFOs, flying saucers, is overblown and naive, but the idea of a extraterrestrial life form is worthy of debating, even from the purely scientific point of view.

The idea of 'life energy flow' which is elan vital in Europe, chi in China and prana in India is something I don't believe in, but I'm ready to remain open upon that issue.

I won't touch the issue of spirituality, afterlife and religion here.



I am a humanist and scientific skeptic that ask for scientific proof and verification. However, it seems that some non-scientific methods do work for people; perhaps it's all delusion, hoax and placebo, perhaps not. I do not know, and I do not pretend to understand.

Romantic mysticism could be charming, but false theories need to be busted; the others which are valid will be proven one day. That's about it. There's no magic, just nature.

Now onto the frequency thing.

There's a plethora of methods, tapes, software and what not; binaural beats, brainwave synchronizers etc.

They do work. But do they work properly? What they do exactly?

Exhibit A.

It's possible to listen to a certain pulsating frequency that will effect the listener: our brain is working in various frequencies: some ranges of those are labeled Alpha waves, Beta, Theta and so on. They change with emotions and other things human brain can evoke.

Indeed listening to that can evoke hypnosis and trance in a person, perhaps help one to focus on studying, or becoming more self-confident. Indirectly, it will affect one's digestion, blood pressure and overall health.

But it's not that easy. or simple. and not entirely true.

It follows the assumption the human brain is in A mode (frequency)  when it's sleepy, in B mode when it's focused, C mode when it's angry. Which is true to a degree (even high degree, some 80 to 90%), but not entirely. In fact sometimes it manifests itself in opposite, worse yet, unpredictable parameters than set as a hazy standards in neurology.

The pattern is just too complicated and seemingly random to be encapsulated.

We can imagine a brain as a set of 1000000000 switches, but there's no way brain will be happy/melancholic/euphoric  by simply turning a certain set of switches on or off.


I won't instantly reject the idea of frequency healing as wrong, but rather insuficcient enough to be effective.

One day in the future, it might became possible: with a brain scan of an individual you'll be able to determine which frequency can help in which way. The itself is not nonsense. But the idea it can effectively be benefitial today, while it's still psychobabble rather than science, is to be approached with extreme caution.

What about dirrect effect of music on body's health?

Exhibit B.

Even less plausible. Human individuals are different. If you hit a wine glass (or spin your wet finger on the edge of the glass), it will produce a sound (everything has a resonance frequency). If you hit a bigger wine glass, it will produce different sound. Hit my rib cage, it will produce different frequency than yours. Air in my lungs, plasma in my body, nerves transmitting electricity - they're all ever-changing, individual, different.


Exhibit C.

Even if it's all true - even if it can affect human health precisely - even if the frequency of 432 Hz is ideal for (all) humans (lower frequency makes more sense, our bodies are bags filled with water), for whatever reason, (and please don't slap me with quantum mysticism here):

i. The music is not repetition of a single tone. There are chords (producing aliquote tones and overtones), there are scales (chromatic frequency is rising exponentially by a 12th root of two), there are song in different keys, there are bursts of hiss (wind instruments and cymbals) which have a frequency spectrum of the entire scale.

ii. Why exactly 432 Hz? Someone mentioned relation with a golden ratio. How is that relevant?

ii.a 432 either divided or multiplied with 1,61803399 give an nearly-integer, which is an interesting property, but a property of phi (golden ratio), not 432. You can try any sequence of numbers to multiply or divide with phi, and see how the sequence convergence it's near-integerity. Surely the value of 432 gives some (arbitary) rounded numbers, but that's only because of our convention, base 10.
ii.b Hertz itself is defined as a cycle per second and second is arbitrary and self-referential unit with no foundation in physical constants.






In conclusion, I won't dismiss the idea of frequency affecting humans, but the knowledge about that is too vague and minimal, and a frequency of 432 Hz seems even less relevant.


I'm more than willing to see your feedback and perhaps learn something if I'm wrong in my observation.






Edited by clarke2001 - June 30 2010 at 13:13

clarke2001 wrote: .... 1. A certain frequency (yes, even the frequency of the sound) can have effect on objects and living creatures, including humans, furthermore including human thoughts, state of mind and indirectly, health. 2. A frequency of 432 Hz is absolutely irrelevant on that matter.

This is correct. Every material object and being has resonant frequencies, whether it is a crystal glass, or the skull of an animal. Our sinuses, inner ears, etc., all vibrate to different frequencies, and is a major reason why some music can be wonderful to some and annoying to others.

As for Petrovks comments, all are invalidated by his denial that compression can have a distinct effect on the listening experience. When poorly done, compression can fatigue the listener's hearing, and when done properly, can enhance the listening experience. Anyone with any modicum of training in audio engineering knows this.

Did not notice any difference between them. Nice mellow Floyd track, that's all.

Padraic wrote: Slartibartfast wrote: What about the brown note?  To be honest that's what I thought of when I first saw this thread title, except the "brown note"* is much lower in frequency. * and is a myth.

That has been busted.

I have studied art history, and never encountered the affirmation that ancient architecture ever had explored resonance. I am referring to academical literature on the matter, of course. That sounds interesting, I'll investigate.

^ I never mentioned magical properties. I do not believe in any form of magic. I believe in a natural resonance that might work better with the human body than others.

As with the light spectrum.. there's one wave-length that influences water molecules to start moving and rise in energy. This makes a micro-wave work. This is also a form of interference on a specific wave-length.

harmonium.ro wrote: I have studied art history, and never encountered the affirmation that ancient architecture ever had explored resonance. I am referring to academical literature on the matter, of course. That sounds interesting, I'll investigate.

If you read Vitruvius' Ten Books of Architecture (the most ancient and one of the most definitive works on the subject) there is actually a great deal about resonance chambers being placed in auditoriums. Not being a physicist, much of it was over my head, but it's worth checking out.

As we are all physically different, I find rather unplausible that a certain pitch would be globally considered as <place your feeling here>.
One simple and true effect of sound waves (or waves in general) is the one of very low frequencies played at high level (which requires quite some power, and sometimes are impossible to reproduce).
These make (no particular frequency values) our BODY (not the brain or any quirky "element") resonnate and have some interesting effects, like infrabass making the thorax shiver etc...
The brown noise "idea" comes from here, and is not completely stupid, as different parts of our body, like any other object have resonnance frequencies (that are different for different body shapes of course), and these are funny to experiment with. I wouldn't be surprised if, after a day of experimentation in a lab that can reproduce 10- Hz frequencies, engineers could find a frequency that makes a particular subject lose blatter control :).
For example, some sub-20Hz frequencies played "loud" (even if not audible) can make you feel veeery uncomfortable (physically) due to vibrations of some of your body parts (the biggest ones :) ).


Edited by mono - July 01 2010 at 03:56

Originally posted by Petrovsk Mizinski But having made my own recordings and getting them to sound fairly loud (not as smashed as the most smashed of today's stuff, but still pretty loud), I understand it's a process that starts from playing tightly, tracking at appropriate levels, getting the frequency balance in the mix right, using clipping to tame transients on drum tracks, and further using clipping to tame transients to keep stuff out of the red zone, and that compression is only really used for shaping the attack, release, sustain or general tonality of an element in the mix and not as some kind of loudness booster.

Your description of compression is correct (other than the use of the term clipping - you don't want anything to clip or you will get unwanted distortion), but one of the most important elements in the mastering processing chain is Limiting, which is a specialized compressor designed to maximize the loudness of the track. This is used in all modern masters to bring it up to broadcast levels consistent with other releases, and is what is being misused in the aforementioned loudness war.