NEXUS - THE MUSICAL PITCH DEBATE

The Musical Pitch Debate

Dameon Michael Keller, 2018 Feb-March 2019

Introduction

I first began my research into “healing frequencies” and “sound therapies” a little over ten years ago, with a strong focus on both brainwave entrainment and the chakras. I was immediately overwhelmed by the sheer volume of information to be found in both physical books, as well as online. Much of it would actually prove to be truthful and useful, However, there was a lot of information out there that could not be described in any other way than completely made-up and entirely unsubstantiated. As a musician and a certified sound engineer, I understand frequencies to be quantifiable, and quite easy to study and work with.

I was already familiar with the Chakras, which we now know are simply what people called the glands system before it was “discovered” by medical science, and the colors of the spectrum to which they are said to correlate. In addition to the most common C Major scale association, there are numerous other drastically varying musical systems which claim to correlate to the Chakras which have been utilized and promoted over the past few decades.

It was also around this time that the “Pitch Debate” began surfacing in online news articles and groups, largely due to the push by some to change our “International Standard” starting concert pitch of A440Hz down to A432Hz. Wild tales of the Nazis being responsible for the modern standard, and other claims such as numerological correspondences, were quite fascinating to a conspiracy-theorist musician and producer such as myself.

It doesn’t take long when researching these subjects to come across one such system, known as “The Ancient Solfeggios.” These number-columns, claimed to have been decoded from the Bible, consisted originally of only six frequencies, but were somehow, at some point, expanded to nine. A Chakras system of only six frequencies, excluding the Crown, was immediately a bit suspect to me, I adapted the system for use in my sessions, that is, briefly, until I quickly realized the 6-Chakras system was only the tip of the iceberg in terms of plot-holes in their story.

Further inspection of both systems revealed the many misconceptions and misunderstandings which have led to this point in the over 100-year history of what Time Magazine dubbed “The Pitch Game” in an article in 1971.

It has been my motto since the first day of my work in this field to keep the “physics” in the “metaphysics,” and to keep the “science” at the forefront of my studies, practices, and resulting teachings of “spiritual science.”

Digging deeper into music history and some basic physics, I quickly found that there are two laws that apply above and beyond all others when it comes to the Spiritual Science of sound and vibration, color and light, and even etheric energies. Of course, these two basic laws of physics are affecting us in many ways, all day every day, yet not taught in schools. If they were, the world would be a very different place. These are the Law of Octaves, and the Law of Sympathetic Vibratory Resonance.

The Basics – What is a Frequency?

It is an unfortunate but true fact that the majority of people you will find today in newsgroups or on YouTube discussing, teaching, and even preaching about “raising our vibrations” and “higher frequencies” and all of the other catch-phrases, would actually be hard-pressed to define the word “frequency” itself without help from Google or a dictionary. This is why it’s so easy for the less scrupulous to convince the masses that frequencies can be things they cannot.

A frequency is the scientific measure the cycles-per-second of a wave, or “CPS,” which we now call “Hz,” or “Hertz.” (see fig. 1) We use this system to correlate all ranges of the spectrum, beginning at -0Hz, far below our hearing range, known as “vibration.” These low frequencies also correlate to our brainwaves, as well as the actual quantifiable frequencies emitted from our hands during Reiki and energy therapies. The spectrum then extends up to the range of audible sound, to light, ultraviolet, X-rays, microwaves, gamma, and cosmic, and likely those far beyond our means of perception.

fig. 1 – 1 C.P.S. - image credit – enacademic.com

Now that we understand that a frequency’s numerical value is nothing more or less than a number we have assigned to a wavelength, based on the number of its cycles in the measurement of one second, it’s important to ask then, what is a “second?”

The “second” as a measurement of time did not come into existence in human history until around the 15th century. So, clearly, when one begins to speak of “ancient frequencies,” they are pulling your leg, there is no such thing. Frequencies did not begin to receive numeric values until centuries after the second was extrapolated from the minute, as there was also obviously no physical scientific tool for the evaluation of the “cycles-per-not yet invented measurement of time” of a wave, either.

Those who attempt to argue that Pythagoras utilized A432Hz tuning are misinterpreting numerous actual facts in an attempt to apply them to modern music, which is simply not possible. Pythagoras utilized ratios, not specific frequencies. The idea of “ancient” or “mystical” frequencies is romantic and appealing, and not without some truth, but in ways far removed from the ideas the promoters of these current theories are even capable of fathoming as of yet.

Music 101 - What is Temperament?

Likewise, when claims are made that “musicians used to tune to A432,” or “A444,” or anything else, are also making things up. The note A could range from as low as what most would consider to be several notes lower to several notes higher than “average”.

French vocalist’s “perfect pitch” in French Pitch A435Hz was useless when touring in Germany, where the pipe organ was tuned to the Stuttgart Pitch of A440Hz. The modern “standard” of A440Hz was decided at court with a handful of musicians and physicians from the Royal Academy of Arts who could not rectify their own definitions of frequencies based on one group referring to musical temperaments, the other to scientific. The judge understood neither, and A440 stuck.

Temperament is the spacing between the notes of the chromatic scale. The C major scale, or “solfege,” is commonly remembered from the “Do-Re-Mi” song in “The Sound of Music.” The seven notes of the C major scale are C-D-E-F-G-A-B, and the 8th, the next octave C. An octave is any note or frequency, doubled or halved. The chromatic scale includes the notes of the “incidentals,” the sharps and flats between the 7 notes of the major scale. These notes between the octave of the first and second “C” can be spaced in many different ways.

There are numerous temperaments available to musicians, sort-of. Not so much anymore, but there used to be. In Pythagorean Fifths temperament, the frequencies of the notes are harmonically spaced, but you are limited to composing and performing in one key, usually “C.” If you want to compose a Sonata in F, for example, a harpsichord will have to be designed and built. Just Temperament was also popular and is still utilized in Gregorian and Benedictine Chants, barbershop choirs, and bagpipes. Equal Temperament, which is today’s Western “standard,” allows us to compose and perform on keyboards, wind instruments, and fretted guitars in any key. And this is achieved by being out-of-tune, all the time.

The notes are – you guessed it – equally spaced apart, rather than harmonically. Back when the recording industry became a thing, and when the older generations of classically trained ears began to be exposed to the Jazz and Rock and Roll of the radio and the “pop” music of Hollywood and complained that it “sounded like noise,” they were laughed at. The older generations were right. Equal Tempered music is out-of-tune by definition, and it does sound quite harsh, dissonant, and annoying to those who are either classically trained players of the fretless stringed family, or vocalists, or those more sensitive to what are known as “the subtle energies.”

Orwellian Times – the “Ancient Solfeggio Frequencies”

More confusion about temperament can be found in the story of the “Ancient Solfeggio Frequencies” story. Again, there is no such thing as “ancient frequencies,” and the “solfege” is not actually a set of mysterious frequencies hidden by the Church for centuries, as the story claims, rather, it is simply the classical music term for the major scale.

Which this set of 3 number-columns of 6 numbers allegedly “decoded” from the Bible are certainly not. Nor are they even intended as frequencies, if in fact decoded from a book written 1000 years before the second as a measurement of time even existed.

The authors of the hoax insist that C at 528Hz is a “miracle” frequency for “DNA repair and activation.” In fact, C at 528Hz is just a “C” in A440Hz Just Temperament. They claim that Gregorian Chants are “in Solfeggio,” which is in a way true, the modern groups do sing in a Just Temperament solfege, yet only 2 of the 6 “Solfeggio” frequencies actually correlate to A440Hz Just Temperament. It’s just enough to confuse and simultaneously convince anyone naïve to actual music theory.

They also promote tuning fork therapy, but not in the way known to those of us certified by accredited Continuing Education courses, where we use an Om fork on the meridians instead of needles or pressure; rather, they bang and clang combinations of the 6 frequencies around the subject’s head, bombarding them with extremely sharp and dissonant intervals.

Many recordings are found online, especially YouTube, touting the “miracles” of the frequencies, however, you will be hard-pressed to find any that do not include brainwave entrainment frequencies layered in, which of course produce the effects attributed to the single-note “solfeggio” frequency, which of course, does nothing. Sometimes it is advertised that these brainwave frequencies are present, though often they are not.

Many recordings of music claiming to be “Solfeggio” frequencies, when checked with a frequency reader app, show to be simply recorded in either “standard” A440Hz pitch and Equal Temperament, or even A432Hz.

Many “scientific experiments” are referenced, such as, “My plants grow great with C528!” These experiments are of course not at all scientific, as no other note, or other “C” at any other frequency was utilized for observance on a second plant, let alone a third for control with no frequency at all, of course. And last time I checked, “great” is not yet recognized as a scientific measurement. The way things are going, though – here’s an example:

There is a popular image, (see fig. 2) purported to be created by someone titling themselves a “math scientist.” It’s an image of a pine cone, then a cymatics image, then a “Crown Chakra” representation. The cymatic image is said to be either 528Hz or 102Hz. 528Hz is a high “C”. 102Hz is a low “G.” The math scientist somehow isn’t sure. What I am sure of is that 528Hz does not produce this pattern in cymatics, and that 102Hz is too low to produce anything but a hexagon similar to that at Saturn’s North Pole. Yet, here it is, posted repeatedly online as “proof.” Of what, who knows. The promoters of the “Solfeggios” ignore the Crown Chakra altogether, and the 528Hz is supposed to be the Heart. It’s the one thing they got almost right, that C is the Heart Chakra, and this image comes along and utterly destroys that one thing, yet it’s still shared repeatedly. This is the perfect picture of cognitive dissonance itself, in action.

fig. 2 – 528Hz or 102Hz? – img. credit – resistance2010.com

The 6 numbers, somehow expanded to 9 at some point, are just number-columns, (see fig. 3 & 4) definitely not intended for use as “frequencies,” and only create white noise when you try to play chords with them. And, you can see the amazing, miraculous results of doing that, in their own proudly shared “proofs.”

fig. 3 – the “Solfeggio Frequencies” fig. 4 – the “frequencies” as number-columns

So, the promoters of the story propose that when musicians like myself start to catch on that it’s not musical at all, that we simply tune up to A444Hz Equal Temperament, in case you might hit that high “C” 528Hz on the 8th fret of your high “E” string of your guitar maybe once in a while (tuning this way provides not one other frequency in their set) and somehow, you are now “in Solfeggio.” In fact, you are not, there is no such thing. You are now even more out of tune than you were in A440Hz.

The Intervals, Brainwave Entrainment, and “Attunements”

The reason for this is the intervals. The intervals are the differences, or relations, between the notes. For example, if I strike my 136.10Hz C# Vedic “Om” tuning fork, and hold it to one ear, then strike my Scientific Pitch C 128Hz tuning fork and hold it to the other, my brain perceives the pulsing interval of 8.1Hz, because 136.10 – 128 = 8.1.

This is how binaurals are produced for brainwave entrainment, however, this effect occurs any time two or more notes are played together to create chords. ALL music is, in fact, brainwave entrainment. The rhythms of the percussion also create and add isochronic entrainment to the mix, but I’m not going to go into that in this article.

However, I will tell you that the healing nature of the intervals are in fact “encoded” into the chants, cantillations, and recitals of the 3 Abrahamic religions, and the isochronics are the purpose of the drumming of the Native American and African Shaman. The only “ancient” magical healing frequencies are the intervals and rhythms intuited by the early healers, long before they had any numerical values assigned to them.

The reason brainwave entrainment, and Chakra Attunements of color and light work, and why we “resonate” with some people and situations instantly and are repulsed by others, is the Law of Sympathetic Vibratory Physics. Like attracts like, and if I strike a tuning fork and hold it near another of the same frequency, the mute one will begin to vibrate “in sympathy.” The Indian sitar is an ancient instrument in which 7 main strings are strummed while 13 vibrate in sympathy, but again, this basic concept is not taught openly. As Theo Paijmans eloquently put it, “Occulted information is hidden by them, not us.”

A Negative Temperament

Equal Tempered music creates negative entrainment frequencies by producing dissonant chords, where music composed and performed in either Pythagorean Fifths temperament, or the Scale of 12 Fifths created by Maria Renolds enabling composition and performance in any key, are the only two temperaments which are harmonically spaced. Indeed, in these two temperaments, if one were to tune to Scientific Pitch “C” at 1Hz and its octaves, one would find their “A” at 432Hz.

However, this is not the case in Equal Temperament, and tuning to A432Hz in Equal Temperament does not produce a “C” at Scientific Pitch, (see fig. 5) though now many online articles and videos are claiming that it does. Further, tuning all notes down equally 8Hz from the modern standard does absolutely nothing magical, spiritual, or otherwise. Do not retune all your music to A432Hz utilizing an app that just shifts it all down 8Hz, as much of your collection is likely to not be A440Hz to begin with. The electronic tuner wasn’t even invented until the mid-1980s.

Keller, Dameon (2016) Solar Spectrum Pitch & Temperament Frequency Charts with Intervals and Cymatics

https://archive.schillerinstitute.com/music/petition.html - author’s note: since the publication of my books, The Schiller Institute has revised many online articles and YouTube videos to appear that their 1988 conference was in ,support of Scientific Pitch C rather than A432Hz, and further insist that they are one and the same in Equal Temperament, though a calculator proves otherwise.

Fig. 5 – Equal Tempered A432Hz & A440Hz

All tuning down to A432Hz does, is make the dissonant out-of-tune intervals slightly less noticeable and aggravating. This has in fact shown to produce more peaceful feelings in the listeners than A440Hz tuning in hundreds of experiments conducted by Maria Renold. In the other direction, tuning them all up to A444Hz or any other higher pitch does nothing but produce more noticeable and aggravating dissonance, make it more difficult to tune, and put more stress on stringed instruments and vocal chords.

This is due to our own perception, much in the way that if I were to record myself playing a rather sloppy drum track, then speed it up, the mistakes would become less noticeable, or if I were to record myself playing a very fast beat, it would sound very good until slowed down, where the subtle mistakes would be more obvious.

Tuning down to A432Hz in Equal Temperament does put your C# at 136/10Hz Vedic Om, and you can now play along with a Ravi Shankar album or an authentic Tibetan singing bowl. Most online arguments for the pitch do not even acknowledge this one fact which is actually true.

Many are making the grave mistake of blaming pitch, where temperament is at fault. Obviously, simply pitching Led Zeppelin IV down to A432Hz isn’t going to make it ok to meditate and do yoga to, intent is just as important. People are wasting hours on YouTube comparing the single note “A” at 432Hz to the single note “A” at 440Hz then arguing endlessly about absolutely nothing, because they simply do not understand the intervals of the chords what are important, let alone the role that temperament plays in how those particular intervals are produced.

Personally, I utilize a software synth with pitch and many temperament presets including Pythagorean, and the ability to customize my own, so I created a Maria Renolds Scale of 12 Fifths as well. I use them exclusively in both my music and my sound therapy work, as well as a fretless bass, Theremin, and authentic Tibetan singing bowls and other natural instruments.

Don’t Shoot the Messenger

I realize this is a difficult thing for many to accept, especially musicians who just aren’t ready to part with their fretted guitars and keyboards and electronic tuners. There are very few options out there for creating your own sound therapy music, or music at all, in correct pitch and temperament.

It can also be hard to accept for those who believe that numerology would somehow apply to a man-made concept such as cycles-per-second of a wave, for example, that A432 correlates to the diameter of the moon in miles, actually proposed in an online article. The person who thought this one up conveniently ignores the fact that kilometers are also a thing, and both are arbitrary as the second as a measurement of time. I do believe in numerology, but it does not apply to frequencies.

This can all also difficult to accept for sound therapists who own A440Hz C major singing bowl sets, which are not inexpensive. If you own a set, they can be tuned down by adding water, so don’t fret!

Pun intended. I know you can play a fretted guitar to your singing bowl set but what exactly is the difference between that and just playing the radio? Nothing. Yes, they make pretty tones, very resonant, and yes, intent. But in terms of frequencies, absolutely no difference whatsoever. The modern standard A440Hz Equal Temperament C major scale has no actual correlation to the Chakras. If it did, listening to the radio would save us all thousands on Chakra attunements, right?

How do we know this? What about the Chakra system that starts on “F” for the Root? How can anyone say that any one theory is “right” or “wrong?”

Often when discussing these differences in the modalities, a person will finally say, “Well, it was actually more about the energy from the practitioner, the whole experience. The music was really only secondary.” To that I say, next time, try it with the right frequencies.

The Law of Octaves, at one time, was only considered to apply to the musical scale and the periodic table. In 2015, light was finally photographed behaving as both a particle and a wave, (see fig. 6) proving Einstein’s (and hundreds of years of “occultists”) theory correct, that the frequencies of light in the Terahertz range are in fact higher octaves of sound in the Hz range. The Law of Octaves does not pick and choose which frequencies on the spectrum to affect and which ones to not.

fig. 6 – img credit – phys.org

The note “C” is not correlative to the Root Chakra, as it is not an octave of the color red. The note “C” is prime, and C=1Hz Scientific Pitch is the base. C is an octave of green, the center, the Heart Chakra. You are not a keyboard. Energy expands outward from a center point, it is not linear like the major scale.

If you are going to use a red Carnelian crystal and a red light for the Root Chakra, I would not recommend using an octave of green for the musical accompaniment. Utilizing anything other than The Law of Octaves system for Chakra Attunements actually creates dissonances that will likely do more harm than good.

And I’ve tried them all and had my associates, friends, and loved ones try them all. When others didn’t work, I sometimes questioned myself, my own intuitions. But they didn’t work for the others either. Then I remembered that I have always taken issue with certain music, and so have they, and there must be a reason. We are intuitive and sensitive to the subtle vibrations. I was determined to find the correct and true system to heal myself and loved ones first and foremost, I never intended to write or teach. In healing myself, I’ve found that I cannot keep it to myself, and it must be shared with the many others who need the information, and my purpose is to save others the years of work it took me to find the answers myself.

When we align the actual notes of the Chakras to their color-octaves, then add in the other 5 notes, all actually align in a way that makes absolute sense. We find one above and one below, and we find the C# Vedic Om to be right between the Heart and Throat, facilitating communication with the Cosmos. We find the leafy yellow-green Schumann Earth Resonance at the 2nd Heart Chakra

intuited by Paramahansa Yogananda and C.W. Leadbeater. (see fig. 7)

fig. 7 – Solar Spectrum Chakras & Energy Centers Correlations

I personally consider the “B” Schumann Resonance octave, the “C” Heart Chakra, and the “C#” Vedic Om to be “Heart Chakra” notes, as all are variances of green, and an attunement of a series of the three can be quite effective.

The only other utilization of this color-note system I have found is that of the Dinshah Health Society. I recently joined, after my co-author Dr. Jarrah Al-Tubaikh of the German Board of Radiology called my attention to them and our similar work. He asked me just before publishing my third book to determine the central frequencies of the audible octave to the central frequencies of the color spectrum. I published the resulting manuscript to Academia.edu where it is being read worldwide, repeatedly by the London Academy of the Arts.

Summary

I do hope this serves to clear up many of the misconceptions and misunderstandings of the widely varying opinions, theories, intuitions, and accepted methods of utilizing the modalities of sound, vibration, color, and light.

When used incorrectly or even maliciously, they can, in fact, be very detrimental. When applied for healing using basic logic, common sense, and some simple math, they become the most powerful tool for healing and ascension to a higher consciousness that we can imagine.

About the Author

Dameon Keller is a multi-instrumentalist, certified sound engineer, certified Tuning Fork Therapist, Reiki practitioner, Vibro-Acoustic Therapy practitioner, inventor of the Colorgone™ Chromatherapy system, and author of “Sound’s Great! The Spiritual Science of Sound and Vibration Vol. III,” published in October of 2018. He instructs a certification course on Sound and Vibration Therapies, accredited by the World Metaphysical Association and the American Council of Holistic Healers. The online version is being revised and updated and will again be available in early 2019.

All images the authors own unless otherwise noted.

https://www.collective-evolution.com/2013/12/21/heres-why-you-should-convert-your-music-to-432hz/

https://attunedvibrations.com/solfeggio-scale/

http://content.time.com/time/magazine/0,9263,7601710809,00.html

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/frequency

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/experts-time-division-days-hours-minutes/

Rayleigh, J.W.S. (1945). The Theory of Sound, Vol. I. Dover

http://www.rosarychurch.net/answers/qa012006.html

http://legacy.earlham.edu/~tobeyfo/musictheory/Book1/FFH1_CH1/1K_Solfege.html

http://www.greatdreams.com/gem13.htm

https://attunedvibrations.com/528hz-dna-repair/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nI07bdDY3fs