AD3 ?

Just a quick question: I recently had some rehearsals with members of
Ensemble Modern here in Frankfurt and noticed that they tuned to AD3. Is
a similar upward drift in fashion elsewhere?

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Daniel Wolf wrote:
>Just a quick question: I recently had some rehearsals with members of
>Ensemble Modern here in Frankfurt and noticed that they tuned to A=443. Is
>a similar upward drift in fashion elsewhere?

and smith@cnmat.CNMAT.Berkeley.EDU (Ronald Smith) replied
>Yep, has been for some time now.

I didn't know about this but found it fascinating because I believed
that A=440 was too low. My reasons for this are several. Anyway, 443
is still too low it should be 450.

1. In indian music the note "ni" is 450 Hz. For the Indian music scale
see http://www.kcbbs.gen.nz/users/rtomes/in_music.gif

2. There often exists an electromagnetic standing wave around the earth
called the Schumann resonance. It has one main frequency mode given by
the speed of light divided by the earth's circumference or 300,000km/s /
40,000 km or 7.5 Hz. When the natural Just Intonation scale is
calculated with this as a base you get
ratio 24 27 30 32 36 40 45 48
*7.5 Hz 180 212.5 225 240 270 300 337.5 360
Which gives 225 Hz or 450 Hz exactly the same as the Indian music
frequency.

3. Before the standard A=440 was set the naturally chosen value was
heading for 450 (please correct me on this one).

4. The tempo of music, which may be seen as an extension of the key, is
found to favour a slightly faster or slightly higher A. This also leads
me to an answer of 450. I will do a seperate post about this another
time as it is another whole subject.

So I think that people naturally want to use notes that fit the
frequencies in 2 above which will be the key of F and other keys based
on that. That is because our brains are affected by e/m fields in
general and the Schumann resonance in particular (this is well
established). Any other option is against (our) nature.

-- Ray Tomes -- rtomes@kcbbs.gen.nz -- Harmonics Theory --
http://www.kcbbs.gen.nz/users/rtomes/rt-home.htm

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-------------------- Begin Original Message --------------------

Message text written by INTERNET:tuning@ella.mills.edu

" Anyway, 443
is still too low it should be 450.
2. There often exists an electromagnetic standing wave around the earth
called the Schumann resonance. It has one main frequency mode given by
the speed of light divided by the earth's circumference or 300,000km/s /
40,000 km or 7.5 Hz. ....
Which gives 225 Hz or 450 Hz exactly the same as the Indian music
frequency.
"

-------------------- End Original Message --------------------

Speaking for myself personally, I find this sort of "cosmic resonance"
argument worthless, for two reasons:
1. You can almost certainly come up with other equally valid cosmic
resonances. For
example Lyndon LaRouch's followers claim that C%6Hz tuning is natural
because the
Earth rotates around its axis at a frequency equal to a (very very low)
G in that
tuning. (Actually that claim is not true, but it does suggest a lower
tuning than
AD0Hz.)
2. There is almost certainly no way (zippo!) that our ears and minds could
possibly be
sensitive to such a thing.

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Gary Morrison wrote:

> Speaking for myself personally, I find this sort of "cosmic resonance"
>argument worthless, for two reasons:

>1. You can almost certainly come up with other equally valid cosmic
>resonances. For example Lyndon LaRouch's followers claim that C=256Hz
>tuning is natural because the Earth rotates around its axis at a frequency
>equal to a (very very low) G in that tuning. (Actually that claim is not
>true, but it does suggest a lower tuning than A=440Hz.)

Agreed that there are multiple cosmic influences and we don't in all
cases know which ones are insignificant and which ones aren't.

>2. There is almost certainly no way (zippo!) that our ears and minds could
>possibly be sensitive to such a thing.

Wrong!

Our brains have a variety of different frequencies depending on
conditions, but it is now recognised that theses frequencies are related
to the Schumann resonance. Also, experiments show when we are subjected
to ELF (extra low frequency) waves which are a little slower or faster
than the typical Schumann resonance frequency our reaction times are
either slowed or speeded up. Also, strong natural 3 Hz ELF waves have
been shown to correlate strongly with accidents (confirming that our
reactions are too slow). So you see, our brains can be entrained by
natural ELF waves near the normal brain frequencies.

When a chord is played in a key then there is also present in our brains
a frequency which is the HCF (highest common factor) of the notes
played. This frequency will often be in the ELF range and will
generally match either the key or the subdominant.

So you see, given that both e/m and sound can entrain the brain, it is
quite possible that our brains would also feel whether these two
frequencies are in tune.

I accept the previous comments about the variations in natural
frequencies and so it is necessary to say that there is no hard and fast
absolute rule but the relationships at a moment in time will be
important.

-- Ray Tomes -- rtomes@kcbbs.gen.nz -- Harmonics Theory --
http://www.kcbbs.gen.nz/users/rtomes/rt-home.htm

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