A couple of months ago I received a call from a rather intense young man who
wanted me, as editor of the Toronto Musicians Association newsletter, to
know about from a gentleman who was very excited to let all musicians know
that they should tune their instruments down to A 432 hz (from the standard
pitch of 440). It's a miniscule difference but you can hear it
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZLhegBf_TkI>
Norbert Brainard was a violin virtuoso. He founded the Amati String Quartet.
He passionately supported the use of the "Mozart A" (aka the Verdi A) of 432
Hz "in opposition to today¹s absurdly high 'Karajan tuning' of A well above
440 Hz." He recorded certain tones (and their octaves) both in the low and
high tuning, did a spectral analysis, and discovered the lower tuning
created a larger sum of overtones, which explains the fuller sound; it was
also proven, that Brainin¹s Strad had its best resonance by far at exactly
C=256 Hz, which is about A=432 Hz." Other theories abound that involve
sacred geometry and the dimensions of Egyptian pyramids and now there is a
new movement advocating this pitch as being a healing factor and more
consistent with our natural state. There is even a conspiracy theory that
Nazi madman Goebbels had orchestrated (pardon my pun) the move to 440 as the
"standard pitch" just to hold the population from spiritual growth and
making it impossible to "Transform to the Light"...OK this is getting a
little weird but I had to see (hear) for myself so I went and bought a
guitar tuner that could be calibrated at 432 hz and I tuned one of my
guitars with it. This was my resophonic guitar, pretty loud to start with,
but once I had it tuned and strummed a big chord it sounded much bigger and
fuller. No doubt in my mind (ears). I have since tuned my flat-top to 432
and recorded about a half hour of my usual guitar noodling. I didn't really
notice a dramatic difference this time but I'm going to get it online but I
haven't figured out how just yet - it's a pretty big file. Now I'm going to
tune the old Epi back to 440 so that I can go out and jam with the rest of
the universe but I am quite fascinated by this.