my question is simple

for musicians

what frequency do you tune your instruments in?

432 hertz? 440 hertz? 444 hertz?

or perhaps a different one?

I stick with standard 440 but frequently just go a bit lower to get more of a baritone twang ;]

440. For guitar, dropping everything a half step sounds good to me and I like to drop to C# standard sometimes. 440 is just a standard we use so everyone's A note is the same and therefore the rest of the notes too.

I've played with plenty of them, and the A440 is pretty arbitrary and certainly not the best of the bunch.

Still, if you play with other people, play along with recordings, or whatnot you sort of have to use the standard most of the time. I leave most of my instruments tuned to 440 or often 441 (which allows you to jam with people and be just a tad sharp and thus stand out of the mix in ways that other people can't quite fathom... like bending all your notes a bit).

I have had fun with some of the so-called spiritual tunings, though. A lot of people were really into the whole 528hz fad, and it is easy enough to tune to that. The perfect circle of sound they called it with 9 tones all harmonic inversions of each other. 174 285 396 417 528 639 741 852 963 You can see the 9 pointed star diagram conecting the 3 triangles of numeralogical inversions here: http://web.mac.com/len15..._LOVE_TONE%3A_528HZ.html

If you have quicktime, you can play a 528 tone there and tune your C note on the A string to that, then retune the whole guitar.

For any instrument, you can just tune to A=427.47 hz or A=444 hz

I have messed with the Solfeggio frequencies, perfect temperments, just intonation... a guy named Hans Cousto created tones based on dividing distances and rotations of heavenly bodies until they were in human hearing range. I have attached a tone that is supposed to be harmonic to the period of the solar earth year (136.1 hz), and one that is harmonic to the earth day (194.18 hz).

Unless you get all the people you play music with to adopt a new tuning it is hard to get seriously into the alternate tunings. Some instruments are not easily retuned (wind & brass). Still, it is possible to record music and then change the relative tuning after the fact...

Thats interesting. I came across the "love ferquency" once when looking into binaural beats. I remember reading somewhere that the frequency still ringing through space from the big bang is a B flat but way below a piano octave.

I'm with ya on the slightly out of tune sharp or flat. It sounds very nice to me.

Smoking spice put a lot of these things in perspective. Theres certain frequencies and chords that ring through during a trip that sound musical but not in the usual way, not even a eastern/western scale. Just another musical language.

But yeah, with the right people and the same mindset, some pretty amazing and different music could come from them.

SWIM has always wanted to record the tones and frequencies heard during spice journeys.

SWIM even set up a recorder during a journey with the intent that he should intone the sounds he was hearing and then be able to use a tuner to figure out the exact frequencies. Of course, he was unable to make this work.

Spice is just too all-encompassing to enable one to do something so focused and linear.

Using other entheogens and combinations, he was able to at least remember that he wanted to try that... but not able to actually do it. (not able to locate the recorder, not able to make it function etc.)

Now that the idea has returned to him, he feels confident he can organize a threshold level experience where he will easily be able to record the tones heard. That said, the tones with spice are often rising exponentially and reach up to points that seem well beyond human hearing.

440 is standard in u.s . Its funny I remember working in Denmark ,
Copenhagen tivoli concert hall
A few years back playing a show . Everything was tuned to 441 .
It actually took a little while to get used to it . Strange .