On Musical Tuning History
Most sane people agree that just about everything the German Nazis believed was terrible. But one of their “reforms” remains a part of culture today in most Englishspeaking parts of the world – the frequency at which musical instruments are tuned.
I got the idea for this column while speaking with the guys from the LaRouche Movement who demonstrated in front of the La Grange Post Office on Tuesday. I was going to write about the deer sausage I made this weekend. But this topic, I think, is much more interesting. One of the ideas the LaRouche folks espouse is a return to Verdi tuning, which was the standard before World War II.
For most of human history, musicians tuned their instruments by ear. Over the eons, the tuning of each musician or each orchestra varied somewhat. By the 1600s, musicians settled on a standard tuning that set the frequency of Middle C at 256 hertz. The frequency of every octave of C becomes an exact power of two. It’s quite beautiful mathematically. With this tuning, the A above Middle C has a frequency of 432 hertz.
This is known as Scientific Pitch, Philosophical Pitch, or Verdi Tuning (named after a 19th century composer who preferred it).
Then in the 1939, the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) met in London and decided to standardize tuning. They set the frequency of the A note above Middle C at 440 hertz (known as A440, or Stuttgart Tuning). This puts Middle C at a frequency of 261.63 hertz. The mathematical beauty disappears. Among the meeting delegates who approved of this reform was Joseph Goebbels, the Nazi minister of propaganda.
There’s not a lot of good information about how involved Goebbels was in the decision. But he did support it. Some folks claim the Nazis believed they could wage psychological warfare through the use of music. The altered tuning, some say, messed with people’s brains. Here’s the interesting thing: the Nazis did, in fact, confiscate some 150,000 old church bells from across Europe during the war and melted them down.
They certainly needed the bronze for the war effort. But some folks think there was an even more sinister reason related to music and its effects on the human psyche.
LaRouche and his followers make a big deal about the Nazis’ involvement with the frequency debate. I’m not sure about all that. But I do prefer Verdi tuning.
I used to play guitar in a rock and roll band. I’m no classically trained musician. I basically taught myself by listening and playing along to the music I liked. Among my biggest influences were Stevie Ray Vaughan and the Drive-By Truckers. Both play with guitars tuned down, usually a half step. On guitar, we call it Eb (E flat) tuning. Coincidentally, this puts Middle C sonicly closer to 256 hertz.
I felt it made the electric guitar sound “growlier” through the amps. It’s deeper. I found it much easier and pleasant to sing in any key with this tuning.
There has been some scientific research on the health affect of the two tuning systems: A432 vs A440. Here’s what one double blind study found: “432 Hz tuned music was associated with a slight decrease of mean (systolic and diastolic) blood pressure values (although not significant), a marked decrease in the mean of heart rate (−4.79 bpm, p = 0.05) and a slight decrease of the mean respiratory rate values (1 r.a., p = 0.06), compared to 440 Hz.
“The subjects were more focused about listening to music and more generally satisfied after the sessions in which they listened to 432 Hz tuned music.”
This comes from a 2020 paper in the journal “Explore” by researchers Diletta Calamassi and Gian Paolo Pomponi It’s easy to change the tuning of guitars. Other instruments, like accordions and harmonicas, are tuned from the factory. So for the most part, everyone has adopted A440 today.
We’re kind of stuck with it.