I've been delving into the 432 Movement for a few days now.  Apparently this is a fan-driven movement and the musician community has largely not picked up on it.  Obviously there is a market out there for music created by tuning to A=432 as opposed to A=440.  Go onto YouTube and put 432 in the search window, you'll see what I mean.  A lot of fans have used computer software to detune their favorite songs, and they've posted these online.  Then you can A-B the results by searching for the original version of whatever tune it is. 

If you live in the country, as I do, you can go outside and listen to the cicadas humming an F#, and the crickets or frogs or whatever they are croaking on a C#--but they are tuned to A432, not A440! 

I was at Mike Manning's Custom Woodwind shop yesterday and was discussing this with him and his employees.  Mike pointed out that if you pull out your horn to get down to 432, your octaves might not be in tune-which is a drag.  Nevertheless, I am experimenting with this because I think there's a great deal to be gained by the music community returning to a more harmonious--literally!--synchronization with Nature, as evidenced not only by tuning up with the crickets, but also by having human-made music align with the frequencies of crystals, the vibrations of Platonic Solids, planetary movements, etc. 

If you don't know what I'm talking about, just go do some research on your own.  I'll write more about this at a future date.

Before I went over to Manning Custom Woodwind, I was at the Yamaha Artist Atelier speaking with Tomoji Hirakata about the same subject.  He was complaining that the difference in pitch standards (A440 for North America vs A445 for Europe) creates a challenge for instrument makers.  He advocates actually making different models depending on which standard the instrument will be tuned to.  This is essentially the same thing that Mike was saying, that if you deviate too far from the tuning range the instrument was designed for, the instrument will become out of tune with itself.

Well, that problem would be solved if the whole Western world went back to an A=432 standard, which by the way is probably very close to the A used in Mozart's day. 

If you have an iPhone or iPod, go to the app store and download a free program called 432 Player.  Then you can listen to any song in your iTunes library played in A432. 

Please leave comments in the Guestbook, thanks.