Verdi Tuning
432Hz
Verdi Tuning
The frequency this app is named after. About 32 Cents measure small pitch differences: 100 cents make a semitone, 1 cent is barely audible. More about cents → below the standard — the smallest move in the whole set, and still the one this is all about.
Chladni figure · n 5.00 · m 8.00
What happens when you switch
Small enough not to notice.
A third of a semitone is not much. No one can hear that a track is running “at 432” unless they hold it directly against the original. Switch while listening, though, and it’s clear: the music drops a touch and sounds rounder. That’s exactly why Radio 432 puts the switch where you reach it while listening.
Origin
Where the number comes from
C can be set at exactly 256 Hz — a power of two, which keeps the numbers clean across every octave. That setting is known as scientific pitch; Joseph Sauveur described it as early as 1713. Work from C = 256 Hz with the interval ratio 27:16, the Pythagorean major sixth, and A comes out at exactly 432 Hz; in the equal temperament used today it would be 430.54 Hz. That does not mean the number 432 historically comes from there — the arithmetic only shows that the two numbers line up.
Giuseppe Verdi argued for a lower orchestral tuning: he conducted his Requiem at 435 Hz in 1874. His argument was practical — a lower tuning is easier on singers’ voices and sounds fuller. He was thinking about singers, not numerology.
Beyond that, many also describe 432 Hz as the “frequency of the universe,” in connection with the Great Pyramid, or as a law of nature. These are interpretations that mean something to a lot of people — they aren’t backed by verifiable sources. Radio 432 doesn’t need any of them: the reason to use it is that it sounds better to you. That’s enough.
All ten, as the ear hears them
Plotted in Cents measure small pitch differences: 100 cents make a semitone, 1 cent is barely audible. More about cents → relative to 440 Hz — the unit the ear actually reckons in. A semitone is 100 Cents measure small pitch differences: 100 cents make a semitone, 1 cent is barely audible. More about cents → , an octave 1200.