To give the 432 hz tuning a scientific basis, it’s quite astonishing what the science of Cymatics shows in experiments: a liquid or powder is placed on a surface which is then exposed to different frequencies’ vibrations. This produces patterns depending on the frequency and the vibrating medium (usually a plate or water). If the pattern a frequency produces with a specific medium is clear and has distinct lines, it’s being assumed that the frequency is natural.

A Cymatics Experiment with Tonskop and frequencies between 432 hz and 440 hz in a video of YouTube user HolonMusic432Hz:

Along with thousands of homemade experiments, many books have been filled with the mysterious frequency, which is 8 hz lower than our average nowaday’s music: from the relief of opera singers’ vocal cords to ridiculous conspiracy theories that the Nazis control our emotions with 440hz since 1939.

From a cultural point of view, the frequency of 432Hz is not completely arbitrary selected. It has historical precedents in tunings that reach back to the times of Plato. On YouTube you can find a number of classical and contemporary 432Hz recordings, across nearly all genres: from Herbie Hancock‘s Cantaloupe Iceland, Pink Floyd’s The Dark Side of the Moon, two-hour-long deep house sets and recordings of the Norwegian underground metal band Burzum to chart toppers such as Pharrell Williams. But it’s necessary to know that mainly the YouTube users and not the artists themselves have detuned the tracks and uploaded them again.

432 Hz and Cymatics