Between the Ears: Healing Hertz

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Healing Hertz

BBC Radio 3 - Between the Ears, Healing Hertz

Hannah Catherine Jones explores why everyone tunes to the standard frequency of 440Hz.

Composer Hannah Catherine Jones explores why everyone tunes to the standard frequency of 440Hz and how it feels to reject this default tuning and embrace other frequencies.

The note of A tuned to 440hz is perhaps the most recognisable and resonated frequency in the world. This is the international standard that an orchestra tunes to before starting to play. It's how our tuners are calibrated, how our keyboards and synthesisers are set up, how our computers are programmed and our ears attuned.

Composer and conductor Hannah Catherine Jones explores how this particular frequency for A rose to dominance in the western world. It's a story that encompasses a century-long argument between several countries, and which also involves BBC radio and even telephone ringtones.

Featuring new music she has composed specially for the programme, Hannah experiments with how it feels to reject the default tuning and embrace other frequencies. She presents a question in sound: what are we missing in the vibrations we don’t hear? 

Contributors: 
Fanny Gribenski, Research Scholar at the National Centre for Scientific Research in Paris
Ruth E. Rosenberg, Associate Professor of Music at the University of Illinois at Chicago
Musicians of The Fantasy Orchestra, Bristol 
Evan Ifekoya, multidisciplinary artist

Producer: Eliza Lomas for BBC Audio in Bristol

Live music and the arts: broadcasts more live music than any other radio network. Classical music is its core. Genres include world and new music, jazz, speech and drama.

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