Solfeggio (Solfege) whistles

[stiofan]

Huh. Didn't realize whistles are used for Solfege. The hz specs seem a bit peculiar to me, if they're meant to combine to make up a major scale, but maybe it works.

https://www.donedeal.ie/brassandwind-fo ... t/26826772

[bigsciota]

This isn't referring to solfege as usually thought of, namely using syllables to correspond to notes. Instead, it's a mystical mumbo-jumbo about the supposed healing properties of certain frequencies. The set of whistles is one for each of these frequencies, which are supposedly used for different things. It's New Age-y stuff that has very little connection to how most musicians would discuss "solfeggio."

Search for "solfeggio frequencies" if you want to learn more; I don't want to give any quacks an SEO boost by linking them here.

[stiofan]

This isn't referring to solfege as usually thought of, namely using syllables to correspond to notes. Instead, it's a mystical mumbo-jumbo about the supposed healing properties of certain frequencies.

Yeah, I did a search on it and was inundated with the stuff you're mentioning here. Guess I was hoping for better. "Mystical mumbo-jumbo" out of Galway?! Say it ain't so!

[pancelticpiper]

For sure that's something I would expect here on the Left Coast USA.

About the properties of certain frequencies, I know a very good musician who has spent many years busking who told me that crowd noise (the blend of numerous simultaneous conversations) is in Concert C.

Therefore a musician playing at that pitch will get swallowed up by the background wash of human murmuring, and must play at a pitch higher than C to be heard most effectively.

It seems preposterous to me, but I've not done nearly as much busking as he has.

[benhall.1]

For sure that's something I would expect here on the Left Coast USA.

About the properties of certain frequencies, I know a very good musician who has spent many years busking who told me that crowd noise (the blend of numerous simultaneous conversations) is in Concert C.

Therefore a musician playing at that pitch will get swallowed up by the background wash of human murmuring, and must play at a pitch higher than C to be heard most effectively.

It seems preposterous to me, but I've not done nearly as much busking as he has.

That reminds me. Isn't the pitch of the universe supposed to be Bb?

[benhall.1]

This isn't referring to solfege as usually thought of, namely using syllables to correspond to notes. Instead, it's a mystical mumbo-jumbo about the supposed healing properties of certain frequencies. The set of whistles is one for each of these frequencies, which are supposedly used for different things. It's New Age-y stuff that has very little connection to how most musicians would discuss "solfeggio."

Search for "solfeggio frequencies" if you want to learn more; I don't want to give any quacks an SEO boost by linking them here.

I just have.

I don't want to even mention any names, because the discussion could rapidly spiral down into ... well, I'm not even going to go there. Suffice to say that I discovered very quickly that one of the main exponents of this nonsense is someone who one knows from other areas of life to be, shall we say, an "enemy of reason". Oh dear.

[Sedi]

Oh damn. I became curious and started googling . What a load of ####.

[benhall.1]

Oh damn. I became curious and started googling . What a load of ####.

I know. I wish I hadn't, too.

[Nanohedron]

That reminds me. Isn't the pitch of the universe supposed to be Bb?

We are told that Bb is the deepest note discovered - so far - in the universe, coming from the black hole of the Perseus cluster. While I've heard the "universe's pitch is Bb" claim before, too, I find no backing for it; apparently it's only a misinterpretation of the former, for it's well known that all bodies vibrate at different frequencies. Because of this, I should think that, tempting as it is, the notion of a universal frequency becomes highly problematic - but perhaps someone versed in that branch of astrophysics could correct me on this.

That said, Bb has some interesting - and I daresay random - properties of its own: At an octave below middle C, during WWII the pitch was known to have excited an alligator named Oscar who lived at the American Museum of Natural History; tunes in Bb's modal ambitus were the favorite of my late cat Mubu, for they made her purr more than any other; and it is my natural vocal scale - in part I must attribute that, and my one-octave range, to the cigarettes and whisky ... nothing mystical there.

[oleorezinator]

Nigel Tufnel finds Dm to be the saddest of all keys.

[stiofan]

Nigel Tufnel finds Dm to be the saddest of all keys.

Professor Pythagorus is of the opinion that Mr. Tufnel is never going to pass Music Theory 101 with that sort of attitude.

[stiofan]

For sure that's something I would expect here on the Left Coast USA.

Indeed. But in the 20 years I lived in San Francisco, I never ran across it – though I imagine there were 'solfeggio healers' around if you knew where to find them. And I lived a mere half mile up the hill from the Haight!

I know a very good musician who has spent many years busking who told me that crowd noise (the blend of numerous simultaneous conversations) is in Concert C.

When I was busking (playing cello) in the subway stations in SF, the challenge was more about projecting the sound of the instrument over the din of trains and passers-by, whatever key you're playing in. There was one particular place in between two station entrances where, due to the concrete flooring and tiled walls, sound was projected like you were amplified. Needless to say, it was prime busker 'territory.'