Raise your vibration

“Raise your frequency!” “Raise your vibration!” I’ve heard these two commands almost as often as I’ve heard people request “H-Z music.” It makes intuitive sense that higher vibrations and frequencies are better than low ones, but this viewpoint doesn’t really hold up in the actual musical universe. May I offer one well-researched example?

A low vibration that heals

The frequency 40Hz has been scientifically shown to limit the growth of arterial plaque in the brain. This is a good thing for those in memory care, because a higher vibration wouldn’t have the same physical effects as 40Hz.

The 40Hz link I’ve included lasts 4:55 and is hosted by Spotify; it’s just the 40Hz tone by itself. You can find a similar presentation on YouTube here but it only lasts one minute. Now, if you’re suffering the effects of dementia or Alzheimers, doesn’t it make sense to listen as much as you can to this low-vibration frequency? Go ahead: try it.

How was that for you?

How was that? Did it hold your interest? I bet you thought about other things than the tone while you heard it, right? While letting our minds (or hearts, or souls, or even our physical bodies) do something in addition to hearing the tone is completely fine, I’d like to suggest that we find such healing exercises more practicable when there’s more than a single tone happing in our ears.

For comparison, try listening to a few minutes of this 40Hz music. Now ask yourself: for you, which listening experience was more immersive? Less susceptible to distraction?

While the pure 40Hz tone is listenable all by itself, the additional music surrounding the last example gives our systems additional ways to engage and capture our interest. For example, when I first heard the 40Hz music, it gave me a two-hour nap that was so restful that I didn’t want to stop when the music ended. I can’t say that about the solo tone.

The not-so-big reveal

Isolating a frequency this way is a useful exercise. But does it work? The Solfeggio Tones (as I call them) are supposedly “ancient” frequencies with healing properties. There are more “modern” new age frequencies that have similar claims: 666Hz, 999Hz, and 1111Hz are all “relaxing” or “angelic” or “healing” and bring everything from “peace” to divine inspiration.

Scientific inquiry into these claims is disappointing, since it appears from the anecdotal evidence that something happens in the presence of these tones. But – and this is the real question – does the particular frequency contain some kind of isolated effect, or is it the presence of additional frequencies (in the form of music) that actually benefits listeners?

If you said that the additional music helps, you’d be correct.

Why?

As research in neuroscience, music therapy, and medicine helps us understand this question, we begin to see and experience that music is more powerful than a single, isolated frequency.

And, with that perspective, we can also begin to understand that the power of music is contained not just in a single isolated tone, but demands the orchestration of many frequencies – many vibrations of different Hz – to realize fully.

Tones for holding still

It’s pleasantly powerful to experience a gong bath, or singing bowl meditation, or even participate in chanting the OM. It can release us into powerful internal energy in the form of emotion, even as it quiets our active head brains and busy bodies. However, it is essential to know that a single tone – from a gong or bowl or voice – is really not a single, isolated tone.

Electronic technology makes it possible to create a true, isolated frequency oscillation (tone, or pitch, or note). Unlike that kind of artificial tone, all vibrations and frequencies heard in the natural world contain far more than a single-frequency vibration.

So, if hanging out with a 528Hz crystal bowl produces some physical sensations that you enjoy, go ahead. Please know, though, that you’re getting 528Hz AND all of its overtones, also called harmonics. There are about 16 audible harmonics for most of the notes/tones that humans can hear. This is because the higher the fundamental tone (528Hz, for example), the higher the associated harmonics go, sometimes beyond the limit of human hearing. We can measure this stuff scientifically and yes: it goes both ways (there are harmonics below the fundamental as well as the ones we generally discuss that are above the fundamental).

So, listening to a single tone is actually listening to the fundamental tone (the most prominent one we can hear) plus 16 other distinct frequencies/vibrations. It’s beautifully mathematical, and while that kind of deep dive is out of scope for this article, ChatGPT can offer some insight if you’re curious.

Have you ever been to a gong bath or bowl meditation where there was just one gong or bowl? Why do you think that multiple tones – harmonics or music – work better than just one? It’s just like the 40Hz pure tone versus 40Hz music, isn’t it?

Those single tones – the ones you can feel in your bones – are really great, aren’t they? On the other hand, their ability to capture and hold our attention isn’t great unless we’re sitting still, doing nothing, and bringing our full presence into connection with their fundamental frequency and all of its delightful overtones. Please don’t use mono-frequency “music” as wallpaper, especially while operating heavy equipment, driving, or doing anything that demands your full attention. This is not music for successful multi-tasking.

Music for moving

While a single tone can put parts of us into synchronous resonance with the cycles per second (Hertz or Hz) frequency/vibration, what could happen if a bunch of tones (vibrations/frequencies, with all of their harmonics/overtones) got into us? It would be like that 40Hz music, wouldn’t it, when compared to the isolated 40Hz pure tone? Somewhat more immersive while still purpose-based?

The swirl of other vibrations/frequencies around a single tone is much different than the same experience of a melody, isn’t it? A melody moves; a single tone sits. Therefore, when we want to truly employ the power of music beyond sitting still, the music itself must move. Melodies that “satisfy” us, while largely culture-dependent, don’t just sit still on one note; like Jobim’s famous One Note Samba, something else about the music moves.

Now we’re engaging a few more cylinders of the musical engine: melody, sure, plus timbre,  rhythm, dynamics, and the harmonic structure of the music itself. That is, the different sounds and timbres of various complementary musical instruments, the percussion driving the rhythmic pulse, and the way that various chords progress into and out of each other. All of this creates a kind of musical arc – a story, if you will – that simply doesn’t exist in a mono-frequency tone.

Think of it this way: the mono-frequency story is “once upon a time nothing g really happened” whilst the musical story is “once upon a time…followed at long last by happily ever after.” The story, as we all know, matters.

Even our 40Hz musical story has subtle movement to it: some melody, some chord progression. It’s just enough to earn its own genre, what we musicians typically call “ambient” or “spa” music. Much better to have a massage to the 40Hz music than to the true, isolated 40Hz tone, yes?

So, to be concise, “tones for moving” can be simplified into a more general name for them: music.

And, to state the obvious, music is literally composed of multiple tones, strung together in a particular way, along with rhythm, timbre, harmony, and dynamics, to accomplish a particular purpose. Sometimes that purpose is entirely musical, however most often the purpose is broader: to make a social statement, respond to an important event, offer some innovative creation, provide a purposeful soundscape (for worship, contemplation, sportsball, commencement, etc), advance an artistic sentiment.

Now you can understand why music that is locked into a single tone for a while can be boring, or, at best, stodgy, regardless of the therapeutic effects implied by the specific vibrational frequency of the tone.

Which is best?

Whether moving or sitting still, the point is to choose supportive music. Human beings innately know – feel – the kinds of music that work best for them. Sometimes, scientific research will uncover surprises like 40Hz; this doesn’t mean that prior to the “discovery” 40Hz wasn’t being used and didn’t have this beneficial effect when heard! The same thing can be said for all the other mono-frequencies we might identify.

You like 999Hz for spiritual insight? Find and listen to music that uses that vibration/frequency; it might help to know that 999Hz is close to the note B6 (the sixth “B” to the right of the left-most “B” on a normal piano keyboard). The music doesn’t have to be “in the key of B” as we like to say, although that option might increase the number of times that a B6 actually sounds during the progress of the music.

What if your purpose is to have spiritual insight on your morning run? You might want to find music in the key of B that has a tempo – beats per minute – to match your run. Please keep in mind that, like a story, your running workout has phases to it that might require a change of tempo – either slower or faster – and that these changes ought to be reflected in the music you choose, too, as well as that “key of B” that you want for spiritual insight.

So, whether sitting still or moving, you have options for using 999Hz. I wouldn’t suggest that spa music works best for a physical activity that requires consistent movement! AI can help you quickly locate music in genres you prefer with the “key signature” you want (999Hz ~ “key of B”) but please keep in mind that AI has had trouble “knowing” whether “music in the key of B” is actually B major or its relative minor, G#, if only because AI doesn’t yet understand this musical nuance. If major/minor tonalities aren’t important to you, play around with this AI caveat and see what works best. Let your emotional response guide you here; your head brain may not yet have enough data to pattern-match for you in a reliable way on novel topics such as this one.

Coda

We’ve had this whole conversation around just two frequencies: 40Hz and 999Hz. Think of the possibilities! Fortunately, musicians and composers have been doing that for quite a while. What I hope has happened for you at this point is a somewhat broader application of current understanding about frequencies/vibrations, the “higher” or “lower” aspects of them, and the differences between mono-frequency tones that hold us still versus how those same tones can help us move when they are used skillfully as one aspect of music’s power.

Perhaps we ought to refer to this distinction as “the power of mono-frequency” versus “the power of music?” I believe this clarity is necessary for the same reason that saying “raise your vibration” is helpful: if you want to unlock the full potential of music and vibration, explore it for yourself. Ask questions. Get guidance. Your preferences, even if they are bound by genres and likes/dislikes, are uniquely yours, and advancing your understanding in this area may have a growth effect on your preferences, too.

It’s helpful to keep in mind that, regardless of how important a particular, single frequency/vibration may be for you, its purpose – far beyond some New Age impugned quality – is to exist as a unique point of light in the vast galaxy of the power of music. Like the color red, the shades and uses of a particular vibration/frequency (or music note) are vast, and intricately connected to every other note orbiting in the same galaxy.

So, when music speaks to you in a way that captivates your head, heart, body, and soul, listen. If the music you’re hearing doesn’t do that, regardless of what you’ve been told, your challenge is to find other music that does. Don’t take my word for it: try it for yourself. You can trust yourself on this! Music that speaks to you does that for a reason; give it your attention and welcome a curious expectation of great results.

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Over the course of more than 40 years of paying attention to how music works on us, Bill Protzmann has rediscovered the fundamental nature and purpose of music and accumulated a vast awareness of anthropology and sociology, as well as the effects of music, the arts, and information technology on human beings. Bill has experimented with what he has learned through performing concerts, giving lectures, facilitating workshops, and teaching classes. He first published on the powerful extensibility of music into the business realm in 2006 (here and abstract here). Ten years later, in 2016, he consolidated his work into the Musimorphic Quest. In this guided, gamified, experiential environment, participants discover and remember their innate connection to this ancient transformative technology. Also, The National Council for Behavioral Healthcare recognized Bill in 2014 with an Inspiring Hope award for Artistic Expression, the industry equivalent of winning an Oscar.

In addition to individuals, Musimorphic programs support personal and professional development and wellness for businesses, NPOs and at-risk populations.