Gather ’round, kids. Those of you with tinfoil hats may wish to ensure that they’re fitted snuggly. What I’m about to tell you will shake your faith in all the music you’ve heard in your life.

If you look down the right paths, it becomes clear that governments and various security apparatuses have used music to control us using music. All the music of the West that’s based on the standard 12-tone scale is used for the management of crowds as well as thought control.

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Let’s begin with some music theory.

If musical performances were to sound the same the world over, some standardization was required. As early as 1885, the Music Commission of the Italian Government declared that all instruments and orchestras should use a tuning fork that vibrated at 440 Hz, which was different from the original standard of 435 Hz and the competing 432 Hz used in France.

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In 1917, the American Federation of Musicians endorsed the Italians, followed by a further push for 440 Hz in the 1940s.

In 1953, a worldwide agreement was signed. Signatories declared that middle “A” on the piano be forevermore tuned to exactly 440 Hz. This frequency became the standard ISO-16 reference for tuning all musical instruments based on the chromatic scale, the one most often used for music in the West. All the other notes are tuned in standard mathematical ratios leading to and from 440 Hz.

This tone standard is now universally accepted, which is why a piano in Toronto sounds exactly the same as a piano in China.

Weirdly, no one can say for sure why this frequency was chosen in the first place. In fact, there those among us who vehemently disagree with this standard. In fact, they consider the 440 Hz middle “A” to be an abomination against nature.

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Adherents to this theory claim that a more “natural” frequency for middle “A” is 438 Hz. Others believe that the correct middle “A” is 432 Hz (also known as Verdi’s A) because it has “a pure tone of math fundamental to nature” and is “mathematically consistent with the patterns of the universe, vibrating with Phi, the Golden Ratio. They point to how this pitch can be connected to everything from nautilus shells to the works of the ancients, including the construction of the Great Pyramid.

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Furthermore, 432 Hz resonates with 8 Hz (the Schumann Resonance), the documented fundamental electromagnetic “beat” of Earth. It just feels better.

Research says that music tuned from this frequency is easier to listen to, brighter, clearer, and contains more inherent dynamic range. As a result, music with this tuning need not be played at higher volumes and thus reduces the risk of hearing damage.

The more radical among middle “A” haters insist that the true frequency should be 528 Hz because it’s a “digital bio-holographic precipitation crystallization [and] miraculous manifestation of diving frequency vibrations.” I have no idea what that means.

Here’s where the conspiracy comes in. There is allegedly something sinister and evil about 440 Hz. It is said that the Rockefeller Foundation had an interest in making sure the United States adopted the 440 Hz standard in 1935 as part of a “war on consciousness” leading to “musical cult control.”

Without going too far down this rat hole, this theory says that tuning all music to 440 Hz turns it into a military weapon.

I quote from one of the many online articles on the subject: “The monopolization of the music industry features this imposed frequency that is ‘herding’ populations into greater aggression, psychosocial agitation, and emotional distress predisposing people to physical illnesses and financial impositions profiting the agents, agencies, and companies engaged in the monopoly.”

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Whoa.

Going a little deeper, we end up at the doorstep of the Nazis. It is said that propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels insisted that on 440 Hz tuning in Germany because he believed it made people think and feel in specific ways, making them “a prisoner of a certain consciousness.” And if you’re trying to mobilize the population for Der Fuhrer, that’s exactly what you want, right?

There’s more from the Tinfoil Headphones crowd: “The powers that be are successfully lowering the vibrations of not only the young generation but the rest of us as well. These destructive frequencies entrain the thoughts towards disruption, disharmony, and disunity. Additionally, they also stimulate the controlling organ of the body — the brain — into disharmonious resonance, which ultimately creates disease and war.”

There’s something to think about the next time you pop in some earbuds. Does listening to music make you feel more warlike and diseased?

Let’s test it out with this video.

Got that? Now try another experiment. Here are two versions of Coldplay’s “The Scientist,” starting with the standard version from their 2002 album, A Rush of Blood to the Head.

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Any feelings of war or disease yet?

Now listen to this. It’s a version of the same song that’s been tuned down to the supposedly more natural frequency of 432 Hz. Can you feel a difference?

I’ve also been told that the different effects these frequencies have on our chakras. Songs tuned to 440 Hz work on the third eye chakra (the “thinking”) while 432 Hz stimulates the heart chakra (the “feeling”). Therefore, 432 Hz music increases the spiritual development of the listener. It may even have healing properties.

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There are numerous organizations advocating a universal switch to 432 Hz, but that would involve upsetting worldwide standards, not to mention the construction and re-tuning of millions of musical instruments. Nice idea, but it ain’t gonna happen.

If that idea stressed you out, please meditate on this special 432 Hz music.

Alan Cross is a broadcaster with 102.1 the Edge and a commentator for Global News.

Subscribe to Alan’s Ongoing History of New Music Podcast now on Apple Podcast or Google Play