If your attention starts to wander away from your breath, simply return your attention to your breathing!

It also helps to listen to music while doing this.

You can do this for 5 minutes or 20 minutes, whatever you are comfortable with.

***Although I tuned to A=432 Hz, instead of the standard A=440 Hz, this is still not a genuine Pythagorean tuning.  This is because instruments are tuned using the Equal Temperament Scale.

***According to the Pythagorean tuning, or “Just Tuning” scale A=432 Hz, and C=128 Hz… (there are more)  And they function according to fibonacci sequence, and therefore is the most harmonious tuning to our being.
(Since this spiral is used in our inner ears).

***The only issue with REAL Just Tuning is what’s known as a “Wolf Interval,” so an A# and a B flat, which are normally the same note, are actually slightly off.

*** So if you wanted to play in a different key you would have to re-tune your piano or guitar for EACH SONG.  Yikes!!!!

*** The “Equal Temperament Scale” was designed to have the least amount of these so called “bad” intervals, so it’s not as perfectly harmonious as “Just” Tuning, BUT you don’t have to re-tune your instrument for each song!
(which would make live concerts really annoying!)

*** According to our A=440 Hz Equal Tempered tuning, our C is 130.18 Hz,

So by subtracting 8 Hz from 440, we get 432, and then by default we automatically subtract 8 Hz from C=130.18, we get a C=122.81 Hz !!!!!!!

(And not the C=128 Hz like in Pythagorean Tuning)

So by making the A more resonate, we in turn make the C further away.

***According to Pythagorean / “Just” Tuning:

C = 128 Hz
G =192 Hz
D = 288 Hz
E = 324 Hz
A = 432 Hz

And our current A= 440 Hz / Equal Temperament Tuning is:

C = 130.81
G = 196.00
D = 293.66
E = 329.63
A = 440.00

SO when subtract 8 Hz from all of these, and you’ll get what my guitar is tuned to in this video, which IS NOT true Pythagorean tuning!!!  Some note’s are slightly closer to the Pythagorean notes (usually by 4 Hz), but the C is still further away.

So why did I tune to this?  Many site’s suggest that we should change our concert pitch to A=432 Hz (C= 128 Hz).  I originally assumed that by doing this my chords would become more harmonious, but as I have shown, this is fundamentally impossible!

Overall, using this tuning makes it significantly easier to sing certain songs, even if the pitch is only a tad lower.  I wouldn’t have covered this song without the tuning cause it’s hard as heck to sing normally!

Online Sources:

Frequencies of Musical Notes:
http://www.phy.mtu.edu/~suits/notefreqs.html

Pythagorean Tuning:
http://www.sccs.swarthmore.edu/users/08/ajb/tmve/wiki100k/docs/Pythagorean_tuning.html

What’s interesting to note about the song is that it sounds almost exactly like another song, “Maggot Brain,” by Funkadelic. (Or you may not have heard of any of these songs!)

What’s also interesting to note is that John Frusciante intended for it to sound that way!  He has stated that the song “Before The Beginning” is his homage to Eddie Hazel’s “Maggot Brain.”

That’s good and all, but I find throughout music that there are plenty of cases where a song sounds very similar to another, and it wasn’t intended, or maybe just by accident.

Here’s a list of some songs that sounds very similar:

***The chorus of Lady Gaga’s “You and I” is the exact chord progression of “Hey Jude,” by The Beatles. (Next time it’s on try singing Nah, nah, nah during the chorus).

***Bob Dylan’s “Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door” (1973) is the exact same chord progression of Neil Young’s “Helpless” from the CSNY album Deja Vu (1970)

Now there’s most likely more, but these are the main one’s I’m going to cover.  These cases have all been chord progression related.  And it’s very easy for a musician to write something completely original, and then find that it’s the same chords for a nother song, or maybe only part of it sounds like another song.  I myself have done this myself!  (And then trashed the song after realizing it sounds like another).  I feel it’s a case of being heavily influenced by another musician’s work that you end up subconsciously placing thing’s you’ve heard into your own music.  And as long as you have different lyrics, a different tempo, and possibly a different style to it, then it’s perfectly ok!

Here you can listen to the music I’ve made and find out a little bit about what inspires me to make it.  I’ll be blogging periodically about my recording process, new sources of inspiration, and videos of me playing my own music and performing covers.

For now, here’s a video of me performing “Two Of Us” by The Beatles:

My new album, Acoustic Pyramid, just came out on January 15th and is available for free to download!

- John A. Kramer