About the Sound

 

 Did you know that today's instruments are slightly out of tune? It's because of the tuning system we use. Most traditional instruments (piano, guitar, horns, etc..) require a tuning system called "equal temperament." We use equal temperament because it allows us to play these instruments in multiple keys, while having equal amounts of harmony, and dissonance, in each key. There are 12 key centers (notes) on a traditional instrument, so think of it as splitting the difference 12 times to equal out the harmony, and dissonance, of each key. With equal temperament, only the 5ths and octaves of every key are actually considered "perfect harmonies," while the other 5 notes, in every key, are considered "imperfect harmonies." There's actually a combined total of 10 Hz of dissonance in an A=440 Hz major scale. In other words, on a piano, if you were to play all 8 notes in a major scale off of the A4 (which has a frequency of 440 Hz) you will actually be hearing a combined total of 10 Hz of dissonance. 

 Harmony and the Overtone Series of Nature

Now what if you were to build an instrument that only plays in one key? There's no need to use equal temperament because the instrument doesn't play in more than one key. Lets use mathematics and the Harmonic Overtone Series instead to achieve perfect harmonies of every note. Once you've determined the Hertz frequency of the root note (fundamental) you can simply divide that number into whole number ratios to find the frequencies of all the other notes in the key. In doing this, a tuning temperament of all perfect harmonies is created. Pythagorus and the ancient Greeks are credited with discovering this hormonic tuning technique, and it was used for 100's of years until equal temperament was developed in the 1500's. This way of dividing a frequency into fractions actually applies naturally, to everything, by way of a natural phenomenon known as the Harmonic Overtone Series. All music, and harmony, is derived from the overtone series and all Octavibe wind chimes are tuned according to the overtone system. We believe Octavibe is the first to apply this pure harmony tuning technique to wind chimes and think it's essential to rely on Nature to emphasize the true potential of the healing frequencies.