I had an account at this bank for a few years, and didn’t know about the collapse until reading this in Hacker News. I did receive a weird email from the bank today that my account was being migrated to a different bank.
Republic First was kind of a crappy bank. The website was bad, the customer service was bad, and most of their marketing prominently featured their CEO with his dog sitting on his lap in front of a new branch they’d just opened up.
A few years ago the bank started making it difficult to withdraw money from your accounts. They had ridiculously low limits for free transfers, and I ended up having to pay wire transfer fees to get my money out of the bank.
It was a weird place. Always got the vibe that some old money family ran it poorly.
This has not been done in a single US city. We only have patchwork networks, and a patchwork network of safe infrastructure is by definition unsafe infrastructure.
This 432 Hz theory is sort of like saying that if we measured the meter as being slightly shorter, people would have an easier time running a 5k.
Music exists in multiple keys, and a song can be in a high or low range regardless of what key it’s in. Changing the standard tuning wouldn’t fundamentally affect anything.
Also, did the study authors simply taking a recording and pitch shift it down to 432 Hz? That would affect the tempo of the song as well as the pitch. Even if they performed time stretching to keep the tempo the same, it shouldn’t be surprising that lower pitches make people slightly calmer than slightly higher pitches.
> Music exists in multiple keys, and a song can be in a high or low range regardless of what key it’s in.
Changing key is not the same as tuning A to another frequency. There is a long struggle between harmonic tune (rational relations between key's frequencies) and equal temperament (irrational 12th degree root of 2).
> Also, did the study authors simply taking a recording and pitch shift it down to 432 Hz?
It is an interesting question. Their language suggest they didn't just shift pitches, but I didn't read the article.
> Changing the standard tuning wouldn’t fundamentally affect anything.
And this statement is the most interesting part. If they really changed tune then nothing should change. But the authors claim that something changed. Probably our models are incorrect.
By the way it expands question about their methods. Did they use midi or synthesizer? If not, did they use violins? Guitars? Piano? These instruments are different enough to lead to different hypotheses.
>did they use violins? Guitars? Piano? These instruments are different enough to lead to different hypotheses.
Also similar enough to where they all have a bolder sound and somewhat different response when the same gage of strings are tuned more tightly to a higher standard pitch compared to a lower pitch.
From what I understand 440 was about the highest they could go on vintage violins once modern steel strings were invented.
Different musical compositions do reach different characteristic "high notes" so it must be accepted that very old works were originally played (and sung!) at noticeably lower ultimate frequencies than the same legendary pieces today.
Tension makes a huge difference but I still think heart rate in particular would be more tempo-responsive.
Now with the modern world standardized on 440 for so many people's lifetimes everyone gets accustomed to it after a while.
A bandleader who transposes everything down a half-step so they don't have to sing as high is not any different pitch than tuning to A=415.3 which is the relative frequency for G#. Either way you're playing notes that are still directly relative to A=440. The thing here is that most traditional and pop music is played in natural keys rather than sharp or flat keys, and generations of listeners become accustomed to hearing natural notes act as tonics rather than sharps or flats. But it still sounds completely normal and most people never notice.
Because out of all the infinite frequencies there are to choose from as a standard that are close to 440, at A=415.3 you're still only playing the same 12 exact carefully selected frequencies as everybody else tuned to A=440. The same 12 frequencies that have bombarded all consumers from all directions from any source of curated music for generations, to the near-exclusion of all other frequencies. When you think about it.
And 415.3 is a lot further away from 440 than 432 is, but if you tune to A=432 every sjngle note you play is one that almost nobody has been hearing on the radio, probably since there has been radio.
