38. Musical instruments

Medicine, Healing Harmonics, and Music
(originally posted as a comment here)

Some comments about 'pure tones' and current music, which I think more should know about if you start to seriously get into cymatics issues and vibration issues in health or strange physics effects--which fit into the presumed "Philadelphia Experiment, to the Hutchinson (harmonics) Effects, to Cold Fusion high frequency effects, to presumed crop circle diatonic scales being used in many of them in the physical ratios of the patterns, to various interesting cymatic frequency healing devices, to Qigong practitioner's hands emitting secondary sound waves they have found out that, when recorded and played back to hospital patients, heal faster (more on that below), etc. The healing (audial) touch?

The "Music and Harmonics" section above talked of notes fitting harmonically into an 8-note scale and passed over that this is actually unnatural for the harmonics that the human body and mind tend to recognize as harmonic and pretty: fifths.

It's only fifths that are actually strangely human-mind felt harmonic and pretty (no one really can explain why), while octaves are just the same frequency doubled, without the various reverberatory tones of consonant notes like fifths (or thirds, fourths). Though it's fifths that humans tend to note as the prettiest, the world round.

However, most music (and fifths) you will hear nowadays will always be tuned flat from instruments. Every note.

Why?

That's what this long quote is about, from a book.

How intentionally flat tunings became known as "well-tempered" is the point of this. "Well-tempered" tends to on the surface imply harmony, though perversely it's nothing like that. It is equal, though it's all flatted notes and subtly outside of harmonic resonance, particularly for fifths.

Our admixture of odd tunings popularized by the West from the early 1700s has an interesting history. Europe started to popularize non-harmonic scales subtly out of whack, for intentionally creating flat notes equally flatted to squeeze in fifths into octaves, to avoid retuning an instrument when you wanted to change keys.

However, the idea of 'equal flatting' of fifths to fit them into octaves series was actually a Chinese inventor's idea in the 1580s: to put two different disharmonic scales (octaves, based on 2x the previous note; and fifths, based on 1.5x the previous note, that never really match anywhere) artificially together into the same instruments by 'flatting all fifths' over a scale of 12 notes equally, to scrunch and make the octave series the basis for the flatted fifths--which it is the fifths that are the most human-healing oriented and pretty.

The "tempering" allowed for transposings between octaves and keys. Got that? No. :-)

Well, I copied (really, spoke into some text to speech software) to clarify from a book I have on Chinese science history, in its interesting chapter on music.

When Bach wrote his "well tempered clavichord" it is generally unappreciated that he was actually writing a musical manifesto of this different transpositional and intentionally flat tunings. He wanted to popularize this flatted tuning, and demoting previous different harmonics based tunings in Europe and and it turns out, worldwide. The implication of Bach's publication of 1722 flatted Well-Tempered Clavier series has been very profound.

(Perhaps this is why I've always enjoyed "pre-Bach" music: of the 1600s with different tunings on ancient instruments more than other 'modern' 'post-Bach' European music. There's something about Bach that has always just made me feel angry like it was harmonically wrong or something. Grating. :-)

However, the odd thing is that Bach was drawing his ideas about equal tempering from a Chinese musical theorist of the 1580s.

Anyone who gets into 'pre-modern' tunings and scales or actual pure harmonics is going to run into both Egyptian (pyramids) issues and Chinese issues of their harmonic scales and their 2,000 year old bells.

Forgive the quote's length. It's just three pages in a book. Skip over it if you are not interested-- though if you follow anything from above or the last post, 'real harmonics' are key to a lot of different things discussed here at RI.

The quote is from The Genius of China: 3,000 Years of Science, Discovery and Invention, by Robert Temple (1989), 206-213:

"

The first understanding of musical timbre. Third century A.D.

We have already mentioned timbre. It is sometimes called the "quality" of a musical notes. It may be defined as the original fundamental note sounded, together with the overtones present with it. A tuning-fork casts no timbre, because it merely sounds of the fundamental note free of overtones; but the rich and resonant sounds [caused by sympathetic vibrations in other non-played strings that sound when you play 'one' note on the piano, since the sound itself starts to 'play' any other sympathetic frequencies on other strings automatically through the air] produced by a modern piano are a triumph of the art of production of harmonious timbre.

The only sources of harmonious [automatically adjusting] timbre possible in non-electronic musical instruments are vibrating strings [in pianos] and [sympathetic] vibrating columns of air (as in pipes or flutes).

Bells can be acceptably harmonious in their timbre [particularly ancient Chinese bells, see below, that actually were cast to play fifths and thirds harmonically--which no one can still do today, a lost art how they designed their 3,000 year old bells], but percussion instruments have bad timbre.

The Chinese achieved a deep and profound understanding of timbre [sympathetic resonance], and went further than any other culture, before or since, in exploiting it for musical purposes.

The ancient Chinese zither known as the ku ch'in, or just simply ch'in (sometimes called the classical Chinese lute, although it is in reality a halftone zither, usually of seven strings but originally a five and occasionally of nine) is, as Needham tells us, "the only musical instrument in any culture which has no frets and actually marks the nodes of vibration on the board."

The very fact that there can be such a thing as a stringed instrument with no frets seems astonishing in itself.

The point of this instrument was that the strings were not played in such a way as to ever change their pitch, as happens when a string is pressed on to a fret in other instruments, such as the guitar or the violin. The ch'in was played with each string remaining at the same pitch at all times, and the art of playing was the production of different timbres of each string at a constant pitch.

This is so subtle that many Westerners might balk and question whether the result would strictly be music at all. But it is in fact a wonderfully rich and satisfying music.

The strings of the ch'in are all of silk. The traditional manner of playing them involve more than 26 different "touches" or means of plucking or stroking them, for vibrato alone....The playing of the ch'in obviously require a musical notation different from usual.

Musical notation for this instrument took the form of instructions, not only on which strings were to be used, note by note, but on the "touch" by which the fingers were to play each note.

Many piece of music for this instrument also survived which additionally indicates that the rising or falling intonation of the words [similar to different tones for the same word sounds in the Chinese language can mean different words] sung by the singer were to be accompanied by the zither; the change in voice intonation was matched by the variations in timbre of the instrument -- a particularly subtle musical technique [shadowing the Chinese sung language perfectly].


Equal temperament in music; 16th century A.D.

The inventor of equal temperament and music was Chu Tsai-Yu, who published his invention in 1584. The first mention of his invention was in the unpublished papers of the great mathematician Simon Stevin (died 1620). Chu Tsai-Yu was born in 1536, a prince of the Ming Dynasty.

But he turned his back on his princely rank and concentrated instead on studying music, mathematics and the science of the calendar.

This system of equal temperament appeared in his book A New Account of the Science of the Pitch-Pipes, published in 1584. The Chinese did not pay much attention to the new system, but the Europeans quickly saw its advantages [mechanistically].

Two years earlier, the great Chinese scholar of the Jesuits, Matteo Ricci, commenced his studies at Macao. From 1580, the Viceroy of the Cantonese province [where Portuguese city-colony Macao was on the Chinese southern coast] had established biannual "trade fairs" lasting several weeks, at which Chinese and Westerners exchanged ideas and goods.

The interchange between East and West was intense, just at the moment when Chu Tsai-Yu went into print with his new theory. It is a case of perfect timing which gives one the feeling that it was "meant" to happen.

We do not know the exact mode of transmission of the idea to Europe; there can be no doubt that Western music was to be totally conquered by the Ming prince, for within 52 years of Chu's publication, his ideas were published by Pere Marin Mersenne.

The Ming ended eight years later, but Ming music today blares from every transistor radio in the world.

The first published reference to the mathematical basis for equal temperament in Europe, was by Mersenne in one of his many books of musical theory, entitled Harmonie Universelle, issued in 1636. Werkmeister later popularized equal temperament, and Johann Sebastian Bach took up the cudgels on its behalf by composing a series of pieces, collectively entitled The Well-Tempered Clavier, consisting of "preludes and fugues in all the tones and semitones... for the use and practice of young musicians who desire to learn, as well as by way of amusement, for those who are already skilled in this study."

This epochal work was published in 1722. Yet probably only a few of all those who have ever listened to or play these pieces have had any idea of Bach's underlying intentions. The Well-Tempered Clavier was a work of propaganda [and like much coldly thought out purposes of propaganda makes "bad emotional art", though that is just my opinion as a Tartini (1692-1770) lover [<-- listen] and von Biber (1644-1704) lover [<-- listen] instead of a Bach lover].

Bach (1685-1750) had adopted equal temperament with a passion later to be matched by that of his fellow-composer Giuseppe Tartini's opposition to it [whom I've always preferred].

Equal temperament allows one to modulate fluently from key to key consecutively in the composition and performance of music [without retuning].

It was passionately adopted by those who thought the practical advantages of this were paramount [or those who were lazy and emotionally tone deaf] and was as passionately opposed by those who thought that purity of tone and other substantial factor should not be sacrificed to such base utility.

These frenzied debates and disagreements have died down now in the West, at least for the moment. [However, if there's healing in only pure harmonics of frequencies or even Hutchinson-like or 'cold fusion'-like alchemy, or in medical practices, the concern for pure harmonics may be set alight once more in music through equal sympathetic vibration; see my conclusion to this quote].

Equal temperament, so hugely aided by the prestige [and manic coffee impatience/addiction] of Bach, triumphed utterly during the 19th century, yet many of today's musical experts do not really understand its principles, and no more than a handful of Westerners can now appreciate what music would sound like without it.

[Except you reading this perhaps, right now.]

The only way for the reader to appreciate the magnitude of the subject is for us to consider the underlying problem which makes perfection of tone in all music composition impossible. It is one of the most fascinating but least known of the fundamental enigmas of the Universe. There is no music conceivable, on what ever planet, in whatever galaxy, where the dilemma could be escaped.

Let us illustrate the manner in a simple way by discussing a piano.

Most people know that a note struck simultaneously with a note 8 notes higher (in a scale) is an "octave". The low note and the high note are the same (say a C), except that the high note is 'C an octave higher than the lower C'. The higher one is double the frequency of the lower one. [Middle C is around 264 Hz, or vibrations per second.] This is true whatever note played; an octave is defined as a note of a particular frequency sound with a note of twice that frequency. Octaves are quite simple. They also rather boring, because the same notes sounded an octave apart have no variety. There is neither consonance or dissonance; there is just uniformity. An octave is like a man standing and staring at a photograph of himself which he holds in his hand: a simple double image.

How much more interesting it would be if the man were to stand with his arm around a woman whom he loves, or were to be scowling at one whom he hates. The first would be a consonance and the second would be a dissonance. The interest of life is in its variety and juxtaposition; hence, a C played with any other note than another C takes on greater interest to us than the octave.

The most pleasing consonance of two notes sounded together is what is called a "fifth". This is not simply subjective; an analysis of the sound waves involved shows that the higher harmonics of the notes have consonant beats with one another. But there does remain a mystery about the preference human beings find for harmony and the annoyance they experience upon hearing dissonance. Sir James Jeans has written: "it must be admitted, however, that [there] is a defect of most theories of discord. Innumerable theories are ready to tell us the origin of the annoyance we feel on hearing a discord, but none even attempts to tell us of the origin of the pleasure we feel on hearing harmony; indeed, ridiculous though it may seem, this latter remains one of the unsolved problems of music."

What, then, is this most pleasing and harmonic of all sounds, the fifth?

For it was the fifth rather than the octave which was the basis for Chinese music. [Actually if you struck a Chinese bronze bell it would sound a fifth harmonic actually, or a third harmonic, instead of a 'note'. This has only been found out actually in the past 10 years, that the Chinese knew how to cast predictable HARMONIC multitone bells 3,000 years ago, which Europe couldn't even do until this century:

"Archeological sensation
The 65 bronze bells from the tomb of Marquis Yi of Zeng (433 B.C.) are considered as one of the most fortunate discoveries in archeology. Due to favorable conditions of tomb preparation, soil, and soon natural water filling, the bronze of the bells survived fully intact. The bells sound as they did 2,436 years ago, and - as yet - better than any replicas that have been made in our days.

Two tones per bell

Two-tone bells were common in China between 1200 and 200 B.C. After that the advanced know-how to cast them was lost, and it could not yet be fully recovered in our days.

The bells have an eye-shaped cross-section and vibrate in one of two modes, depending on where they are struck.

A strike in the middle of the front makes frontside and backside vibrate as whole units and produces the lower tone sui.

A strike between the middle of the front and a side edge makes frontside and backside vibrate as two units each and produces the higher tone gu.

If struck correctly, both tones are fully independent, each with its own fundamental and harmonics. This is shown in a spectral analysis, presented together with the underlying sound samples, of the two tones of one of the original bells.

Quality and timbre of the two tones are fully compatible, and they are both marked by tone-name inscriptions on the bells.

Thus, both were intended to be used in musical practice.

Of the 33 bells in the melody section of the Zeng ensemble, 21 have a sui-gu interval of a minor third (mean 312.4 Cent, SD 13.8), 10 have one of a major third (mean 403.1 Cent, SD 18.1), and two have apparently mistuned ones with 244 and 342 Cent (details below).

Tone name system

The tone names inscribed on the bells very clearly reflect a theory of scale generation by both fifths and thirds. It must be examined, however, if the actual tuning practice agrees with the theory. The results show that it does not. The tone name system obviously had lost its theoretical background for the bell casters (details [not] below). But it is a very interesting name system, because it shows an awareness of the thirds in the concept of scale construction, something that developed in Europe [only] ca. 2000 years later."

http://web.telia.com/~u57011259/Zengbells.htm

That website may have a hardwired answer to why fifths and harmonics sound 'right' to the human brain, as well as why vowels in languages sound pretty: they are mostly the same harmonics and processed in the same way by the brain.

"

Pitch and harmony detection in the auditory midbrain

Before 1998 it was unknown that the unique neural map of acoustic frequency in the auditory midbrain (inferior colliculus) is a functional adaptation for pitch extraction from complex tones.

The vocalization sounds of many mammalian species and the vowels of human speech consist of a series of harmonics (e.g. 900 Hz, 1200 Hz, and 1500 Hz).

[All meditation mantras I've ever heard are full of sonorous vowels, hitting thus harmonics in the brain and body.]

They are unified in the auditory brain of these animals into a single percept of one pitch (an equivalent of 300 Hz in the given example).

This spectral synthesis supports the localization and the identification of single sound sources in natural, noisy environments.

The auditory midbrain is adapted to this task by its anatomy of stacked neuronal layers. Each layer processes sound signals from a specific bandwidth of the acoustical spectrum, and the separation into bands is optimal for the neuronal combination of harmonics that is needed for pitch extraction.

Because the auditory midbrain is hardwired for the processing of low-order harmonics in vocalization sounds, it is also hardwired for the processing of harmonic spectral components in music.

The mechanism that provides pitch detection in speech does the same job in music as well.

Our brain prefers harmonic tones and harmonic tone combinations, because it can extract more information from them [and because it 'makes the brain glow' more, as it hits different 'stacked neuronal layers' in their phrase simultaneously.]

Back to Temple:

"

A typical example would be the chord CG. Then if you play successive fifths, using a top note of one fifth as the bottom note of a new fifth, you do not come to a C again for quite some time...In fact, you have a succession of 12 fifths, before reaching another.

Musical theorists like to speak of the ascending fifths as a "spiral of fifths", and they draw them in a diagram spiraling upwards.

If you count the number of octaves between the first and last note in a spiral of 12 fifths, you'll find that there are seven. As the spiral has gone round, it has repeatedly missed the higher octave notes of the original note, [making eighths and fifths without any 'real' harmonic connection at all] until finally after 12 fifths it hits the seventh octave of the original note. [So they say...] Then and only then [i.e., only the distance of seven octaves actually has a somewhat harmonic resonance with the fifths] do the two separate ascending series, meet.

And upward (or downward) spiral of fifths and an upward (or downward) spiral of octaves thus only me up when 12 fifths and seven octaves end on the same note. Until then, on their upward or downward courses, the two means of proceeding had been quite separate. It is as if two runners were running the same distance on two separate tracks which went over and under one another repeatedly until they reach the same finishing post, at a point where the separate tracks met for the first time since the start.

This is important, for upon examining this more closely we find that it is not as simple as it seems -- there is something curiously wrong.

The problem is this: musical tones are very precisely measurable in the laboratory, and an exact number is assigned to every note as its frequency. Now, when one plays a C seven octaves higher than another C, we find that its frequency is 128 times that of the original. (Every octave doubles the frequency, and if you progressively double something seven times you have in fact made it 128 times its original self). But if you want to have a sequence of fifths [12 times over, here's the paradox, which of course are exactly close to the same note] which increased by 1.5 times the original frequency (which is what fifths do) 12 times over, you will achieve a final result not exactly equal to the 128 of seven octaves [2^7 = 128x], but equal instead to the slightly different amount of 129.75, which is the value of (1.5)^12 [=129.75x].

The fact is that the mathematics of the fifth is incommensurable (harmonically) with the mathematics of the octave [despite current piano tuners claims to the contrary, or even piano builders].

A note which is a fifth higher than another note has a measurable frequency 1 1/2 times that of the lower note.

And [duh] the number 1.5 is arithmetically incommensurable with the number two (which expresses the doubling of the frequency of a note when raised an octave). So the fifth in the octave are out of joint with each other on fundamental arithmetical grounds.

The spiral of fifths comes to a stop at a point which is 1.0136 times the sequence of octaves. (Or, the frequency 129.75 is 1.0136th that of 128). This value, 1.0136, is known as "the comma of Pythagoras", after the Greek philosopher who discussed it [who supposedly learned everything from Egypt].

The different keys are established in Chinese music by the 12 different notes of the spiral of fifths [in other words the Chinese "octave" was based on a harmonic repeating of fifths not eighths, a comparatively huge 'octave,' so to speak, thinking about a piano, which means 12 fifths was one 'octave' to the Chinese], and these 12 notes are all found within the compass of a single fundamental octave. The spiral of fifths ascends from C to G to D to A to E to B to F sharp to C sharp to A flat to E flat to B flat to F back to C (except, as just mentioned, this C is not absolutely precise). It will be appreciated that all of these notes fall between one C and the higher or lower C, and give the 12 keys. These 12 notes also give the complete chromatic scale of modern music.

Equal temperament is an artificial system created to get round the fact that the spiral of fifths ends on a note that's slightly off the end of the sequence of octaves. The tiny fraction of 0.0136 is divided into 12 equal parts, and each part is subtracted from one of the 12 notes into which an octave [in Europe] is divided [i.e., the white and black piano keys]. This means that the gap between a note and its "fifth" is no longer precisely 1.5, but is instead a tiny fraction less, 1.4983.

This "violence" done to all the fifths squeezes them into the tinier space of a pure octave.

All 12 steps in the octave are now precisely equal [from each other, instead of related to harmonics], and are called semitones. In order to accomplish this, each fifth has been artificially but evenly rendered flat by about one 48th of a semitone.

All equally tempered music is thus uniformly and unremittingly "flat".

But it provides a regular and reliable structure so that one can modulate from [flat] key to [flat] key [quickly], for as much richness and variety of composition as one could desire.

This is not to say that much has not been lost -- sacrificed on the altar of utility. Our modern ears have been so debased by hearing only equally tempered music that we no longer know a pure tone. We send for a piano tuner to tune our piano, but in fact, he comes and tunes it flat, as relentlessly as ants march forth from their nest. We are thus subjected, from birth to death, to nothing but flat notes [in modern music scales].

We never so much as hear a pure tone [or, perhaps, know their healing power.]

Before equal temperament, in both China and the West, there were various "modes" of untempered music. For the sake of simplicity, we can speak as well of the ancient Greek ones, which have less difficult names, though they all have Chinese equivalents. There were the Ionian, Dorian, Phrygian, Lydian, Mixo-Lydian, Aeolian and Locrian modes. Instruments could be tuned to only one mode at a time. Some of the modes were happy and carefree, while others were sad and mournful. They represented a vast richness of emotional [and perhaps healing] intensity and experience which has now completely and utterly vanished from the music known to us today. It is impossible to describe them: the colorations and subtleties of the different modes were somewhat like the difference which we note between the major and minor keys, multiplied several times.

In the absence of these old modes, not a single person in the entire Western world unafflicted by deafness can avoid hearing at every turn, music fashioned [to flat notes] from an imported Chinese theory [into European mass produced instruments and music notation].

"/endquote

The book Civilization One (2006) has some interesting things to say about Chinese harmonics as well as Egyptian and Babylonian harmonics.

In short, Prince Chu Tsai-Yu invented equal temperament in music, and published the idea in 1584 in his New Account of the Science of the Pitch-Pipes. He proudly stated: "I have founded a new system [to intentionally flat all 1.5x based fifths equally, to fit 2x based octaves]." Little could he have realized that his system would be universally adopted in the West. Coffee-addled Johann Sebastian Bach was its leading promoter--or addict, you decide.

---

More purely created electronic harmonics are the basis of some interesting healing technologies invented in the past 30 years. Note the Qicong frequency generator as well1!

Cymatic Instruments in Sound Therapy

In Sound Therapy such devices are employed that utilize specific sound frequencies to achieve therapeutic benefits such as pain reduction or relaxation. Treatments from devices such as cymatic instruments and the Infratonic QGM today are being used worldwide.

The Infratonic QGM: The Machine That Produces Qi Energy

Lu Yan Fang, Ph.D., a senior scientist at the National Electro Acoustics Laboratory in Beijing, China, discovered that Qigong masters emitted from their hands high levels of waves called secondary sound. She constructed a machine that simulated this infratonic sound and tested it on over 1,100 hospitalized patients.

Numerous therapeutic benefits were noted, including pain reduction, headache relief, increased circulatory functioning, muscular relaxation, alleviation of depression, and increased brain production of alpha waves.

Her instrument, the Infratonic QGM, received awards of recognition from the China Ministry of Health and the National Committee for Traditional Chinese Medicine.

In China it is medically recognized as an effective pain management tool.

In the United States it is today pending FDA (Food and Drug Administration) approval for use as a therapeutic massage device.

Cymatic Therapy

Sir Peter Guy Manners, M.D., D.O., Ph.D., of Worcestershire, England, states that cymatic therapy is not applied through auditory channels, but directly through the skin.

Cymatic therapy uses sound waves within the audible range to stimulate natural regulatory and immunological systems, and to produce a near-optimum metabolic state for a particular cell or organ.

Dr. Manners says, every object, whether inanimate or alive, possesses a unique electromagnetic field that exhibits antagonistic, complimentary (resonant), or neutral reactions when it interacts with other electromagnetic fields.

Resonant equilibrium represents the healthy state (resonance may be defined as the frequency at which an object most naturally vibrates); illnesses is represented by resonant disequilibrium.

Cymatic therapy uses a computerized instrument to establish equilibrium in the body by transmitting resonant frequencies of sound into the body.

These signals pass through healthy tissues, but reestablish healthy resonance in unhealthy tissues.

Dr. Manners has researched the signals given out by healthy tissues [and utilized a particular Yale University researcher's previous work as well].

By intercepting [i.e., 'listening electronically to'] electrical messages transmitted via the central nervous system to individual cells, this research has allowed the [artificial] coding of cymatic signals that cells understand. [I think IC recently posted something about the nervous system running on sound waves, as much as electromagnetics, right?]

Each tissue has been given an H-factor (harmonic factor) according to the signal emitted.

The cymatic instrument adjusts acoustic audible sound frequencies in order to induce beneficial stimulation, activation [of what, DNA?], and circulation when applied to the body via direct contact with affected areas or by way of acupuncture meridians.

Cymatic therapy does not cure, but simply places the body in a situation so that it can cure itself without pain, surgery, or drugs.

Dr. Manners believes cymatic therapy for humans in the future will likely concentrate on the skin, peripheral nerves, and bone, since these are the areas capable of regeneration.

It may also be useful in organ transplantation, balancing the resonance of the transplanted organ with that of the recipient.

Cymatic instruments have been in use worldwide for over twenty-eight years, and have been in use in the United States since the late 1960s.

They are used by nurses, chiropractors, osteopaths, and acupuncturists throughout the world. Training is required to become a cymatic practitioner. Cymatic instruments produce no side effects, and the only contraindication for use is for patients with pacemakers.

[Here's a picture of one. Check the PDF on that page as well, for a list of particular coded "frequency symptoms correction chart". Here's a picture of a U.S. manufactured one, with the speaker unit that is held up to the body.]

The [electronic-audio based] Cymatic instrument, and (third) [electromagnetic, non-audio] Vibe Machine [<-- link, video interview with the inventor, Gene Koonce, 18 minutes] are three forms of electromagnetic/audio frequency healing technologies, based, basically, on what might be called music--and how different parts of our body vibrates either in sync with health or out of sync with ill health.

We’ve already gotten into DNA issues of frequency being activated (biophotonic light).

The Cymatic instrument is based on the physical fact that certain areas of the body have their own frequencies (a Yale University researcher did the basic research on this in the late 1960s and 1970s, which Sir Guy Peter Manners applied in his Cymatic instrument), and are ‘off’ in ill health.

I would theorize that the mechanism here is that righting different resonances in the body switches on DNA in special ways, just as the same way that audible chanting might do the same or singing, or music. (Though the Vibe Machine seems to give a jolt to the ATP cell energy manufacture, by correcting the body's intracellular frequency to allow the body to make ATP more efficiently, or at optimal health--which has according to some (currently anecdotal) even capacities to detoxify heavy metals from the body naturally when you are optimized. Gene Koonce is sort of a 21st century Raymond Royal Rife who isn't dead...and who has already mass produced his equipment and pollinated it around the world (thankfully), whereas Rife's machines were not mass manufactured and were soon killed off.

Make harmonics and make healing seems to be the recipe.