| My interest in tuning forks was sparked a few | | | | tolerance and patience. If you have never played |
| years ago by an experience with the Ohm forks | | | | the recorder, they can be really out of tune if |
| from the Acutonics system. It was amazing to | | | | your blowing is too strong or too soft. Just |
| experience the beautiful low frequencies of those | | | | imagine a class of 30 kids doing this all at once. |
| forks zip through my body. I was already familiar | | | | Ouch for the ears, but important to encourage |
| with the wonderful sensations in the body from | | | | the kids. They were having fun. The parents |
| holding and playing my Tibetan singing bowl. The | | | | were trying not to cringe. |
| tuning fork is much more specific than a bowl. It | | | | A doctor will sometimes use a tuning fork to test |
| is like comparing a laser beam to a shower. They | | | | whether or not a bone is broken. When a |
| both feel amazingly wonderful, but they have | | | | sounding fork is placed on the skin where the |
| different purposes. Since that experience, I have | | | | sound can travel through the bone, a patient will |
| found that there are a wide variety of systems | | | | usually experience excruciating pain if the bone is |
| and ways of using tuning forks on the body. | | | | broken. |
| There are an infinite number of frequencies, so | | | | Music therapist and naturopathic doctor, John |
| theoretically, there are an infinite number of tuning | | | | Beaulieu spent over five hundred hours over two |
| fork frequencies available. | | | | years in an anechoic chamber. With no stimulus or |
| We are beginning to understand that at the | | | | noise, he sat there listening to sounds of his own |
| atomic level of matter, everything is in vibration. | | | | body. "He began to correlate different states of |
| And that includes us. Sound is vibrational energy. It | | | | consciousness with different sounds of his |
| travels in a wave and pushes molecules around as | | | | nervous system. Being a trained musician he |
| it moves. It is useful to understand a little about | | | | noticed that the high-pitched sounds of his |
| how sound travels in order to understand how | | | | nervous system consisted of several sounds in |
| tuning forks work. Sound moves at different | | | | different intervals. Then one day he brought two |
| speeds depending on what it is traveling through. | | | | tuning forks and tapped them. Immediately, he |
| Typically, the denser a material is, the faster | | | | observed that the sound of his nervous system |
| sound moves through it because the molecules | | | | realigned to the sound of the tuning forks." (from |
| are closer together. In the air, sound moves at | | | | an article called "Biosonic Repatterning") |
| about 770 miles per hour. Sound moves through | | | | One set that I use pretty well every day is the |
| water about 4 times faster than through the air. | | | | perfect fifth tuning forks. This set consists of the |
| It moves through steel, like railroad tracks, about | | | | musical note C tuned to 256 Hz, a frequency |
| 15 times faster than through the air. Have you | | | | directly related to the frequency of the earth, and |
| ever heard or read about aboriginal hunters who | | | | the musical note G tuned to 384 Hz creating the |
| put their ears to the ground to hear where the | | | | interval of a perfect fifth when they are played |
| animals are walking or running? That is because | | | | together. Research conducted by Dr. John |
| sound travels through the ground faster than it | | | | Beaulieu, music therapist, and naturopathic doctor |
| travels through the air. Our bodies are about 80 | | | | and Dr. George Stefano, neurologist, showed that |
| percent water, so we can assume that a sound | | | | these frequencies stimulated the production of |
| wave will move through the majority of our body | | | | nitric oxide in the body's cells within 30 seconds. |
| at approximately the same speed sound travels | | | | Normal nitric oxide production is inhibited by stress |
| through water. That is four times faster than | | | | and illness among other things. Here is a list of the |
| through the air. Because our bones are denser | | | | physical benefits when your cells are producing |
| than the soft material of the body, sound will | | | | and releasing nitric oxide. |
| move through our bones faster than through the | | | | - Relief from stress, more energy and stamina. - |
| soft tissue. | | | | The autonomic nervous system is balanced, |
| Tuning forks are made to sound at one specific | | | | better clarity of mind, less depression. - Nitric |
| frequency. For example, a tuning fork made to | | | | oxide strengthens the immune system. - |
| ring at 440 Hz is usually what musicians tune their | | | | Circulation is improved. - We have better digestion. |
| instruments to. This frequency is standard for | | | | Tuning forks are like lasers. Some people say |
| instruments so that all of the instruments in a | | | | they are like surgical tools. Because of their |
| group will sound harmonious when playing | | | | precise frequencies they can have more precise |
| together. | | | | effects. There is some fascinating research being |
| Both of my sons learned how to play the | | | | conducted relating to frequencies and the human. |
| recorder when they were in Grade 5. Listening to | | | | I believe that tuning forks hold the potential for |
| the class perform together was an exercise in | | | | great precision as a healing tool. |