Sound as mantra
You may enjoy tonality in action, such as the sound sample loops of any tonality in the catalogue of anchored tonalities, for upliftment, detoxification, and focusing, to hum, chant, or sing along, for contemplation or meditation, or simply for relaxation and regeneration as soothing background sound whenever desired. Below is a possible approach to determine your fundamental pitch and to find a way through the many tonalities in the Tonalibus catalogue to help you find what tonality or tonalities suit you at a given moment.
Then, in case you would like to go further with this, you may have an interest in how to create an individually attuned sound mantra. Two keys to creating an individual sound mantra are finding your fundamental pitch and fitting tonalities. This you could do by yourself. Below is the description of a proven approach to finding one’s fundamental pitch at a given moment. Further, there is a method to help you determine your preferences of individual tonalities. Then the next step would be to apply your tonality or tonalities based on your fundamental pitch. If musically inclined, you could do so yourself, assuring individual attunement beyond pitch and tonality.
When needed and requested, Tonalibus may further support you in finding your fundamental pitch and individual tonality preferences. It is possible to musically facilitate and built upon one’s findings and contributions to help create an individual sound mantra. Your fundamental pitch, your choice of tonalities, and an eventual mantra is personal and purely individual. Tonalibus may merely compose and expand, as necessary or possible, on what you found and chose for yourself. This is one way how an individual sound mantra may come about.
Individual or personal fundamental pitch
Approaches and opinions about personal fundamental pitches can vary considerably. Generally there is agreement that sound or vibration is an essential element of existence. But views tend to differ greatly about the value or even the existence of individual or personal fundamental pitches, whether it is of a specific person, place, planet, or plane.
Tonalibus takes the pragmatic position that agreement on a common fundamental pitch reference is necessary in order to be able to generate harmonious music together with others. Today’s standard reference as established in the mid 1900’s is A = 440 Hz. Some New Age and meditative musicians claim that music relative to A = 432 Hz is more resonating and touching. Tonalibus generally uses 438.2 Hz as reference (as calculated by Ulrico in his youth) and also acknowledges the potentially profound value a personal fundamental pitch can have for an individual, though such an individual pitch is seen as somewhat fluid and fluctuating or changing over time.
Personal fundamental pitch determination exercise
1) In a quiet space and moment, listen to the sound within. Take some time doing just that.
2) Very delicately start expressing your inner sound by merely breathing it. Match first and especially your exhale and then potentially also your inhale to the sound you hear within.
3) When your breathing is well tuned to your inner sound as a steady pitch, very gently transform your exhale to very softly hum that pitch. Then gradually increase this to an easy, relaxed chant for as long as you like or until the pitch of your inner sound is well established.
You may do this personal, fundamental pitch determination exercise repeatedly, spread over time, days or weeks. A good moment for it could be right upon waking in the morning, potentially towards the end of a quiet break during your day, or before going to sleep. You could tag it to the end of a contemplation or meditation. And you may chant a spiritually charged syllable like Ōṃ / Aum ॐ or HU, or another mantra syllable that suits you.
Alternative ways to determine a personal fundamental pitch
If the above exercise seems difficult and without clear result for you, here are two further approaches to possibly find your personal fundamental pitch.
You could spontaneously and randomly sing glissandi up and down an octave or two, gradually narrowing the glissando by relaxing and letting go more and more to finally end up on one pitch, and take that as your fundamental pitch.
Or you could sample some pitches on any musical instrument or on the page of chromatic pitches to look for the one that suits you best and resonates the most within you. Thus you may find your fundamental pitch at that moment. Note also that your pitch can shift based on what you hear.
Cross-checking and naming your fundamental pitch
If you have a tunable string or other instrument, you can transfer your fundamental pitch to it.
You could measure and find the name of your pitch with a tuning device. There are decent free tuning apps available for mobile devices, showing the hertz value and pitch name of audio frequencies. Tonalibus uses the “Piano Tuner Lite” and “Pitched Tuner”.
Also, you could record the pitch you found, e.g. as voice memo on your mobile device. Then, if you don’t have another tool (or instrument with fixed tuning like e.g. a piano) to do so, you may cross-check and name your pitch by sampling the twelve pitches offered on the page of chromatic pitches and thus determine which one best matches your pitch.
Such steps enable you to monitor your pitch and its stability or potential movement over time, or eventually to engage musical support towards creating an individual sound mantra.
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