Who hasn’t come out of a bush doof, music festival, or even a neighbourhood rave feeling totally awesome about themselves? Chances are you’d be ending the doof on a pretty high note, even without jamming it with booze, drugs, and whatnot. That is, unless you got in trouble, got caught up in some drama, or came down with a really bad trip.
You’re feeling good because of the music, baby. The sounds you heard at the doof were played at certain frequencies. These frequencies hit the right spots in your brain and body, stimulating them so you’d feel more pleasure, less pain, and reduced stress. You’d probably even feel strong enough to take on the world.
To students of the esoteric, those frequencies are called solfeggio frequencies.
What are solfeggio frequencies?
The solfeggio frequencies are simply a scale of notes that correspond to specific speeds of vibration created by sound. Remember the Do-Re-Mi song from “The Sound of Music”? This song is referred to as a solfege, and it’s a modern adaptation of the much older solfeggio.
The solfege was developed by Guido d’Arezzo, a monk and music theorist from 11th-century Italy. He taught monks to sight-read notes on a music sheet by putting melody to the Gregorian chant “Hymn to St. John.” The hymn goes:
Ut queant laxis
resonare fibris
Mira gestorum
famuli tuorum
Solve pollute
Labii reatum
Sancte Iohannes
Guido d’Arezzo took the first syllables of each line of the hymn to name his notes: ut, re, mi, fa, sol, la, si. Each note is chanted at a higher scale than the previous one.
Hundreds of years later, 20th-century music theorist Cecile Gertken translated the Hymn to St. John from Latin to English:
Do let our voices
resonate most purely,
miracles telling,
far greater than many.
So let our tongues be
lavish in your praises,
Saint John the Baptist.
Thus, we have our modern scale, with “ut” renamed as “do” and “si” becoming “ti.”
How did the solfeggio frequencies come about?
So, how did the medieval solfege become the solfeggio frequencies? Here’s where it gets a wee bit freaky. In the mid-70s, an American doctor and herbalist, Joseph Puleo, was reportedly visited by an angel in a dream. This angel directed him to a passage in the Bible—Numbers 7: 12-83.
As the story goes, after studying the passage, Dr. Puleo found repeating codes and sacred numbers embedded in the verses. The codes, Dr. Puleo discovered, corresponded to six electromagnetic sound frequencies, which in turn corresponded to the first syllable of the first six lines of the Hymn to St. John.
These frequencies are as follows:
- UT – 396 Hz – liberating fear and guilt
- RE – 417 Hz – undoing situations and facilitating change
- MI – 528 Hz – transformations and miracles
- FA – 639 Hz – connecting or repairing relationships
- SOL – 741 Hz – awakening intuition
- LA – 852 Hz – returning to spiritual order
Healing effects attributed to listening to solfeggio frequencies
In the book “Healing codes for the biological apocalypse,” which he wrote with colleague Dr. Leonard Horowitz, Dr. Puleo deduced that the so-called solfeggio frequencies have a specific effect on the body after prolonged exposure to it. These supposed healing effects of the solfeggio frequencies have been embraced and promoted by various meditation sites since the book was originally published in 1999.
According to the book, the healing properties of the solfeggio frequencies are:
- 396 Hz – unblocks subconscious negative beliefs and thinking, helps you overcome fear
- 417 Hz – allows you to change your patterns and access your untapped energy to change your life
- 528 Hz – clears your mind, awakens your creativity, and reactivates your sense of confidence and purpose; it supposedly returns your DNA to its most pristine state
- 639 Hz – improves communication and understanding
- 741 Hz – cleans and detoxifies your body down to the cellular level
- 852 Hz – awakens your sense of spirituality and your inner strength
Is there a scientific basis for solfeggio frequencies?
While there have been forays into the ability of sound to heal the body, scientists have not really taken seriously the concept of solfeggio frequencies. It’s widely considered to be an alternative mode of healing at best. Some techno artists and DJs do use these frequencies in their music.
Whether you believe in the concept of sound healing or solfeggio frequencies, one thing’s for sure: music can change you. So just play your favourite beats, baby, get lost in the sound, and be happy.
