Frequency Atlas

Gong Lab

13 tunings from Hans Cousto’s tables, played on a synthesized gong. Each pitch is calculated from a cycle, such as a planet’s orbit, and doubled until you can hear it.

These are synthesized sounds, not recordings of real gongs. The lowest tone here is the figure in Cousto’s table. Paiste names most of its planet gongs by the note one octave lower, which is half this frequency. Start with the volume low. On a phone or laptop speaker the lowest tone of the gong is quiet; headphones or a speaker help.

Often played with:
Choose a tuning
SoftHard

Where 136.10 Hz comes from

  1. Step 1. The cycleEarth solar orbit measured from vernal equinox to vernal equinox: 365.24 days.
  2. Step 2. As a frequencyOne divided by its length in seconds: 3.17 × 10⁻⁸ Hz. Too slow to hear.
  3. Step 3. Doubled 32 timesEach doubling is one octave up. The result is 136.10 Hz.
  4. Step 4. As a color42 more doublings give light of 501 nm, blue-green. This pairs a tone with a color by arithmetic. It does not show that the two are connected.
To play in tune with it, set A to
432.10 Hz
The same cycle as a tempo
63.80 beats per minute
Pendulum that swings at that tempo
22.0 cm
Chakra Cousto pairs with it
Anahata (heart)

The method is Hans Cousto’s: he had the idea in 1978 and published it in 1984 in Die kosmische Oktave.

What players associate with this gong

Traditional: from gong practice

Often used as the anchoring tone in meditation and gong baths.

Players associate the Earth gong with grounding, centering and calm. Cousto identifies its tone with OM.

These are associations that players report. This site has not tested them and does not claim any effect on the body or mind.

How the gong sound is made

A gong sounds many tones at once, and most of them are not whole-number multiples of the lowest one. The sound here is built from 8 tones. Each bar shows one: how many times the lowest tone it is, its frequency, and how long it rings. The values are this site’s own model of a gong. They were not measured from an instrument.

Each column: multiple of the lowest tone, frequency in Hz, seconds of ringing.