Quick Guide to Different BPM's for Sound Healing
As a sound therapist creating custom sounds for clients, it's super helpful for me to have readily available info for tuning the tempo, frequencies, and brainwaves for specific needs.
I've created this quick guide to help myself and other sound healers to easily find the tuning and tempo for the needs of the client. If you do not see what you are looking for below, apologies! You can easily do the math yourself with the instructions listed below.
*This list of tempos will be in continuous progress that will be updated on an as needed basis when I have a project that requires new calculations.
Enhance Brainwave Entrainment by Tuning Tempo
Binaural beats and rhythms are scientifically proven methods for changing the speed of our brainwaves, aka, brainwave entrainment.
Why would someone want to entrain their brain with frequencies? If you've ever experienced a "scattered brain" then you know what it's like to not have a cohesive focus in all areas of your brain. The brain is often extremely scattered and firing on many different frequencies simultaneously, creating a feeling of chaos, ungroundedness.
Brainwave entrainment through rhythm and binaural beats can bring your whole brain into a more cohesive unitary vibration rather than many scattered vibrations. This allows for more focus and peace to be experienced, which is what we want!
Peace is a stable consistent vibration...
...and by entraining our brains with the stable consistent vibrations of the binaural beats, we can sync the two hemispheres of the brain, reintroduce stability into the system, and give ourselves a more centered and grounded place from which to interact with the world.
3 levels of Tuning - Soul, Frequency, BPM
If you want to get the most benefit from binaural beats, there are three levels of tuning that should be factored into the audio. The 3rd of these, Beats per Minute (BPM) is the main topic of this article, but I'll mention the others briefly.
1) Each person has a home note, much like the home note of a song. This is a frequency where the human body and energy system resonate on the level of peace, presence, and centeredness. If you find the persons home note and tune the binaural beats to the home note, it will make the benefits of binaural beats more accessible to the listener.
Ex. Let's say the home note is Bb and we'll use 58 hz as the fundamental frequency.
2) Next you must consider which brainwave frequency you'd like to use (Beta, Alpha, Theta, Delta) depending on the needs and intentions of the individual.
Ex. We'll choose a 4 hz Theta brainwave for this example.
To tune 58 hz to 4 hz Theta use half of the brainwave frequency and add to the fundamental and then use half of the brainwave frequency and subtract from 58 hz.
58 + 2 = 60 hz (put this frequency on a tone generator panned to one ear)
58 - 2 = 56 hz (put this frequency on a tone generator panned to the other ear)
3) The phase cancellation of these two frequencies which are very close to each other creates a 4 hz "wobble" or rhythm in the brain as it attempts to reconcile these similar but different frequencies. Now you have a pure binaural beat of 4 hz tuned to Bb.
4) If you want a pure binaural beat you can stop here, but if you'd like to add OTHER instrumentation, other rhythms, such as drums, flute, voice, or other sound healing instruments, you need one more additional level of tuning, which is to tune the BPM or tempo of the track to the brainwave speed as well.
Note: In order to work for brainwave entrainment the final tempo you select should be less than 100 BPM.
Formula for Finding the BPM for Binaural Beats
The purpose of this formula is to convert HZ to Beats per Minute.
The Fundamental Frequency (Y) x 60 seconds = (X)
60 is a constant used in every calculation to convert HZ to BPM, and is based on 60 seconds in a minute.
So in this example, the fundamental frequency (58 hz) x 60 seconds = 3,480 hz
3,480 hz is way above the limit of 100 hz, so what we have to do is "octavize" this frequency down into a workable zone.
Octavizing down is done by dividing a number by 2 over and over until you reach a usable frequency. Octavising up is done by multiplying a number by 2 over and over until you reach a usable frequency.
3,480/2 = 1,740 hz. 1,740/2 = 870 hz. 870 hz/2 = 435
435/2 = 217.5 hz. 217.5/2 = 108.75 hz 108.75/2 = 54.375 hz*
*So for this example, the BPM I would use for this track would be 54.375 hz.