528 Hz: a “solfeggio” frequency

528 Hz is one of the six or nine “solfeggio frequencies” that circulate online, usually with claims that it repairs DNA or has other healing effects. There is no scientific evidence for those claims. The list was popularised in the 1990s and has no connection to medieval music, which had no way of measuring pitch in hertz.

As sound, 528 Hz is an ordinary tone in the treble, a little sharp of a note on the piano. The table below puts it and the rest of the list against the nearest equal-tempered notes.

Which note 528 Hz is at other reference pitches

“In tune” depends on what A4 is tuned to, so the same frequency is a slightly different distance from the nearest note in each tuning.

The “solfeggio” frequencies as notes

Placed against equal-tempered notes at A4 = 440 Hz, the list is a set of ordinary pitches, most of them some way from any note.

Octaves of 528 Hz

Doubling a frequency raises it an octave and halving lowers it one, so these all have the same note name and the same offset from it.

• 66.00 Hz · C2
• 132.00 Hz · C3
• 264.00 Hz · C4
• 1056.0 Hz · C6
• 2112.0 Hz · C7
• 4224.0 Hz · C8

Harmonics of 528 Hz

A real instrument playing 528 Hz also sounds whole-number multiples of it. The first eight, and the notes they fall nearest:

Period and wavelength

One cycle of 528 Hz lasts 1.894 milliseconds; in air at 20 °C, where sound travels at about 343 metres a second, one wavelength is 65.0 centimetres.

Convert another frequency

Or hold 528 Hz as a steady tone, sweep from it, or beat it against a second tone in the tone generator. The note frequency chart lists every note from C0 to B8.

Frequently asked questions

Related frequencies

• 432 Hz — an alternative tuning pitch
• 440 Hz — the standard tuning pitch
• 256 Hz — the “scientific pitch” middle C