The Living Scale

©ShinVav Audio

A decisive encounter with Christophe Clergue

At the end of 2025, I had the immense honor of meeting Christophe Clergue, the brilliant inventor of the ShinVav Audio speakers, unique in the world. During our fascinating conversations, I was amazed to hear him say: « I can no longer listen to music in equal temperament ».

From equal temperament to natural tuning

Until then, my music was in equal temperament. As a musician wishing to record with orchestral players, I had resigned myself to giving up natural tuning (unequal temperament), because classical instruments operate almost exclusively in equal temperament. And yet, the importance of this question is so great that it was among the very first revelations about the musical language that I received in 2008, which then initiated all the years of research carried out through the numbers, sounds, shapes and colors of this language.

sacred geometry

The genesis of the scale

As it was revealed to me, the choice of natural temperament or of the equal temperament for the scale goes far beyond a simple question of differing viewpoints on its tuning, which would come as a downstream consideration of what a scale is. In fact, it is quite the opposite: there is no genesis of the scale without this natural and true tuning, and this question therefore comes upstream of the scale itself; the entire genesis of the scale intrinsically depends on it. Thus it is not only a matter of saying that without this tuning we destroy the scale, but of saying that without this tuning the scale would quite simply not exist at all. If we follow this perspective through to its conclusion, we discover that any other tuning literally kills the scale.

Living music, dead music

So this is far more than a question of tuning; it is a question of life. It is a state in which the scale is therefore either alive or dead, and thus of living music or of dead music.

living scale
tuning fork

Beyond the 432 Hz myth

There is a ton of discussion about 432 Hz whereas the question of the concert pitch is secondary. We can have living music at 440 Hz and dead music at 432 Hz.
This issue is so secondary that everything circulating about it is close to ridiculous compared with the importance of the choice of temperament, which seems to be totally ignored, once again showing how our world seems to be turning upside down.

The revelation of the Living Scale*

I knew that one day my music would be based on this Living Scale* that was revealed to me in 2008; my encounter with Christophe Clergue in 2025 was the turning point.

The inexplicable magic beyond words does not deceive: there is a before and an after, death on one side, life on the other, with no possibility of turning back.

The breath of the spirit and the sonic body

Music is the breath of the spirit, and sound is its body, its chalice.
The spirit of my music has always been alive, but its body was dead. This has never prevented me from perceiving and receiving its beauty, but its impact down to the very cells of the body had until now been greatly limited by its dead sonic dimension.

What message does a dead sound bear?

And what can a dead sound transmit to living cells, if not death?
“If you want to control the people, begin by controlling their music.” Plato

* “The Living Scale” is a term coined by the composer Yves Ruhlmann to designate a scale founded on natural tuning, as it was revealed to him in 2008, and which is distinct from the tempered scale described as “dead”.