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‘Cymatics’ Recorded by Trance Metal Band Sunn O)))

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The ’space metal’ (or, as I call it, trance metal) band Sunn O))) has recorded a track called “Cymatics.”

You can read a review of the record, called Dømkirke, here, although you won’t be able to hear the track unless you have patience and a turntable, as it was only put out on vinyl. (I have nothing against vinyl but I don’t have as much patience as people think I do).

However, I thought it worth mentioning since I was able to listen to their previous recordings and was immediately taken with their music. You can listen a sampling of Sunn O))) here, or you can go to pandora.com and type in Sunn O))) to hear more.

I’ve been listening to it while working on my Cymatics (and while painting the walls of my studio this morning at 6:am, between the fumes and the music I got into quite a trance state).

The sound of space metal is best described as a tapestry of trance-inducing cavernous guitar avalanches in slow motion…

When I say trance-inducing however I mean not like any trance state I’ve experienced before - it’s defintely not the quiet, contemplative state created by listening to a cd of ocean waves overlaid with harp or even recordings of binaural beats…

This experience is like being completly ‘zoned,’ yet absolutely wide awake and psyched - the closest thing i can compare the feeling to is drinking an irish coffee.

Anyway here’s a quick exerpt from the review of their ‘Cymatics’ track…

 ”The upheaval of history or religion or really big amps in a stone-walled room finally comes to pass during ‘Cymatics’, where noise, electronics, and Csihar’s screams converge, with feedback flailing above a massive bass and barely-there organ.’

Read more if you want, but definitley check out the band. I can’t wait to see what happens when I put one of their tracks under a metal plate…

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John Beaulieu: Cymatics, Tuning Forks and Nitric Oxide

 
Find more videos like this on School of Cymatics

John Beaulieu talks about cymatics, his work with tuning forks and nitric oxide in this short but fascinating interview he was kind enough to grant me at the Cymatics confererence in Atlanta this year.

Watch it now (it’s only about 2 minutes long) and you will find out:

  • what nitric oxide is (hint: your body is cycling it now every 6 minutes)
  • why it’s important to keep it cycling or “puffing” better
  • how tuning forks can ”jump start” your nitric oxide cycles
  • one way you can get your nitric oxide puffing better right now
  • how to learn more about sound and cymatics from John Beaulieu

    John’s sound studies and sound school are on the leading edge of cymatics research and practice today so if you are at all interested in cymatics you definitely need to see this video (and take notes).

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How To Hear Inaudible Sound (Without Any Ears)

Visible Sound/Inaudible Sound

As an artist working with Cymatics, I make sound waves become visible to the eye…today I want to talk about how YOU can hear sound waves that are actually inaudible to the human ear.

A few years ago I spent a week at the Monroe Institute in Virginia. The Monroe Institute uses these “inaudible sounds” to help participants learn to meditate, lucid dream, and other extraordinary experiences.

At the Institute, we spent 6 hours out of each day in isolation chambers with no light, listening to what are called binaural beats.

Binaural beats are actually sound that does not exist outside of ones head, but you can hear it.

How is that possible?

Binaural beats work by broadcasting two separate frequencies in each ear. For example, if you  play 200 Hz in your right ear, and 207 Hz in your left ear. The brain will compensate for the difference between the two and produce a third tone that will be exactly 7 Hz.

What this means is that your brain actually hears a 7 Hz tone that only exists within your brain, and not outside of it.

Thus, you are “hearing” - but not with your ears, since this sound is not being processed or registered by your ears but is being created inside of your head.

What does it sound like?

If you want to hear what this “inaudible sound” sounds like (and you will be able to prove to yourself that you are actually hearing it!) here’s what you can do:

1. Put some headphones or earbuds on and go to this site.

2. Go to their “samples” page, then click on one of the tracks that has “binaural beat” in the title.

3. Listen to the track with the headphones on…then remove one earbud (or phone) and listen, to just one side, then the other side. Then put them both back on. That third, strange wavering tone you hear is being created for you alone, by your brain, inside your head.

This isn’t just very cool - it’s also useful. If you read a bit more on their site you will see why (yes it looks pretty new-agey but their info is solid).

Personally I use binaural beats when I meditate almost every time, whether listening to a CD or live didgeridoo. (But I have to say I’ve never seen a track called “Caffeine Alternative” before! Hey, I’m getting that one for myself!)

Enjoy…

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Cymatic Plate 1: Steel, Enamel, Salt by Jodina Meehan

Here I am bowing a Cymatics plate made of steel. It is painted with black enamel and I sprinkle table salt on the surface before playing it with a violin bow. This is one of the oldest methods for creating cymatics patterns; Ernst Chladni used this technique in 1787 in pretty much exactly the same way I am here.  

The plate vibrates showing the actual shape of the sound being played. As you can see, every time I shift the bow slightly or change anything about the way I play it, the shape of the sound, and the pattern the salt makes changes as well. The size and shape (and thickness) of the plate are all variable factors, so there are infinite possibilities for variation.

I am now working on my first set of 15 steel Cymatics “paintings” using salt on untreated steel. More photos and videos of that to follow (sign up for my cymatics mailing list above if you want to be notified when I have photos of my new cymatics work up for viewing).

Find more videos like this on School of Cymatics

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John Beaulieu at the Cymatics Conference

I flew out to the Cymatics Conference in Atlanta this past weekend. This is the third year of the conference which was started by Mandara Cromwell.

The emphasis this year was on research, documentation and substantiation of cymatics as used in healing. The Atlanta conference is focused on healing with cymatics rather than “pure science” or cymatic art.

However there were several researchers, doctors and scientists there that had some very interesting things to say (which they could back up with clinical studies) about the work they were doing with cymatics.

 One of the speakers, John Beaulieu, Ph.D. is one of the foremost philosophers and major innovators in sound healing today.  I was fortunate to be able to talk with John about his work with cymatics and Nitric Oxide. I will be publishing a short interview with him in a later post…

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Cymatics at the Dowser’s convention in Vermont

This past weekend I went to the Dowsers convention in Killington, Vermont.

Jeff Volk had let me know that he would be speaking there, so I went and spent the weekend and saw his talk on Sunday morning.

He is a great speaker. What I was most impressed with was his ability to take complex topics in Cymatics, physics, mathematics, and other ‘big ideas’ and put them into quickly absorbable context.

For example he was making a point about order and chaos in the universe. He described how, many people are continually trying to become more ‘peaceful’ and to have more order in their lives, but no matter how good they get at that there are always moments of chaos that come up to disrupt everything…but how that is a good thing because chaos is what injects creativity and newness into the established order of things, without that things would become stagnant. (He put it better than I am).

It related to Hans Jenny’s cymatics film footage he was showing in that cymatics show how things are always coming from and trying to return to a state of order, but that chaos is interjected at certain points, say when a burst of high amplitude is applied in an otherwise steady sequence of ordered patterns.

 It made me realize that I often think of the universe as ‘chaos that one imposes order upon’ - but that in reality, it appears to be ‘order that one interjects chaos into’ - and that is not a bad thing, given that chaos is the great clearer, leveler and seed of creativity and new growth.

 I purchased several good books from Jeff relating to cymatics, the one that I am reading now is a small, beautiful book called “Harmonograph: A Visual Guide To the Mathematics of Music” by Anthony Ashton. A harmonograph is an instrument created during victorian times to reveal the patterns found in music…I don’t have time for a full description now, but I will talk more about it later.

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Jeff Volk at the Dowser’s Convention

Today I got a surprise call from Jeff Volk.

Jeff is well known in cymatic circles and is the publisher of Hans Jenny’s “Cymatics” as well as Alexander Lauterwasser’s “Water Sound Images.”

Jeff said he will be at the dowser’s convention at Killington, VT this weekend, and will be giving a presentation on cymatics on Sunday. I will definitely be going so that I can see his presentation, and meet him in person as I have only talked with him on the phone so far.

I am really looking forward to our meeting! Jeff is an expert on Cymaitcs and his site is the only place I know of where you can find  DVD copies of Hans Jenny’s original films of Cymatics.

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