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).
{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
I am currently in a forensics class. To add to your growing body of literature if you type in bone histology/osteon you will see these little circular shapes. They remind me of the shapes of some of the images of cymatics you show.
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Jodina Meehan Reply:
February 8th, 2010 at 3:04 pm
K- thanks for the intriguing hint, I will check it out. I love finding avenues for cymatics connections I’ve never encountered before!
–Jodina
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Chandresh Woodhoo Reply:
May 23rd, 2010 at 2:19 pm
Hi, Jodina, My team and I are attemting to build a cymatics sounder for our school competiton, so thaks a lot for the emails…
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quick questions:
what is the plate made out of and what is the frequency(exact hz), not the note, being played?
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Jodina Meehan Reply:
March 25th, 2010 at 9:19 am
Hi Rene,
The plate is 1/8″ steel, but I don’t know the frequency of the sound made. Sorry about that! There are ways to record the frequency, especially if you are using electronic means to create the sound; but in this case I am just playing around with the bow on the plate and not recording anything scientifically. Thanks for your question. Are you trying to answer a specific question about the pattern created in the video?
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FYI
Regarding the frequency…
There is free online software to both analyze and record the plate vibrations. Audio recording applications are fairly straight-ahead to locate. Software to determine the frequency and amplitude can be found by searching for Real Time Analyzer (RTA) or Fast Fourier Transform (FFT) applications. There are free, shareware, trial, and paid apps available… ones for the iPhone as well.
Have fun with it,
Rob
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Jodina Meehan Reply:
July 14th, 2010 at 12:45 pm
Thanks Rob, that’s very helpful. I will look into it!
- Jodina
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