This is an excellent video made by Suzanne Tribe, a student over at the School of Cymatics.

She built a homemade tonascope using PVC (like in these diy cymatics instructions), then invited a friend to sing Mozart’s “Una Donna a Quindici Anni” through the pipe. Watch this video to see how they achieved some beautiful and complex cymatics images using a very simple setup.

Nice work, Suzanne! You can view Suzanne’s page at the School of Cymatics here. To get free instructions for building your own diy cymatics tonascope click here.

Do you know of some cymatics related music, either a band using cymatics as inspiration, tracks called cymatics, or music that is used in creating cymatics art pieces?

If it’s music and it’s related to cymatics in some way, we want to hear about it!

I am currently helping to create a “cymatics channel” so that people interested in cymatics and music can go find everything out there all in one place, browse through it and find what they like.

Here’s what to do:

Submit any tips or links to websites, bands, tracks, or musical cymatics projects to me here in the comments section below.

If you would like to submit audio files or videos, you can do so at the School of Cymatics

You can also become a member of the School of Cymatics and create your own page for sharing cymatics projects and passions – if you haven’t done so yet, please do! We have over 200 members at the school so far and would love to have you join us.

Thank you, and I can’t wait to see (and hear) your ideas for adding to a “cymatics music channel”!

-Jodina

P.S. The photo above is of myself playing a handheld cymatic plate. If you would like to learn how to build a similar cymatic plate to play, you can get full instructions here.

This is a clip that John Stuart Reid just sent me of a cymatics demonstration at the International Sound Healing Conference. Watch it and you will see the cymatics form of throat singing (overtone singing), a dove, a coyote, and a cello, as well as others.

In the video John is doing the speaking, and Erik Larson can be seen standing to his left. John and Erik are co-creators of the world’s first CymaScope, which you can also see in front of the film screen.

You may remember from previous posts that John Stuart Reid is working to create a “dolphin alphabet” using images from cymatics. He has also informed me that he has recently completed an image of the “song of the sun” which was recorded by the SOHO spacecraft, then transferred to the CymaScope to create the image. I will be featuring this image soon so keep your eye out!

P.S. You can build your own DIY cymatics device to see sounds similar to the footage you see here in about 30 minutes. Download free instructions here.

Here are 10 of the top most interesting facts about cymatics, this rapidly growing but still “underground” field of study spanning art, science and medicine…

1. Cymatics turns sound into a visible pattern that is often geometric in nature.

2. Cymatics may be the “clue” that proves sound is not a wave but a bubble.

3. Cymatics is used to help the hearing impaired learn to speak clearly. In fact a deaf student at the University of Edinburgh used cymatics to create a sound-based art show at his graduation.

4. Cymatic symbols may have been imbedded inside a chapel in Scotland in order to “encode” music secretly in the carved stone cubes lining the ceiling of the chapel.

5. Cymatics actually shows the stillness within sound, when applied to metal or membranes; however when applied to water cymatics reveals visuals of the sound itself.

6. Cymatics is currently being used by reseracher John Stuart Reid to record and decode the language of dolphins, including creating a “dolphin alphabet.”

7. Cymatics plates were played with a violin bow for astonished victorian audiences by Ernst Chaldini, the “father of acoustics,” in the 1700’s. (The same technique was used to create the plates in the photo above in 2009).

8. Cymatics can make matter actually “defy gravity” – for example, if you tip a plate sideways with liquid or particles on it, the matter will fall downward; but if sound is applied to the plate, the liquid will climb back up the plate to keep it’s cymatic form in defiance of gravity.

9. Cymatics has been quietly used by violin makers for years to help build better violins: by watching the shape of particles inside the violin they can perfect their carving of the body

And last but not least…

10. Cymatics can be used to see the geometric patterns of your voice at home using table salt and a simple device made out of 3 things you can get at the hardware store. You can get free instructions for how to make this device here.

P.S. Do you know about a “cymatic fact” (or maybe just a rumor worth investigating) that wasn’t listed above? Please let me know about it in the “comments” below, and I may include it in a future article!

–Jodina

sound bubble and violin (image: John Stuart Reid)

In his article, The Physics of Sound, Reid says that sound has previously been thought to travel as a wave because of the graphical, wave-based representation we have used to capture sound visibly in the past…

“The graphical representation of sound ‘waves’ in the past is why the term ’sound waves’ is used, causing the false impression that sound travels as a wave.”

…but that cymatics allows us to realize that the true form of sound is actually spherical, or bubble-like, in nature:

“Sound in air is the transfer of periodic movements between adjacent colliding atoms or molecules. This sonic energy typically expands away from the site of the collisions as a spherical or bubble-shaped emanation.”

In this fascinating article he also discusses the nature of light, and why his studies in cymatics have led him to believe that in certain cases, sound could actually “create visible light.”

To read more about John Stuart Reid’s studies in cymatics, sound bubbles and the connection between sound and light, go here.

To start conducting your own cymatics experiments using 3 common household items, download your free video instructions here.

I recently created this video of my cymatic singing process for Bjork.

I am combining singing and cymatics by going out into the forest and singing the tones of objects such as a flower, a tree or a stone and recording it.

I then bring these ’songs’ back into the studio and sing them into a cymatic sounder to create the cymatic pattern of the object from the forest.

The sound in the video is of my voice ’singing a flower’ overlaid several times into one track.

Want to create your own cymatic sounder similar to the one in this video?

I have created some free step-by-step instructions, you can download them HERE

My friend Rebekah recently mentioned that she was watching a violin maker use cymatics during the crafting of violins. I looked into this and discovered in Alexander Lautervasser’s book Water Sound Images a photo of violin backs with cymatic patterns in the particles sitting in them.

Apparently it is a long tradition among violin makers to look at the cymatic patterns created inside or on the violin while it is being made to help them perfect the violin’s build. I don’t know if this is the case with guitars or other similar instrument, but I would not be surprised. I also was not able to discover exactly how they use the cymatics, or what material is used to create the patterns.

Do you know anything further about this practice? If so, leave a comment! Thanks…