There is geometry in the humming of the strings. There is music in the spacing of the spheres.
~ Pythagorus

A violin bow is pulled across a Chladni plate.

I first discovered Cymatics about 10 years ago when I was VJing. Cymatics is the study of wave phenomena and vibration, where physical patterns are produced through the interaction of sound waves with a medium such as water or sand. A sound wave is created by a vibrating an object. The interaction of the sound waves across a surface covered with particles causes the particles to form nodal patterns.

A brief history of Cymatics

The understanding that physical patterns can be produced through the interaction of sound waves can be traced to shamanic practices. In ceremonies using drums, small grains were sprinkled on a drum head / drum skin and a second drum would be played nearby to excite the grains into patterns used for divination.²

During the renaissance period, several individuals recorded observations and publicly demonstrated the nodal pattern formations. In the late 1400s, Leonardo Da Vinci noted how dust particles created various shapes when striking a wooden worktable. “I say that when a table is struck in different places the dust that is upon it is reduced to various shapes of mounds and tiny hillocks.” ^{3, 3a}

Chladni figures produced by sound vibrations in fine powder on a square plate. (Ernst Chladni, Acoustics, 1802)

In 1632, Galileo Galilei described in the Dialogue Concerning Two New Sciences, “As I was scraping a brass plate with a sharp iron chisel in order to remove some spots from it and was running the chisel rather rapidly over it, I once or twice, during many strokes, heard the plate emit a rather strong and clear whistling sound: on looking at the plate more carefully, I noticed a long row of fine streaks parallel and equidistant from one another. Scraping with the chisel over and over again, I noticed that it was only when the plate emitted this hissing noise that any marks were left upon it; when the scraping was not accompanied by this sibilant note there was not the least trace of such marks”.^{3, 3b}

In 1680, Robert Hooke an English philosopher, architect and Royal Society member also made contributions to understanding this subject, when he devised a simple apparatus to demonstrate the formation of patterns. Hooke ran a violin bow along the edge of a glass plate covered with flour which revealed nodal patterns on the surface area that was not vibrating.⁴

By the late 1780s, German musician and physicist Ernst Chladni demonstrated a technique to visualize the vibration of sound waves. He did this by running a bow over a brass plate, whose surface was lightly covered with sand. From his acoustic explorations, Chaldni created a formula that accounts for the frequency of vibrating circular plates with a fixed center. He also produced diagrams of his experiments called “Chaldni figures. He published his findings from his studies of the sound patterns in 1787 in Entdeckungen über die Theorie des Klanges (“Discoveries in the Theory of Sound”).⁵

Cymatics as a science

Diagram of Eidophones

Margaret Watts Hughes, singer, songwriter and scientist invented the ‘Eidophone’, a device used to visualize resonance of the human voice.

The Eidophone consisted of an elastic membrane tightly stretched over the opening of a receiver that attached to a wide-mouth tube. By way of the tube, the voice was introduced at a suitable, unvaried pitch, using sustained notes and with a moderated intensity. Watts Hughes experimented with sand, lycopodium powder, moistened powders, water, milk and coloured glycerin.⁶

In 1891, Margaret Watts Hughes had her obervations published in Century Magazine under the article Visible Sound – Voice Figures. She also presented her findings and demonstrated the Eidophone to the Royal Society in London. In 1904, she published her research in the book The Eidophone; Voice Figures: Geometrical and Natural Forms Produced by Vibrations of the Human Voice.^6a The forms in the photographs below demonstrate some of the patterns observed.

In the 1960s and 1970s, Swiss physician and natural scientist Hans Jenny coined the term ‘Kymatics’. He conducted experiments putting sand and fluids on a metal plate connected to an oscillator producing sine wave vibrations.³

The sand would arrange itself into geometric and mandala like patterns found in nature. The higher the frequency the more complex the shape produced. Jenny published his findings in two volumes called Cymatics: The Study of Wave Phenomena.⁷ Jenny also released two films The Healing Nature of Sound – Cymatics and Cymatic SoundScapes. These films demonstrated an array of experiments using sound waves to excite powders and liquids into patterns which resemble atomic, geologic and biological shapes.

“The more one studies these things, the more one realizes that sound is the creative principle. It must be regarded as primordial. No single phenomenal category can be claimed as the aboriginal principle. We cannot say, in the beginning was numbers or in the beginning was symmetry, etc….. They are not themselves the creative power. This power is inherent in tone, in sound.” ~ Hans Jenny

In 1997, John Stuart Reid acoustics engineer, carried out Cymatics research in the highly reverberative King’s Chamber of the Great Pyramid.

He stretched a PVC membrane over the resonant granite sarcophagus that was excited by an oscillator and a powered speaker arrangement. Quartz sand was applied to the membrane surface and as each pattern formed, a photo was taken and the frequency was noted. A varied set of patterns emerged, from organic matter to coral to ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs. Reid published his research results in Egyptian Sonics.⁸

This research lead to John Stuart Reid and Erik Larson’s invention of the CymaScope, a scientific instrument that makes sound visible by imprinting sonic vibrations on the surface of water and recording it with a high-definition camera. Due to the high surface tension of the water it allows for far greater detail to be obtained from more complex music or sounds. The CymaScope allows water to move freely across the entire surface area and it has a fast response to any audible frequency imposed on it.⁹

Cymatics has laid the ground work for many areas of scientific research and to the creation of new tools.

Violin makers use the Chladni techniques in the crafting of violins. Symmetrical plates form symmetrical Chaldni patterns. These patterns act as a guide to finding acoustical balance during the process of scraping the violin into its final shape.¹⁰

Another interesting research project is in remote sound acquistion. Researchers recover sounds from high-speed video footage of a variety of objects with different properties including a glass of water, potted plant and a bag of chips. They do this by analyzing the micro movements or surface displacement of the objects.¹¹

Be sure to read the second part to this article – Cymatics – Part 2: The intersection of art and sound.