Image of the note D3 produced with cymatics
I spent months working on a cello piece composed for me by Jill Jarman. She wrote it with the intention of using cymatics to enhance the music and the musical experience. I made that happen first in a concert in the UK and then in my TEDx talk in LA in June 2022. I recently wrote up the whole process and explained the science behind what I did. You can read it, see example images, and listen to snippets of my performance with and without the cymatic images.
The article appears in a special issue on ‘Special Collection on Contemporary Auditory Ecosystems and Innovative Musical Contexts: Insights into the Aesthetics and Perception of Sonorous Objects’ in the journal Music & Science. My article is all on cymatics and how I used it to make music accessible in a more multi sensory way. You can read it here: Multisensory Music performance with Cymatic Images
Let me know what you think! I’d love to hear your comments!
Laura
Whoa.
Always moving, aren’t you?
I appreciated reading your article AND seeing your Ted Talk and find the concept fascinating. I am reminded of when I was a child and would sometimes sit under the piano while my uncle was practicing. I still remember the sensation, the feeling, yes, but also the images that came to my mind and how, by changing the setting, (am I in a city? in the clouds? walking through the woods?) how the colors and imagined situations, views would change.
And when you consider the impact music has on a video or even an audio podcast, say, in setting the mood of the viewer, it is easier to see that music is, in fact, a three-dimensional art form.
I have been interested, too, to write my novel to the sounds of a single cellist, Julia Kent. It has facilitated my ability to jump in where I left off the day before, has allowed me to associate certain tonal couplings and songs with certain characters (early on, I would write only about a certain character with certain of her songs.)
I felt a little stalkerish, but i wrote her and told her what I was doing. She was extremely receptive and interested and we’ve had conversations about how music and writing are aligned, how one can lead to creativity in the other.
So… (now getting to the point), i wondered if your study has gravitated to how music “triggers” or guides the creation of visual art (or writing).
Hope you are well, friend.
geoff