Learn · Updated 2026-10-15

What is cymatics? Chladni figures, water patterns and sound made visible

Q: Where does cymatics come from?

- Ernst Chladni published Entdeckungen über die Theorie des Klanges in 1787. He bowed sand-covered metal plates with a violin bow and recorded the figures that formed. They are still called Chladni figures.

Q: Why do patterns form?

A vibrating plate or water surface has standing waves. Some lines on the surface, the nodes, stay still while the areas between them move. Sand is thrown off the moving parts and gathers on the still lines, and that drawing is the figure. Which figure you get depends on:

Cymatics is the study of visible sound: the patterns that vibration draws in sand, powder or water. A metal plate or a dish of water driven at a steady frequency settles into a symmetrical figure. Change the frequency and the figure changes, usually becoming more intricate as the pitch rises.

Where does cymatics come from?

Ernst Chladni published Entdeckungen über die Theorie des Klanges in 1787. He bowed sand-covered metal plates with a violin bow and recorded the figures that formed. They are still called Chladni figures.
Michael Faraday studied the standing waves on the surface of a vibrating liquid in 1831, now called Faraday waves.
Hans Jenny, a Swiss physician, coined the word cymatics (from the Greek kyma, wave) in his 1967 book Kymatik and filmed sand, pastes and liquids on vibrating plates.
In recent decades Alexander Lauterwasser photographed water sound images, and John Stuart Reid developed the CymaScope.

Why do patterns form?

A vibrating plate or water surface has standing waves. Some lines on the surface, the nodes, stay still while the areas between them move. Sand is thrown off the moving parts and gathers on the still lines, and that drawing is the figure. Which figure you get depends on:

the frequency,
the shape and size of the plate or dish (square, circular),
the material, its thickness, and where it is held or driven,
for water, the depth and the amplitude.

Every shape has its own set of modes, the frequencies at which it resonates strongly. Between modes the pattern blurs.

Square plates, discs and water

Square plates give grid-like figures with crosses and diagonals.
Circular discs give rings and spokes, the classic mandala look.
Water gives flowing, many-petalled mandalas that ripple and turn, the images most people know from cymatics photography.

Cymatics and sound healing

Many sound healers use cymatic figures to show a client what a tone "looks like", and some traditions pair frequencies with figures, chakras and planets. These correspondences are cultural and symbolic, not physical laws: the same frequency draws a different figure on a different plate. Treat them as a meditative and creative layer on top of the physics.

See the cymatic figure of your own music

cymaheal is a cymatics plug-in (VST3, AU, Standalone for macOS). Put it on any track and it draws the figure your sound would make on a square plate, a disc or water, live, follows the strongest frequency, and shows the healing and historical frequency traditions that sit closest to it. It can also play sound healing tones, record the visuals as a movie and send them to VJ software over Syphon. 22 €, free for 14 days. See the cymaheal manual.