How to Master Your Human Instrument. Standing Waves, Why They're Cool and You Should Care.

What are standing waves?

Basically they’re waves that stand around, definitely not sitting down. HA, blog post done. PEACE.

More seriously though… it’s like the loud guy at a bar, adding that extra tension in the room.

Okay, okay. Final stage of seriousness.

Standing waves are commonly known in the audio world as the accumulation of resonant frequencies within a control room. If it remains untreated with soundproofing, these standing waves will create pockets of heightened sound pressure areas that will interfere with the listeners' perspective.

This can be a huge obstacle for mixing engineers, even home studio producers. Having an optimal listening environment to create an accurate representation of the frequencies you’re working with is a crucial component in designing your sounds and ultimately finishing your work.

Opera Singers and Bridges

All objects emanate a core set of frequencies when struck, strummed or somehow otherwise disturbed (like if your coffee mug was watching too many horror movies). This is sometimes called natural frequency.

This concept is beautifully displayed by the classic tale of an opera singer breaking a wine glass with their powerful voice. The glass itself, even in a resting state, is vibrating. It’s emanating its own standing waves, or natural frequencies, in a constant resting state of resonance. Thus, when the opera singer hits and maintains a specific note that matches the same resonance of the glass, it shatters!

The same was true with an incident in the destruction of a modern steel and concrete bridge. In that case, the wind excited the resonant frequency of the whole bridge which eventually tore it apart. The prolonged increase of energy in that specific frequency range drove the structure to break, in other words, change forms.

It’s All About The Vibes.

Now we know that everything has natural frequencies, and they can be forced to break or change with specific vibrations. With that in mind, hold your breath as we go for a deep dive!

“If you want to find the secrets of the universe, think in terms of energy, frequency and vibration” - Nikola Tesla

18th-century musician and physicist Ernst Chladni is commonly known as the “father of acoustics”. He was very interested in the properties of acoustic phenomena. He’s renowned for his experiment in which he drew a violin bow across a metal plate covered with sand. The now aptly named “Chladni plate” demonstrated that once the bow reached a stable tone the sand would shift and restructure its pattern to match that frequency. The sand would create different patterns depending on the tone.

Hans Jenny, doctor, artist, and researcher, built on Chladni’s work and coined the term “Cymatics” from the Greek word kyma (meaning “wave”). In his work, he showcased the same result but instead, achieved it by resonating metal plate itself. He took it to another level with the use of crystal oscillators (could you imagine the sound of a crystal-based synth?!) and his own invention of the tonoscope. Basically, with these tools, he could control the exact frequency and amplitude independently and observe the results.

This was a huge technological advancement in this field of study. We learned from his experiments that a specific frequency and amplitude generated a specific shape and pattern in the sand characteristic of that vibration. Higher frequencies yielded more complex patterns, and more amplitude resulted in more aggressive motion when shifting between them.

“In the living as well as non-living parts of nature, the trained eye encounters wide-spread evidence of periodic systems. These systems point to a continuous transformation from the one set condition to the opposite set.” — Hans Jenny

Whoa. If everything is always vibrating and then morphs, shapes and forms itself in response to a resonant field …what does that say about the nature of our reality?

Don’t worry! I too am baffled by my own words.

The gist is that it embodies the idea that everything exists in relationship to each other in accordance with an underlying system of vibrational patterns. A unifying field.

“There is a similarity between cymatic pictures and quantum particles. In both cases that which appears to be a solid form is also a wave. They are both created and simultaneously organized by the principle of pulse (law of vibration). This is the great mystery with sound: there is no solidity! A form that appears solid is actually created by a underlying vibration.” John Beaulieu

As John states, quantum field theory shares a similar truth. It was born out of the pursuit to describe the unity in the dualistic nature of wave and form. In pushing past the hard limit of our scientific understanding, it uncovered the discovery of unifying fields.

Hold up, my oxygen tank is getting low… Let’s start our ascent out of this deep dive. I don’t want to completely lose you, or myself for that matter, in writing about this lol.

The key is that the theory attempts to explain a similar concept, being that just like cymatics, subatomic particles (grains of sand) react based on their interactions with various underlying force fields (vibration).

The Law Of Vibration

This segues perfectly into an important principle I’d like to share with you. I’m sure you’ve heard the expression “vibes” before, such as: “that guy gave me a good vibe”, “I got weird vibes from that place”. Turns out the hippies had it right, it’s all about vibration.

“Nothing rests; everything moves; everything vibrates.” — The Kybalion

The principle states that — All things in our universe are in constant motion. Even objects that appear to be stationary are in fact vibrating, oscillating, resonating, at various frequencies. Sound familiar?

This principle is one of the seven Hermetic Principles. Hermeticism is an ancient esoteric philosophy revolving around self-mastery. It purports to explain the basic fabric of reality in an elegant way. Super useful for those who want to inspire new ways of thinking and are looking to expand their personal growth.

Master Your Instrument!

How does this enlightening information translate into your life? Well.. you must have heard of the new age term of “raising your vibrations”.

If there’s anything to take away from this little philosophical excursion we embarked on together, know this: Thought creates reality.

Thoughts emanate their very own vibration, just as objects in the material world have standing resonant frequencies. To change one’s mental state is to change vibration.

Your mind is the instrument, and your thoughts are the interface mechanism.

Think about this. (Is that a pun?) Before you can do anything, you must first think about it. It all starts in your head. Mind before matter. What you think about and how you think about it will shape your focus and attention. Consequently, your headspace will invite your future experiences and shape how you will perceive them.

Being mindful of the thoughts you harbor will help you regulate your internal state of being. Your “vibrational output” so to speak. It can be altered by your state of mind and thinking process.

It’s time to embrace positivity and forget self-doubt!

Just do it!- Shia Lebeouf

Whether you like it or not, all your thoughts are sending out a signal, a beacon to the world. You are constantly dialing in the vibration to which the world will then shape its sands. The resulting pattern will take shape as your circumstances as it resonates back to you.

This is the song and dance of the human journey, and you are the conductor.

The answer is to stop marching to the beat of someone else drum and become the master of your human instrument, and subsequently, the vibrations they emit.

Interested in learning more? Click here to download your Mindset Map and discover your next steps in your musical journey.

What standing waves are you emanating? Yoo?

My name is Alexandre Joyal. I help music creators achieve success with their music by teaching them how to produce themselves and adopt a creative mindset.