12 Piano notes made visible for the first time

<i>For the first time in history individual piano notes have been made visible using the CymaScope instrument.</i><p>Except for all the times someone fed the output of a mic amplifier into a scope and watched a Lissajous figure. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lissajous_curve" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lissajous_curve</a> Not to mention Duddell's photo oscillograph over 100 years ago. <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oscilloscope_history#Photographic_oscillograph" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oscilloscope_history#Photograph...</a>

"The CymaScope represents the first scientific instrument that can give us a visual image of sound and vibration - a cymatic image - helping us to understand our world and universe in ways previously hidden from view." ... you can graph change in pressure over time to get a visual image of sounds and vibrations. It is safe to say people have been doing this for a very long time. And what about the page on "sonic healing"... What a crazy site!

So, this is like Chladni patterns, but in 3D and high definition? Or just Chladni patterns with high framerate? I'm having a hard time interpreting this from very vague and pretty uninformative descriptions.<p>Frank Zappa stated on multiple ocassions that he considered himself, in essence, an air sculptor. I'd love to see few of his "sculptures" animated in 3D.

So what do the images depict? Is it some density map in polar coordinates? Fourier? What am I seeing here?

"If we sample a moment from music and analyze it in terms of its fundamental frequency and associated harmonics, and then apply that sample to, say, a circular latex membrane of known elasticity, known diameter and fixed edge, present mathematical techniques cannot predict what pattern will form on the membrane."<p>If you knew the resonate frequency of the membrane I wouldn't think this would be that hard to figure out using Fourier analysis <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourier_analysis" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourier_analysis</a>

I think I prefer the iTunes visualizer.

These are very pretty visualisations. I agree with others here that the page is "interesting" and seems to lack detail about the process.<p>The visualisations reminded me of the book "Computers, Pattern, Chaos, and Beauty" by Clifford Pickover.<p><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Computers-Pattern-Chaos-Beauty-Graphics/dp/031206179X" rel="nofollow">http://www.amazon.com/Computers-Pattern-Chaos-Beauty-Graphic...</a>

This looks like a goofy amateur science thing.<p>&#62;<i>"The CymaScope is a new type of scientific instrument that makes sound visible."</i><p>Really? Because we have been making sound visible for centuries. I have around 40 plugins in my Logic Pro that "make sound visible".<p>&#62;<i>"The CymaScope has applications in almost every branch of science simply because vibration underpins all matter. The ability to see such vibrations permits a depth of study previously unavailable to scientists, engineers and researchers."</i><p>Really? Because it seems rather simple to make one...<p>&#62;<i>"Music, in the absolute sense, is the invisible geometry of the cosmos, a delicate tracery of frequencies that harmonise with each other and from which all matter manifests."</i><p>Only if you define "music" very loosely, and probably not even then.

<i>MMV technology is still under development but as this excerpt from Pink Floyd's "Welcome to the Machine" shows, an exciting future lies ahead when all music can be transcribed to MusicMadeVisible.</i><p>I preferred the laser shows at the planetarium when I was a teen.