In a case of art imitating art, a press release earlier this year (2006) announced that “frozen music” had been found hidden in the architecture of the 15th century Rosslyn Chapel - the same chapel popularized at the end of Dan Brown’s book The Da Vinci Code. The chapel’s puzzling architecture remained unexplained for well over 450 years until it was deciphered by Thomas Mitchell and his son Stuart Mitchell earlier this year. The announcement explained that a total of 215 “musical cubes” in the pillars and arches of Rosslyn Chapel were found to match 13 unique geometrical sound patterns, known as Chladni figures or Cymatics. These patterns are produced when a metal plate is sprinkled with salt or powder and vibrated by sound frequencies. Documented first by Ernst Chladni in 1787, the patterns can range from primitive polygons like triangles, pentagons and hexagons to beautiful Mandela-like patterns, depending on which frequencies are used (see Music of the Quantum Lattice). The Mitchells found that each of the cube patterns matched specific musical tones that were organized into vertical groups around the chapel’s pillars. Using these tones to form a melody, the men then composed and staged the premier performance of “the Rosslyn Motet” on May 18, 2007 inside the chapel. read more
Posted on: Sat, 21 Sep 2013 03:35:24 +0000
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