Cymatic Music a study on cymatics

John Telfer

John Telfer

I am a freelance musician living in London.

For as long as I can remember music has defined my life. I sang and played the flute throughout my school years and then whilst at Cambridge reading English I took up the saxophone. I have just about made a living from music ever since, playing with a diverse hotchpotch of different groups ranging from the Sun Ra Arkestra to the BBC Symphony Orchestra via umpteen jewish wedding bands.

The germ of this project was seeded in the early ‘90s. I was then involved in the London free-improvisation scene, where exploring the outer reaches of saxophone playing kindled an interest in alternative structuring of tonal space based on harmonics. I came across the lambdoma matrix in Jocelyn Godwin’s Music, Mysticism and Magic and have since worked to develop it as a musical resource.

In tandem with my musical efforts, I worked for several years in a stained-glass studio, and it was whilst forraging in a library for interesting glass designs that I discovered Hans Jenny’s Cymatik and sensed the possiblility of bringing my musical and visual interests together.