THE father and son team who broke historic Rosslyn Chapel’s musical Da Vinci Code have done it again with another of the artist’s riddles. Stuart and Tommy Mitchell believe they have cracked another secret of the Renaissance genius, this time in Leonardo’s famous portrait The Musician. Art historians have remained baffled for centuries over the meaning of the work.They have also puzzled over the writing on the piece of music held by the subject of the 1490 painting, believed to be Da Vinci’s great friend Franchino Gaffurio. Now Stuart and Tommy have used mirrors to reveal the words “agnus dei” and a musical score. Once the score is fully deciphered, Stuart plans to incorporate it in one of his classical pieces.as he did with the notes he found in Rosslyn.

1. TheRosslynMotet
The Nature of Music and Sound
Rosslyn Chapel Music tours and events
Therearethingsknownandtherearethingsunknown,andin
betweenarethedoors ofperception.
AldousHuxley

2. Thomas.J.Mitchell
(Composer)
Stuart Mitchell
(Composer/Arranger)

4. William Sinclair & Gilbert Haye
The Designers of Rosslyn Chapel

9. The Musicians

10. The Musicians

11. The Musicians

12. The Organnetto

14. The 213 Cube

16. To approach the problem of attempting to make sense of
the cubes and their symbols one has to make certain
assumptions. First of all, we can never know what was in
William St Clair’s mind or what his actual goal was in
designing the cubes in the arches above the pillars. After
500 years all we have to go on is mainly the hard evidence
of the actual carvings and an attempt to make sense of
them. Therefore, the results of any of our efforts will be to
a great extent an interpretation based on the little
historical evidence that we have and, of course, a degree
of intuition based on the hard evidence.
For this reason we decided to approach the problem from
the point of view of music.
What are the symbols/Patterns on the Cube Faces

17. Chladni Patterns

19. Chladni Patterns translated into music pitch

21. The Stave Angel

24. CHLADNI PATTERNS, NATURE
AND
CYMATICS

25. www.cymascope.com

26. Video
Demonstration

27. HOW WOULD THE DESIGNERS
HAVE KNOWN ABOUT SOUND
PATTERNS?

28. Professor Siliman says
“The aggregate sound of Nature, as heard in the
roar of a distant city, or the waving foliage of a large
forest, is said to be a single definite tone of
appreciable pitch. This tone is held to be the middle
F of the piano-forte, which may therefore, be
considered the keynote of nature. The Chinese
recognised it some thousands of years ago, by
teaching that ‘the waters of the Hoang-ho, rushing
by, intoned the kung’ called ‘the great tone’ in
Chinese music, and one which corresponds exactly
with our F, now considered by modern physicists to
be the actual tonic of Nature.”

29. Gilbert Haye – Co-designer travelled to China

30. Cymatics and Nature
Natures ‘Tuning system’
No tuning forks, so Sound Patterns were very well
known to Instrument makers and musicians.

31. Natures ‘Tuning system’
Cymatics has been quietly used by violin makers for years to help
build better violins: by watching the shape of particles inside the
violin they can perfect their carving of the body

32. 1. Cymatics turns sound into a visible pattern that is often geometric in nature.
2. Cymatics may be the “clue” that proves sound is not a wave but a bubble.
3. Cymatics is used to help the hearing impaired learn to speak clearly. In fact a deaf
student at the University of Edinburgh used cymatics to create a sound-based art show at
his graduation.
4. Cymatic symbols may have been imbedded inside a chapel in Scotland in order to
“encode” music secretly in the carved stone cubes lining the ceiling of the chapel.
5. Cymatics actually shows the stillness within sound, when applied to metal or membranes;
however when applied to water cymatics reveals visuals of the sound itself.
6. Cymatics is currently being used by researcher John Stuart Reid to record and decode
the language of dolphins, including creating a “dolphin alphabet.”
7. Cymatics plates were played with a violin bow for astonished victorian audiences by Ernst
Chaldini, the “father of acoustics,” in the 1700’s. (The same technique was used to create
the plates in the photo above in 2009).
8. Cymatics can make matter actually “defy gravity” – for example, if you tip a plate
sideways with liquid or particles on it, the matter will fall downward; but if sound is
applied to the plate, the liquid will climb back up the plate to keep it’s cymatic form in
defiance of gravity.
9. Cymatics has been quietly used by violin makers for years to help build better violins: by
watching the shape of particles inside the violin they can perfect their carving of the body
And last but not least…
10. Cymatics can be used to see the geometric patterns of your voice at home using table
salt and a simple device made out of 3 things you can get at the hardware store. You can
get free instructions for how to make this device here.

35. Trilobite
The trilobites were among the most successful of
all early animals, roaming the oceans for over
270 million years.[2]

36. Patterns in Nature

37. 47,000 Mile wide Hexagon on North Pole of Saturn

40. The Rosslyn Motet
www.therosslynmotet.com

41. Rosslyn Chapel Music Tours and concerts are
conducted throughout the year at Rosslyn
Chapel and can be booked through the
Rosslyn Chapel website or
www.therosslynmotet.com
Many thanks for your interest
Stuart & Thomas.J.Mitchell