Cymatics (from Greek: κῦμα "wave") is the study of visible sound and vibration, a subset of modal phenomena. Typically the surface of a plate, diaphragm, or membrane is vibrated, and regions of maximum and minimum displacement are made visible in a thin coating of particles, paste, or liquid. Different patterns emerge in the exitatory medium depending on the geometry of the plate and the driving frequency.

The apparatus employed can be simple, such as the ancient Chinese spouting bowl, or Chinese singing fountain, in which copper handles are rubbed and cause the copper bottom elements to vibrate. Other examples are a Chladni Plate or advanced such as the CymaScope, a laboratory instrument that makes visible the inherent geometries within sound and music.^{[clarification needed]}

The generic term for this field of science is the study of modal phenomena, retitled Cymatics by Hans Jenny, a Swiss medical doctor and a pioneer in this field. The word Cymatics derives from the Greek 'kuma' meaning 'billow' or 'wave,' to describe the periodic effects that sound and vibration have on matter.

Steven Halpern is a New Age musician.

Halpern played trumpet and guitar in the New York City jazz scene of the 1960s, but became disenchanted with it and moved to California. There he began exploring the idea of creating music entirely for the purpose of relaxation, which he called "anti-frantic alternative" music. He began creating music which did not adhere to traditional Western tonality, but which instead consisted of static, minimalist pieces for electric piano inspired by Eastern music. He is a proponent of theories which emphasize the healing properties of music.

Since his first record of new age music was released in 1975, he has recorded more than 50 albums. The most commercially successful of these was 2000's Deja-Blues, which reached #18 on the U.S. Billboard Top New Age Albums chart. He is also the author of two books, Tuning the Human Instrument and Sound Health.

Halpern was also an inaugural member of the Independent Music Awards' judging panel to support independent artists.

Alan Wilson Watts (6 January 1915 – 16 November 1973) was a British philosopher, writer, and speaker, best known as an interpreter and populariser of Eastern philosophy for a Western audience. Born in Chislehurst, he moved to the United States in 1938 and began Zen training in New York. Pursuing a career, he attended Seabury-Western Theological Seminary, where he received a master's degree in theology. Watts became an Episcopal priest but left the ministry in 1950 and moved to California, where he joined the faculty of the American Academy of Asian Studies.

Living on the West Coast, Watts gained a large following in the San Francisco Bay Area while working as a volunteer programmer at KPFA, a Pacifica Radio station in Berkeley. Watts wrote more than 25 books and articles on subjects important to Eastern and Western religion, introducing the then-burgeoning youth culture to The Way of Zen (1957), one of the first bestselling books on Buddhism. In Psychotherapy East and West (1961), Watts proposed that Buddhism could be thought of as a form of psychotherapy and not just a religion. Like Aldous Huxley before him, he explored human consciousness in the essay, "The New Alchemy" (1958), and in the book, The Joyous Cosmology (1962).