Convert Scientific Data into Synthesized Music

MusicAlgorithms requires a Java-enabled computer. Transforming a string of numbers into music is simple; you can either type or paste a series of numbers into the program. Here’s a quick way to learn to use the site:

1. From the homepage, click the Compose button. Then click “Import your own numbers” to enter the data input page.
2. In the Algorithm box, enter into window A the numbers 1 through 10 (press the Enter key after each number).
3. Ignore checkboxes B, C, and D and click the Get Algorithm Output button.
4. In the Pitch box, click the Scale Values button to normalize the numbers 1 to 10 that you entered in window A into the piano scale of 0 to 88 (1 = 0, 2 = 9, 3 = 19, … 10 = 88). These numbers will appear in the adjacent Derived Pitch Values window.
5. Skip the Duration box (for now). In the Compose box, click the Play button.
6. A MIDI Player window will open, showing a piano keyboard over buttons for Step and Play and options for Volume, Tempo, and Instrument (Figure 28-1).

Click the Play button to hear the 10 notes you have composed. Keep playing these notes while using the sliders to adjust the volume and tempo. Then let the fun begin by selecting from the pull-down menu of 128 synthesized instruments and sounds. Soon you’ll be ready to compose music from real data.

If you’re an amateur weather watcher, you probably have plenty of numbers to transform into music. For example, MusicAlgorithms will convert a year of your daily minimum and maximum temperatures into a remarkable audio experience that will provide an entirely new way to appreciate your data. If you have no scientific data, try converting your daily expenses or bank balance into music. You might be surprised by what you hear.

A goldmine of data is scattered across the web. For example, my local National Weather Service station near San Antonio, Texas, provides monthly and annual precipitation data since 1871 and temperature since 1885. Converting these data into music provides an entirely new way to better appreciate seasonal temperature cycles and even cold fronts, El Niños, and droughts.

The U.S. Geological Survey provides data on stream flow. Many NASA and NOAA sites are filled with data. Other data sources include the U.S. census, stock market statistics, commodity prices, grocery store price lists, traffic counts on major highways, and so forth.

I’ve posted several videos of MusicAlgorithms based on my data. These will give you a good idea of the amazing variety of sounds you can produce from data that ordinarily are depicted only as dots, lines, or bars on charts.

• One year of solar noon UV-B data. Since 1988, I’ve measured the sun’s ultraviolet radiation from a field in Texas at solar noon on days when clouds didn’t block the sun. In the YouTube clip below, the UV-B intensity at noon on each of the 170 days during 2010 in which the UV-B could be measured in Figure 28-2 is transformed into representative musical notes.

Each musical note is accompanied by a 360° fisheye image of the sky made when the UV-B was measured. Low UV-B levels during winter are indicated by low pitch tones, and the high UV-B levels during summer by high pitch tones. Variations in the steady increase and then decrease in UV-B during the year are caused by clouds near the sun, haze, and changes in the ozone layer.

• The cosmic ray background count. In the below video, the cosmic ray background count on a flight from San Antonio, Texas to Zurich, Switzerland (Figure 28-3), is transformed into an audio composition in which the frequency of tones represents altitude. A typical Geiger counter measures around 11 counts per minute (CPM) at the ground and several hundred CPM at altitudes of 35,000 feet or more.

• Tree rings To symphonic strings. MusicAlgorithms can convert the widths of annual growth rings in trees into a tune in which wide rings from wet years have a higher pitch than thin rings from dry years. This composition uses ring data from a tree at my place downed by a flood in 2010 (Figure 28-4).

A tree produces one growth ring each year. The light-colored spring growth is called early wood, the darker summer-fall growth is late wood. In the below video, the width of the early and late wood in each ring was measured and then played in this sequence: early wood note/late wood note/sum of early and late wood notes/rest interval to separate the rings. This clip also includes the data plot I used to form the composition.

Here I’ve simply transformed strings of numbers into music. MusicAlgorithms lets you do much more. You can select from a variety of mathematical functions and then enter the pitch range and the duration of each tone. These functions include the mathematical constants pi (π), phi (φ), and e, exponents, the Fibonacci sequence, Pascal’s triangle, Markov chains, and even a chaos algorithm and DNA sequences. If you’re interested in synthesized music, you can’t go wrong exploring these features. Just block out some time. MusicAlgorithms is the most addictive website I’ve ever visited.