Creating Music Using Seismic Activity or Ocean Data

Did you ever wonder what seismic activity or ocean pollution sounds like? Scientists have found that patterns in data can be transformed into sound and even music. This week, two different performances demonstrated how patterns in data can sometimes become more interesting when they’re presented as music.

Domenico Vicinanza, a researcher at Anglia Ruskin University in Cambridge, UK, as well as a composer, can turn numbers and measurements into sound using data sonification. This was demonstrated on Tuesday May 9th at the Internet2 Community Exchange conference in Atlanta.

At the conference, Vicinanza accessed live seismographic data from Yellowstone National Park received by the US Geological Survey. Using a program that he developed, he transformed the data into sheet music. Alyssa Schwartz, Visiting Assistant Professor of flute and musicology at Fairmont State University, then performed the composition on stage for the first time to an audience.

Vicinanza and Schwartz had previously worked together to compose works based on data sourced from Yellowstone National Park, but this time they were using data collected in real-time, which they had never seen before. In front of the audience, Vicinanza turned the data into sheet music and Schwartz performed it on the flute.

Schwartz performed the notes as written, which represented the seismic waves in a score. Then, she performed it again, incorporating her artistic interpretation by emphasizing certain sections and recognizing repeated patterns. You can listen to a portion of her performance in the video below.

Meanwhile, at the meeting of the Acoustical Society of America this week, Colin Malloy showcased how to transform ocean data into percussion music. Malloy had previously served as the 2022 artist in residence at Ocean Network Canada, using this time to create percussion music based on ocean measurements.

In “Oil and Water”, Malloy introduced noise to represent oil entering the water. It shows that oil production increased in recent times over the last 120 years. The video below shows a performance of this piece for an earlier event.

Translating data into music brings a different experience than seeing the same information in numbers or graphs. It can make patterns more prominent or show how processes develop over time.

“We can listen to patterns, we can identify patterns. Our ears are so good at doing that,” said Vicinanza ahead of his talk in Atlanta. “That’s how music can start helping scientists. Imagine a blind scientist, who can do science investigations using music.”

Converting data into music can also help introduce scientific information to different audiences. In a statement to the Acoustical Society of America, Malloy said “I hope that in listening to these pieces, people use them as a space to reflect on what each piece is trying to portray. Ultimately, I’d like for them to help create awareness of the various issues surrounding the oceans.”

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