schools.reep.org - Secondary resources: Activity 4





	Secondary Resources: · Origins of Music · The Ecoquiz · Online Crossword · Pilgrimage · Shraddh · World-Wide Webs · Personal Webs The Secondary Syllabus Primary Resources

What, though, is to stop scientists from turning their observations into music? Some modern scientists are doing just that - experimenting with turning their silent data into musical sounds. Scientific data tends to show mathematical patterns, whether to do with the structure of atoms or with the radio waves that pulse through space.

Some of the results are available on the World Wide Web, particularly the 'sonifications' produced by American scientist Marty Quinn.

Climate Symphony, perhaps his most accessible work, is based on data derived from an ice core - a sample of ice drilled from the Arctic.

Changes in the atmosphere over the past 110,000 years are reflected in the chemical composition of this core. Quinn then assigns sounds to specific data. You can find out more about Quinn and his work at:
http://www.quinnarts.com/srl/index.html
What do you think about it?
Ice core music?

Scientist with ice core sample in the Arctic

Other 'sonification' experiments by Quinn include

Solar Songs, using data collected for observations of the Sun
http://atlas.sr.unh.edu/tof/Outreach/music.html
The music files are quite big - between 2.6 and 14Mb each - but you can listen to a lower quality (280k MP3) version of one of the tracks here.
A 'sonification' of data concerning sea surface temperature changes in the Pacific from 1868-1997 (see the 'quinnart.com' link above).

Dr Linda Lang, a biochemist, generates music from protein molecules in plants. If you want to hear what the proteins produced by mustard, parsley and clover sound like, then visit her site: http://www.molecularmusic.com/

Next Chapter

Introduction
Music Imitating Nature - Composers & Birdsong - But is it Music?
Music of the Spheres - Science & Music - Does Nature Sing?
To Think About and Do