Songs off the Charts

admin — Sun, 01 Feb 2009 15:07:09 +0000

I’m often asked about sonification—instead of visualization, turning data into audio—but I’ve never pursued it because there are other things that I’m more curious about. The bigger issue is that I was concerned that audio would require even more of a trained ear than a visualization (according to some) requires a trained eye.

But now, Johannes Kreidler, with the help of Microsoft Songsmith, has proven me wrong:

Johannes, time to book your ticket to IEEE InfoVis.

My opinion of Songsmith is shifting — while it’s generally presented as a laughingstock, catastrophic failure, or if nothing else, a complete embarrassment (especially for its developers slash infomercial actors), it’s really caught the imagination of a lot of people who are creating new things, even if all of them subvert the original intent of the project. (Where the original intent was to… create a tool that would help write a jingle for glow in the dark towels?)

At any rate, I think it’s achieved another kind of success, and web memes aside, I’m curious to see what actual utility comes from derivatives of the project, now that the music idea is firmly planted in peoples’ heads.

And if you stopped the video halfway through because it got a little tedious, you missed some of the good bits toward the end.

(Thanks to Moiz Syed for the link.)

writing | ben fry » sonification

Songs off the Charts