The Sounds of Science:

The new Sounds of Science from AirCraft is cutting-edge music that pushes the boundaries of what you expect from a production music library. Composer Marty Quinn composed the twelve pieces contained on the 141st addition to the AirCraft Music Library using complex scientific algorithms to assign various sounds and scales to streams of data. The resulting notes were then shaped and polished to create the 12 final cuts mixed in both 5.1 Surround Sound and Stereo. 6-track, hi resolution 5.1 data files are available on request as well. Below is a summary of how each tune was created.

Tides of Venice - Based on data collected in Venice that includes weather-related climatic elements, this piece maps elements such as wind direction, temperature, humidity, and ,of course, tidal level to specific instrument timbres, as well as determines the key, volume, and pitch.

Iqan - Generated from the beginning of the Kitab-i-Iqan (or Book of Certitude) by Baha'u'llah, one of the sacred writings of the Baha’i faith. It does not change scales but uses the 1,3,1,2,1,2,2 scale.The drumming over it uses 14 electronic drums whose dynamics select notes out of the scale (harder strikes produce higher notes) and played through 14 different instruments.

Twelfth Night - Each actor is assigned a unique scale, and the file is played by word at 8 words per second. Each word is played as a chord of music using up to 15 instruments. Each letter position in the word is assigned a particular instrument. The letters are mapped into the current scale at any particular moment in a special (not necessarily consecutive up or down) way.

Solar Storm - The music illustrates the hourly changing values of 7 variables representing concentrations and ratios of iron and oxygen atoms, electron energy levels, and counterstreaming electron events. The passing hours of the day are 'noted' on the marimba by an ascending series of 24 notes.

Ice Core Symphony - The music is based on the mathematical analysis of ice core chemical ion records obtained by the Greenland Ice Sheet Project II. It begins 110,000 years ago and travels in steps of 50 years. It begins at the rate of 150 years a second for the first two minutes or 20,000 years and increases to 350 years a second for the remainder of the journey up to 1975. Nine cyclic climatic effects are described by 2209 data points each. The files are played simultanously.

Hyperspectral - The music was derived from playing a cube of data in various ways, through various instruments, and various scales per dimension of the x y z axis of the cube. The 3D data came from a hyperspectral image of a square mile or so of the earth.

Mars - The melody expresses the hydrogen (water) signal, the bell represents the latitude, the volume of the drum beat expresses the strength of the solar intensity. Each measure of music represents one month of data from a 5-degree range of latitude. The music starts from a southern latitude and presents 12 months of data from that latitude, then moves up at least 10 degrees on the planets surface and presents data from that latitude and so forth till it reaches the top of the planet.

Air Map - In this composition, we hear pollution levels recorded during the worst week of 2002 at four air quality analysis stations positioned at various locations in New Hampshire using a complex sonification. Four unique sounds, flute, oboe, clarinet and french horn, represent the ozone levels recorded by the stations from the coast to Mt. Washington respectively. Lower pitches represent lower pollution levels and higher pitches represent higher pollution levels.