Category: Sonification And Soundscapes

  • Design Considerations for Creating Sonification

    This post concludes a series of blog posts that I wrote about a presentation that I gave introducing museum people to the concept of sonification, representing data with nonspeech audio. Earlier posts in the series are Introducing Sonification, in which I discussed using sound to enhance storytelling. And Exploring Scientific Concepts And Data With Sonification…

  • Making the Ocean Accessible Through Sound

    I have written about sonification, representing data with audio. My earlier posts were about astronomers analyzing data recorded by telescopes in outer space. The Accessible Oceans project also uses sonification to analyze data, but their data was  recorded by underwater microphones. “Scientists are finding that people can sometimes pick up more information from their ears…

  • Exploring scientific concepts and data with sonification

    This post is the second in a series about sonification, representing data with nonspeech audio. I will demonstrate that sonification is an effective tool for learning scientific concepts and analyzing data giving examples from the field of astronomy. The Chandra Photo Album Sonification Collection hosted by the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics shows that sonification can…

  • Introducing Sonification

    In this post, I define sonification as nonspeech audio that conveys information. It can also express emotion. Well-known examples of pattern recognition using sound include the tones of Big Ben for the BBC and the three-tone chime for NBC radio. I discuss using sound to enhance storytelling in a classic orchestral piece, “Peter And The…

  • Accessibility in Astronomy

    In 2019, I was introduced to a community of astronomers who are representing data with sound. This is called sonification. I wrote about a software program developed by the Space Science Telescope Institute that adds an audio component to visual graphs in this post titled Hearing the Light. In spring 2020 with shelter in place…