source file: mills2.txt Date: Mon, 10 Mar 1997 09:27:24 -0800 Subject: mapping spectra From: William Sethares A recent thread reads: " Each chemical element is uniquely identifiable in the electromagnetic spectrum by its special set of unique frequencies. These frequency sets interact to produce more complexly unique cycle frequencies, which are unheard by human ear but which resonate just as do humanly hearable musical chords or dissonances." to which Gary M. replied... Interesting... It would be curious to hear the chords produced by the absorption patterns of various chemical elements and compounds, after transposing them down some enormous number of octaves. Were I to guess though, it would be little more than a curiosity. I personally doubt if they would have any particularly significant meaning to our ears. The two physical/physiological mechanisms are far too unrelated for there to be much correlation. A few years ago, Tom Staley and I wrote an article called "Sounds of Crystals" in Experimental Musical Instruments (EMI) that did something very similar (ref. below). We looked at x-ray diffraction patterns (spectra) and mapped them into the audio spectra. Many of the resulting sounds were exceedingly complex (*very* many nonharmonic partials), but there were some real standouts. One of our favorites was the sound of the morphine crystal, which we used for a piece titled "Duet for Morphine and Crystal" that appeared in the EMI compilation cassette that year. Though it can be an interesting way of generating "new" sounds, I would agree with Gary's assessment that there is nothing inherently significant about the sounds - for instance - the effects of listening to the morphine derived sounds in no way have the same effects as consumption of the material itself. In the same issue of EMI, there is also an article by Susan Alejander called DNA tunings that uses data from DNA sequences to generate interesting tunings that she then plays on a synth. W. A. Sethares and T. Staley, ``Sounds of crystals,'' Experimental Musical Instruments, Vol. VIII, No. 2, Sept. (1992). and S. Alexjander, ``DNA tunings,'' Experimental Musical Instruments, Vol. VIII, No. 2, Sept. (1992). Received: from ns.ezh.nl [137.174.112.59] by vbv40.ezh.nl with SMTP-OpenVMS via TCP/IP; Mon, 10 Mar 1997 18:59 +0100 Received: by ns.ezh.nl; (5.65v3.2/1.3/10May95) id AA00768; Mon, 10 Mar 1997 18:59:48 +0100 Received: from ella.mills.edu by ns (smtpxd); id XA00766 Received: from by ella.mills.edu via SMTP (940816.SGI.8.6.9/930416.SGI) id JAA02068; Mon, 10 Mar 1997 09:57:56 -0800 Date: Mon, 10 Mar 1997 09:57:56 -0800 Message-Id: <009B110D18CFE75F.6887@vbv40.ezh.nl> Errors-To: madole@mills.edu Reply-To: tuning@ella.mills.edu Originator: tuning@eartha.mills.edu Sender: tuning@ella.mills.edu