Musification of Seismic Data

Seismic events are physical vibrations induced in the earth’s crust which follow the general wave equation, making seismic data naturally conducive to audification. Simply increasing the playback rates of seismic recordings and rescaling the amplitude values to match those of digital audio samples (straight audification) can produce eerily realistic door slamming and explosion sounds. While others have produced a plethora of such audifications for international seismic events (i.e. earthquakes), the resulting sounds, while distinct to the trained auditory scientist, often lack enough variety to produce multiple instrumental timbres for the creation of engaging music for the public. This paper discusses approaches of sonification processing towards eventual musification of seismic data, beginning with straight audification and resulting in several musical compositions and new-media installations containing a variety of seismically derived timbres.