Devlog #10
We're back! Refreshed after a couple of weeks of holiday, and ready to get back to creating the world's first data sonification podcast.
If you're very confused right now, this is the super-secret Loud Numbers development log newsletter which at some point you signed up to at loudnumbers.net. In it, we (Duncan and Miriam) share behind-the-scenes goodies from the podcast-creation process.
Shall we get started?
Pumping News Music
This week, Miriam has been listening to lots of news music as inspiration for our sonification of articles about Brexit in the Guardian as a Geiger counter sound (because Brexit will remain dangerous for 24,000 years - only slightly joking).
News music – the music that introduces news broadcasts – is a tightly defined and often underappreciated genre (see our Twitter thread on the subject). Hallmarks of news music include:
-
A constant 4/4 beat, often with urgent drums, rhythmic chords or a pumping bassline, as in the BBC News theme tune here in its recent TikTok rave edit. The subtext? News is happening around the clock and we, the broadcaster, are right on it the minute it happens. We don’t miss a beat.
-
Heavy use of both brass (action) and strings (emotion), as in the UK’s Channel 4 News theme.
-
Harmonies that alternate between major and minor, or don’t include the third step of the scale so refuse to define themselves as either, as in The Day Today (yes, this is a parody, and it perfectly distils the essence of news music). Because news is supposed to be objective and include both the light and the dark.
-
Music that builds to a climax so that everything you say afterwards sounds incredibly momentous and urgent. Example: almost all news music ever.
-
There’s also a more solemn substrand, exemplified by the Special Reports theme on ABC News used between 1991 and 2013, in which an aspirational horn melody (that brass again) soars over a reassuringly steady synth and percussion accompaniment. It was originally composed to soundtrack ABC’s coverage of the Gulf War(!) and its politics can be criticised (is this the sound of US imperial triumphalism?) but there’s little denying it’s good music, well suited to its purpose.
More elements behind the fine alchemy of news music are explored in this excellent Twenty Thousand Hertz podcast episode featuring Victor Vlam, a news music fanatic (they exist) who runs marathons soundtracked by themes from ABC, BBC and CNN broadcasts. He also curates the Network News Music archive of theme tunes – check it out!
Acidity horns
Speaking of brass, we made this little horn flourish to represent acidity in our beer sonification. We tweeted it earlier in the week, and here it is again. The louder the sound, the more tongue-curlingly acidic the beer. It’s the sound of a wince, if wincing was fun.
A few more bits and bobs
If you're not following us on Twitter (and even if you are, thanks to The Algorithm), you might have missed some of the things we've been sharing there lately. They include:
- Data Karoke - where people attempt to replicate sonifications with their mouth-holes (we'll stick to code).
- A great article about ICU soundscapes, featuring an amazing factoid about the Intel jingle.
- The sound of cities in lockdown, recorded by noise researchers.
- An animated, graphic, musical score for Ligeti's Artikulation.
- The "door closing" chimes from subways around the world, grouped by musical interval.
- A 3D marble-falling synthesizer.
The Algorithm is forever hungry, so if you've seen something or made something that you think we'd be into then hit reply and tell us about it. You might change the course of history a data sonification podcast.
Next week, we'll hopefully have a little more for you on the beer front as we're planning to get that polished off. But who knows. A lot can happen in a week...
See you then!