{"id":95,"date":"2017-07-29T01:13:08","date_gmt":"2017-07-29T01:13:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.roberthale.com\/content\/?p=95"},"modified":"2017-07-29T01:13:08","modified_gmt":"2017-07-29T01:13:08","slug":"transforming-data-to-music-moonlight-and-rain","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.roberthale.com\/content\/2017\/07\/29\/transforming-data-to-music-moonlight-and-rain\/","title":{"rendered":"Transforming Data to Music – Moonlight and Rain"},"content":{"rendered":"

Quite a few years ago,I lived outdoors for a summer at the base of Mt. Evans in Colorado. Each night I slept\u00a0in\u00a0the moonlight, feeling a little lost during the new Moon when it wasn’t visible. As our relationship grew over the years, I became aware of other things happening within the Synodic period\u00a0of the Moon<\/a>; one of them being the amount rain or snow that fell during the new and full Moon. In my research I found that it is true; there is a relationship between the lunar cycle and precipitation. No surprise really, considering the way the Moon affects the tides and other earthly events. I grabbed a year’s worth of lunar cycle data and matched it by date to precipitation data for the same period. You can get it here US Naval Observatory<\/a><\/p>\n

Since lunar data is cyclic, one way to visualize it\u00a0was a sine wave, so I assigned the pitches to match the peaks, valleys and transitions. The first sounds resembled Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata – so cool !!. Next I added precip data which did indeed cluster about the new and full moon. Some editing of the data was necessary in order to make it play a little less ragged due to the differences in the moon movement and our date system. In electronic music we call this Quantization, the process of making sure the notes hit on the beats. This is especially important because at some point I intend to perform this piece accompanied by yours truly on the electric violin. If not for Quantization, it\u00a0would be like playing with drummer possessing\u00a0an irregular\u00a0sense of time.<\/p>\n

The lunar cycle is represented by the lower piano arpeggios and the koto plays the rain ( or snow ). Made a few more adjustments for aesthetics sake. The Naval Observatory also collects data on the movements of the planets and stars. My mind reels with the possibilities of the data. It could be the\u00a0real Music of the Spheres !<\/p>\n

To add inspiration, I listened to The Planets<\/a>\u00a0by Gustav Holst<\/a> as I worked.<\/p>\n