For my piece, I decided to sonify the data set "Monthly Minneapolis public drunkenness intakes Jan.’66-Jul’78". To stay on theme for drunkenness, I used the sound of a bottle being blown into as my main sound. I use the exact number from the data as the frequency, since the data is in a good range for that to work. The amount of vibrato on the note and the length of the note also depend on the data (the higher the note, the more vibrato and the longer it is). A lot of the time, these end up being fairly subtle changes, but especially in the lower notes, these changes stand out more. I also added an delay effect, at first just for fun. It gives the music a very sci-fi feel though, so I kept it, which is how it got its title "Drunk in Space". I also removed (intentionally) squaring the gain and using midi keynums, because I wanted a more subtle (and perhaps weirder) feel to the music.
I only modified the player file for this assignment.
CodeQ. Why are the values for gain squared?
A. We hear volume on a logarithmic scale, meaning the volume of notes get exponentially louder as the sound goes up in order for us to hear it the way it is intended in the music.
Q. Why use MIDI keynums for the freq values? What happens if they're mapped linearly, instead?
A. Similarly, we hear frequency on a logarithmic scale as well, meaning using midi notes spaces it out more evenly for our ears.
Q. What happens if the 100 ms update rate is increased or decreased significantly?
A. The higher the number for ms update rate, the slower the notes will change. Basically, the number refers to how long to play each note before moving to the next.