Data Musicalization

Abstract

Data musicalization is the process of automatically composing music based on given data as an approach to perceptualizing information artistically. The aim of data musicalization is to evoke subjective experiences in relation to the information rather than merely to convey unemotional information objectively. This article is written as a tutorial for readers interested in data musicalization. We start by providing a systematic characterization of musicalization approaches, based on their inputs, methods, and outputs. We then illustrate data musicalization techniques with examples from several applications: one that perceptualizes physical sleep data as music, several that artistically compose music inspired by the sleep data, one that musicalizes on-line chat conversations to provide a perceptualization of liveliness of a discussion, and one that uses musicalization in a gamelike mobile application that allows its users to produce music. We additionally provide a number of electronic samples of music produced by the different musicalization applications.