What is data sonification?
An introduction to data sonification, the practice of turning data into sound.
Last updated
An introduction to data sonification, the practice of turning data into sound.
Last updated
Simply put, data sonification is the practice of taking data and representing it in the form of sound. In our daily lives, there are plenty of examples of audio representing bits of data. For example, think of a credit card chip reader beeping when a transaction has processed, a smoke detector sounding alarm, or a bell tower chiming with the passing of each hour. Sonification allows us to take complex information and hear it in the form of volume, pitch, timbre, rhythm, and so on.
Here are some examples of data sonification:
Check out this presentation from Jordan-Wirfs Brock for a great explanation of data sonification!
Data visualization is often used as an analogy for data sonification. Just as we can understanding data visually with charts and graphs, we can listen to data with sonification, like this.
Sonification is part of a bigger category called auditory display, which broadly covers the communication of information through audio, typically through interfaces or devices. Think of the radio display in your car, voice assistant technologies, the tune that your washing machine sings when it’s done with your laundry, etc. Data sonification, more specifically, is the practice of conveying data with audio (although “data” is a broad term).
There are several data sonification techniques, and a variety of ways to implement (link to methods) these techniques. You can use an algorithmic tool which generates sound from your data set, you can manually compose audio to represent data (what we call “punk” sonification), or you can use a combination. There are many possibilities for creativity in sonification, and opportunities for telling an interesting data-driven story through sound.