Turning tweets into sweet music

18 November 2011

Demonstrating the power of research networks and grid computing

At the SC11 supercomputing conference in Seattle, music has been used to demonstrate a different way of looking at data. By analysing tweets from the #SC11 twitter feed, Domenico Vicinanza from DANTE used grid computing, high-speed research networks and sonification to turn tweets into music in real time. 

Vicinanza used an original Java application called Sonify, running on the European Grid Infrastructure (EGI), to turn the tweets into music, and relied on the high-speed GÉANT and Internet2 research networks to move the data and melodies between Europe and the US in real-time. The melodies were delivered to the InsideHPC booth by the built-for-SC11 Scinet network.

As well as highlighting the level of Twitter chatter at the event, and the seamless connectivity available between Europe and the US, the purpose behind the demo was to show how sonification can be used to turn any type of data into music. Previous sonification projects have had more serious objectives, including the creation of music from volcanic activity around the world, potentially making it easier to spot potential eruptions by listening to changes in musical pitch.

The science part
In the case of written information (in this case tweets) each letter is assigned a note pitch, dependent on its position in the alphabet, meaning that the letter S is a tone higher that R, and a tone below T. Vowels and consonants have different lengths (a quaver and semi-quaver respectively), enabling the creation of a melody.

How do research networks help?
Sonification requires enormous amounts of networking and processing power to produce results. This week’s demo relied on several elements that underpin research every day: high-speed research networks including GÉANT in Europe and Internet2 in the US, EGI grid computing as well as the Scinet network built for SC11.

GÉANT and grid computing
GÉANT is a vital part of the EGI grid infrastructure as it provides the real time, high bandwidth transport layer to link distributed processing power, removing latency and avoiding data bottlenecks.

For more information, see: 
GÉANT and Grids