Sonic Pi is a brilliant sound synthesiser which is a fun way to learn computing and music.
This resource will show you how to use Sonic Pi to ‘visualise’ data using sound; this is called ‘sonification’. The aim is to use Sonic Pi, with help from Mathematica, to take temperature data from weather reports and turn it into sound. Why would you want to do this? The ear is very sensitive to changes in sound; it can pick out trends in data which might not be immediately apparent just by looking at a sequence of numbers. Sonification is becoming an important way of interpreting data, and it's also fun discovering the music hidden in information all around you!
As well as a Raspberry Pi with an SD card loaded with Raspbian, you'll also need:
- Speakers (if you're using a TV as a display you can use this to output sound), or headphones plugged into the audio socket.
- An internet connection, so the Pi can download data.
- A kettle, or other means of making a beverage, during the long process of Step 2 of the worksheet.
Make sure you’ve updated Mathematica and Sonic Pi to the latest versions with sudo apt-get update; sudo apt-get upgrade.
This resource is based on a blog post by Steve Lloyd.