Looking Outwards 4: Sound Art

The project that I chose to highlight is the “Weather Thingy” created by Adrien Kaeser. Asides from it’s name – I admire how it focuses on an intersection point between science, technology, and music. It’s almost like an embodiment of the BXA program at CMU. The multidisciplinary approach to solving the issue of how weather might distort sound is a concept I’ve never even thought of before. The module also has the capability of simulating sound as if it were in certain inspiring weather condition for the musician.

My knowledge of music is rather limited. I played the piano and the flute for a few years and my computing knowledge is also very limited. The creator didn’t delve into any detail on how the algorithms worked but I would assume that its takes in the weather data and based on for instance, the amount of rain, the midi data would adjust the sound settings to be more crisp despite being muddled by the rain. However, this is just an inference of the creator’s concept. The module itself embodies the creator’s artistic sensibilities as a musician, by showing just how sensitive and receptive he is of even the smallest change in
sound as a result of the weather.