Too Hot to Handel When the first "white" trappers entered the Yellowstone region, its only full-time inhabitants were a foraging people known as the Sheepeaters, and, though it isn't known, I like to think they were there some 90 years earlier when Handel wrote The Water Music. As a small gesture toward retroactive correction, I hereby dedicate to their memory the following transmusical renderings of geyser eruption patterns - for surely they knew better than we that water already abounds in its own music. The Renderings Geyser Input Series Unimap Rendering Multimap Rendering Music Parameters Music Parameters[1] Spiteful Geyser 1x60 (intervals) MIDI linear map, T=40, N=22, major scale MIDI MP3 (1235K) TMF Botryoidal Spring 1x15 (intervals) MIDI linear map, T=55, N=15, melodic minor scale MIDI[2] MP3 (449K) TMF 1x16 (durations) MIDI Old Faithful Geyser 4x10 (intervals) MIDI[3] MP3 (786K) linear map, T=40, N=15, major scale (none) N/A Fan and Mortar Geysers 1x18 (intervals) (none) N/A MIDI MP3 (769K) TMF Giant Geyser 1x31 (intervals) (none) N/A MIDI MP3 (532K) TMF Geyser "Transmusicology" With geysers I found myself turning the "dial" on the conceptual "transmusic machine" further in the direction of fidelity to the structure of the input data - or toward maximal autonomy, as I like to put it - than I generally did for my musical experiments with cellular automata. For instance, I've used only linear musification maps in making the conversions. My motivation in taking this approach has stemmed mainly from a desire to permit the listener to "hear" patterns in geyser activity which might otherwise remain obscure, since more aggressive "artistic" futzing would tend to re-obfuscate such patterns. (Ironically, from the standpoint of perceiving structure in the data, human musical "improvements" would be "noise".) But even if our only object were to (re)produce beauty, there is something to be said for developing our ears to nature's patterns rather than deforming such patterns to fit preconceived aesthetic schemata. I can only touch on such issues for the moment, and in any case my own ideas are still evolving as I continue my explorations. More investigations will appear on Isle Ex as I find time for them. Off-site Information If you would like to learn more about the geysers whose activity is musified here, an excellent place to start your inquiry is David Monteith's Yellowstone's Geysers site. Also, WyoJones maintains what seem to be the definitive lists of geyser-related links: Yellowstone geyser links Geysers elsewhere in the world General geyser-related info Gazers owe a debt to Jones for these extensive and richly annotated lists. Finally, here's an interesting article on the "Sheepeaters". (Yes, I realize their relationship to this project is obscure. Well...all will be revealed in time, what can I say :) Notes The multimap parameters are specified using my simple ASCII transmusic format. Both interval and duration data are mapped in this rendering, though only the first 15 durations, which correspond to the intervals by inclusion, are input. This is the only unimap conversion in which the input (in this case fourfold) is looped. The resultant output loops are mixed, as in the multimap renderings. Page created 16-Feb-1998.  See map for file modification date.