Inspired by the “silent” child patients of Holland Bloorview Kids Rehabilitation Hospital in Toronto, researchers have developed a technology called Biomusic, which “translates real-time autonomic nervous system signals including heart and breathing rates and skin temperature, into musical sounds”:
Biomusic sounds something like avant-garde electronic music. Generated using a Musical Instrument Digital Interface (MIDI), it has an ethereal, other-worldly quality. An underlying drumbeat represents heart rate. Skin conductivity—which varies with sweating—controls pitch. Respiration rate dictates the musical articulation and phrasing. The melody and chords are smooth and flowing through the breath, and soften towards the end of the breath.
In the first minute of monitoring, the system takes a baseline reading and assigns the average to middle C. So, every instance of Biomusic begins with the same pitch and moves up or down from there. The overall key signature is determined by skin temperature, which changes gradually about 15 seconds after an emotional or physiological stimulus. States of stress, with fast and jagged breathing, sound different than states of relaxation, when the breath is slow and smooth. …
To see what would happen, [engineer and musician Stefanie] Blain-Moraes and her team recruited a number of residents, caregivers and family members to listen to Biomusic over the course of four visits. They were interviewed before and after the sessions. The results were positive. [Twelve-year-old patient] Thomas’ father said that the music he heard felt like a manifestation of his son’s personality: “it makes me think of the lively boy before.” Changes in Thomas’ biomusic also seemed to express a response to his presence. “When I was at the door, the sound was softer,” he said. “When I was there [at the bedside] it was longer and louder. I think Thomas knows that there is a presence of a loved one.”
(Audio: A clip from SoundCloud user chazmatazz, who used a biomechanical simulator to generate sound based on muscle activation and fiber length for 76 muscles in the legs while walking.)
The Dish 