I read with interest that some scientists have concluded that the Sun actually makes music. What they in fact mean is that the various magnetic fields of the sun vibrate at frequencies which, if they were vibrations in an acoustic medium and they were speeded up to be audible to humans, they would indeed sound like something. The sceptical among you will be thinking that a sound which is speeded up by an arbitrary amount can hardly be said to be the authentic music of anything: for example, if I had a note vibrating at 440Hz and speeded it up to 660Hz, I would be raising it in pitch from A to E. Do that too many times and on an inconsistent basis and that is tantamount to altering the melody of the whole song!
However, if one were to look at it not as the actual sounds in themselves but as a method of composition – by applying a consistent algorithm (algo-rhythm?) to the vibrations – one actually comes up with a piece of ambient process music of the kind that Karlheinz Stockhausen or Brian Eno would be interested in.
For those interested in hearing a WAV file of the sounds generated by the scientists from the Sun, Please click this link.
Sol Ascendans - The Website of Alex Sumner 
Cosmic Music – reminds me of Lenny Henry
Me? Embarassed about that Lenny Henry remark? I signed Jedward 4fs!
Following on from a story I reported on several months ago that scientists had recorded the music of the Sun, it turns out they have been applying similar techniques to other stars, including one with the catch name of KIC 11026764. For publicity purposes this has been bigged up as a “star’s song,” but it would be more accurate to say it is more of an ambient drone of the kind that Brian Eno might come up with. As soon as I read this this article I thought: “KIC 11026764! Of course, it’s so obvious! I mean, as if anyone wants to hear what more famous stars like Regulus or Aldebaran sound like.”
Anyway – it certainly beats listening to X Factor.
Leave a comment
Filed under Comment
Tagged as Bill Chaplin, Brian Eno, daily telegraph, KIC 11026764, Lenny Henry, Louis Walsh, Music, University of Birmingham, X Factor