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KeyNote – Musical Typing

15 August 2009 320 views No Comment

I was thinking how each key we type produces a slightly different sound/pitch. It would be interesting to see how each key’s pitch differs from other keys. And then when we type different words – does it produce a certain kind of music?

And can this music be used to understand words/language differently? A different version of spoken/auditory english maybe?

I began by typing! a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a . A whole bunch of a’s. Recorded the sound on Soundbooth. Then I raised the pitch 3 octaves up (36 half-tones). So that the sound would be clearer.
However, there was a lot of ambient noise which also became audible (and sounded very creepy). Hear Audio.

a a a a a a a a a a

Nontheless, I mapped out the pitches of the sound using a very cool voice-training program called Passaggio. Passaggio outputs a real time pitch map. The pitch of each sound appears a small green or red dot on the note it hits.

a_soundbooth_pitch_plotted

Because of all the ambient noise, my pitch map wasn’t very accurate. However, there was  a clear pattern. Clusters of dots appeared along certain notes. Using lines, I tried to map out the exact notes which appeared more frequently.

a_mapping_horizontal_vertical_coloured

The outcome was ironical. I pressed the a-key some 19 times. Out of this, the note ‘A’ was the most common pitch. Actually it was halfway between G# and A. Some strange semi-tone. This note appeared in all 3 octaves mapped (in different intensities). A bass D note also appeared in less intensity.

Next step is to record and plot ‘Hello World’ and see what sounds appear.

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