sounds of science

Molecular structures are translated into a multi-instrument score, focused on the nuclocapsid spike in SARS-CoV-2 interacting with an antibody molecule. The complex piece, resembling the entanglement of three protein chains, is analyzed and a series of musical fragments are extracted (parts I, II, III, IV and V). The parts build on each other and are organized in increasing complexity, I being the simplest and V being the most complex version.

N Spike Antibody Fragment V

The construction of biological matter, and life itself, features striking similarities with musical creativity. In my research, I have explored these relationships with a combination of biology, chemistry, as well as mathematical and music theoretical tools. 

Listen here how dinoflagellate (a single-celled organism with two flagella, occurring in large numbers in marine plankton and also found in fresh water)  induce hierarchical vibrations translated to musical form.

Superfluous Dreams (Violin Adagio) - Part V

Superfluous Dreams (Violin Adagio) - Part VIIII

Swamp Variations: Emergence, Evolution, Division, Spring, Retreat 

Part of a series of 5 parts: This is Evolution.

Ambient version (reduced orchestration, focus on piano and flute, string instruments)

Swamp Variations - Part II - Evolution (((AMBIENT SPACE VERSION )))

An audible representation vibrational spectrum of the 5OYI protein, the building block of the foot and mouth disease virus.

The musical representation of the protein is created by interpolating the frequency spectra of the proteins to generate audible sound by overlaying the molecular vibrations and translating them to the audible frequency range using the music theoretic concept of transpositional equivalence.  

Original reference: Z. Qin, M.J. Buehler, Analysis of the vibrational and sound spectrum of over 100,000 protein structures and application in sonification, Extreme Mechanics Letters, 2019, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eml.2019.100460

Sonification of the proteins of the foot and mouth disease virus

Sonification of the Vibrational Spectrum of a Protein Molecule

Can musical composition be used to design new materials? Yes!

This track reflects an AI generated piece, used to design a new protein molecule that doesn't exist in nature. Its folded structure is shown in the track image. A neural network is trained to learn the features of protein design in musical space, and is then used to generate new sequences. 

The music reflects array of dozens of alpha-helical protein segments (cylinders in track image), which are represented by short repetitive notes. They are interrupted by periods of unstructured domains, as is also seen in the protein structure.

AI designed music and translation to de novo protein

We report a self-consistent method to translate amino acid sequences into audible sound, use the representation in the musical space to train a neural network, and then use it to generate new protein designs using artificial intelligence (AI). The sonification method proposed here uses the normal mode vibrations of the amino acid building blocks of proteins to compute an audible representation of each of the 20 natural amino acids, which is fully defined by the overlay of its respective natural vibrations computed using quantum mechanics. 

The vibrational frequencies are transposed to the audible spectrum following the musical concept of transpositional equivalence, playing or writing music in a way that makes it sound higher or lower in pitch while retaining the relationships between tones or chords played. This transposition method ensures that the relative values of the vibrational frequencies within each amino acid and amongst different amino acids are retained. 

The characteristic frequency spectrum and sound associated with each of the amino acids represents a type of musical scale that consists of 20 unique tones, the “amino acid scale”. 

The audio represents a sweep through all 20 natural amino acids:

Alanine 
Arginine 
Asparagine 
Aspartic acid 
Cysteine 
Glutamic acid 
Glutamine 
Glycine 
Histidine 
Isoleucine 
Leucine 
Lysine 
Methionine 
Phenyalanine 
Proline 
Serine 
Threonine 
Tryptophan 
Tyrosine 
Valine 

More on amino acids: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amino_acid

Sounds of the basic building blocks of life: A sweep through all natural 20 amino acids

Protein resonances inspire a minimalist evolution of ideas across the resonances of piano and solo strings. The structure evolves slowly as the motion of jellyfish, a natural hydrogel, in water. Ethereal resonance.

The series of short pieces is based upon this musical reflection of infection, inverting the original molecular attachment: https://soundcloud.com/user-275864738/coronavirus-spike-protein-bound-to-ace2

Piano And Cello (VI)

Ethereal Resonance: Protein Inspiration - VI (PIano and Cello)

Pantoclast - Miasma For Breakfast (DCOMPOSED)  Remixed By R.S.Stropharia (Collab with DComposeuR)

Swamp Variations: Emergence, Evolution, Division, Spring, Retreat 

Part of a series of 5 parts: This is Division.

Swamp Variations - Part III - Division

Protein resonances inspire a minimalist evolution of ideas across the resonances of piano and solo strings. The structure evolves slowly as the motion of jellyfish, a natural hydrogel, in water. Ethereal resonance.

Piano And Cello (VIIII)

Ethereal Resonance: Protein Inspiration - VIIII (PIano and Cello)

A musical experiment with proteins, coyote, bells, guitar, and a rooster. This is an audible journey through a variety of natural sources of sound, invoking various forms of life, materials, as well as electronic synthesis methods.

Typically, sound is made from vibrating a material, like a guitar string, and music is made by arranging sounds in hierarchical patterns. Here we explore a variety of modes of sound generation - from string vibrations (guitar), to protein vibrations (molecular music), to animals (coyote and rooster), to bells, and a few other unusual sources. In one sweep, our ears pick up all of the features a complex hierarchical system: pitch, timbre, volume, melody, rhythm, and chords.

Music, as a universal language, connects people across the world. More so, it allows us to explore the physical features of matter - both living systems and inanimate - in their ability to generate sound through energetic excitation. Hence, it is a model of our shared humanity. And we can cross scales and species, as done in this piece, where we visualize distinct organisms like animals, materials, and humans interacting in a sort of virtual jam, in musical space.

Energy Equilibrium: Proteins, Coyote, Bells, Guitar, and a Rooster (((Ambient Version)))

Ethereal Resonance: Protein Inspiration - VII(PIano and Cello)

Ethereal Resonance: Protein Inspiration - I (PIano and Cello)

Markus J. Buehler is the McAfee Professor of Engineering at MIT, and a composer of experimental, classical and electronic music, with an interest in sonification. Using an approach termed "materiomusic", his artistic work explores the creation of new forms of musical expression - such as those derived from biological materials and living systems - as a means to better understand the underlying science and mathematics. One of his goals is to use musical and sound design as a novel and abstract way to model, optimize and create new forms of matter from the bottom up, and to assess cross-system design relationships. He is also interested in research to explore relationships between classical music, mathematics, and the physical and biological sciences, an in the mapping of models of consciousness across systems. In recent work he has developed a new framework to compose music based on proteins – the basic molecules of all life, as well as other physical phenomena such as fracturing, to explore similarities and differences across species, scales and between philosophical and physical models. 

Contact: mbuehler@MIT.EDU

Sonification of the Vibrational Spectrum of a Protein Molecule

Markus J. Buehler

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