I sing the ice electric
Jan 17, 2023, 09:06 PM
"For my composition “I Sing The Ice Electric” I chose the audio sample “Singing sea ice 2”, which was recorded at the PerenniAL Acoustic Observatory in the Antarctic Ocean, AWl's listening station north of the German Antarctic Neumayer station. The concept of Ice Singing definitely caught my attention and interest, but upon hearing the actual recording I immediately started to imagine a musical world where these sounds are born.
"The sounds are the actual release of energy from the ice in the form of vibrations, in a range of frequencies is similar to the Doppler effect. A high tone right at the start rapidly drops in pitch, this high-frequency vibration hits your ear first, with the low-frequency tone right on its heels. Wind blowing over the rough surface of Antarctica's Ice Shelf causes the frigid expanse to produce a nearly continuous series of tones. The Ice Shelf's rough surface, called the firn layer, is almost constantly vibrating. The frequency of the vibrations changes in response to changing weather conditions.
"The firn is “alive with vibration,” interacting with the intrinsic roughness of the ice surface called sastrugi. The ice is almost constantly “singing” at a frequency of 5 hertz — five cycles per second. The frequency is too low to be heard by human ears and, according to the American Geophysical Union, it was only made audible by speeding up the recording about 1,200 times. Imagining this sound producing process enabled me to create a composition whose textures and vibrations would feel right at home in the Antarctic. Thus “I Sing The Ice Electric” now lives too."
Sea ice reimagined by Jeff Dungfelder.
Part of the Polar Sounds project, a collaboration between Cities and Memory, the Helmholtz Institute for Functional Marine Biodiversity (HIFMB) and the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI). Explore the project in full at http://citiesandmemory.com/polar-sounds.
"The sounds are the actual release of energy from the ice in the form of vibrations, in a range of frequencies is similar to the Doppler effect. A high tone right at the start rapidly drops in pitch, this high-frequency vibration hits your ear first, with the low-frequency tone right on its heels. Wind blowing over the rough surface of Antarctica's Ice Shelf causes the frigid expanse to produce a nearly continuous series of tones. The Ice Shelf's rough surface, called the firn layer, is almost constantly vibrating. The frequency of the vibrations changes in response to changing weather conditions.
"The firn is “alive with vibration,” interacting with the intrinsic roughness of the ice surface called sastrugi. The ice is almost constantly “singing” at a frequency of 5 hertz — five cycles per second. The frequency is too low to be heard by human ears and, according to the American Geophysical Union, it was only made audible by speeding up the recording about 1,200 times. Imagining this sound producing process enabled me to create a composition whose textures and vibrations would feel right at home in the Antarctic. Thus “I Sing The Ice Electric” now lives too."
Sea ice reimagined by Jeff Dungfelder.
Part of the Polar Sounds project, a collaboration between Cities and Memory, the Helmholtz Institute for Functional Marine Biodiversity (HIFMB) and the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI). Explore the project in full at http://citiesandmemory.com/polar-sounds.