Depressing Project of the Day: Stock Market, Set to Music with Microsoft Songsmith

I’ve been talking to folks about sonifying or music-i-fying data a lot lately; I even created a soothing, gamelan-like melody from my Gmail spam folder at South by Southwest last spring. But this particular example is, well … special.

I hesitate to share this, because a) YouTube numbers suggest you may have seen it already and b) it’s pretty depressing. On the other hand, it’s not like the fact the economy is depressing is news, exactly, so I suggest we employ the time-tested coping method that is laughter. Thanks (?) to Paul Norheim for this.

It also suggests a pleasing solution: the world economy just has the pitch control set wrong! Just start that turntable up again.

Or, more disturbingly, the fall of the economy is all part of some deep Schenkerian urlinie, a global capitalistic descent to the tonic. (What? No one up for some Friday afternoon theory humor?)

And yes, with apologies to the very-talented Microsoft Songsmith team, your product is becoming the new Hitler meme.

That’s it. We’re out for the weekend. I got nothin’.