Composed music from the Bárðarbunga quakes

The ongoing seismic activity at Bárðarbunga has caused great concern for some, but served as an inspiration to others. Yesterday Vísir reported that Bæring Gunnar Steinþórsson had created an online 3D model of the quakes. Now Halldór Eldjárn, musician and member of the band Sykur, has released a musicial composition where the Bárðarbunga quakes are converted into musical notes.

"I keep an ear out for the data that's accessible via apis.is," says Halldór about his composition. "Then I go through them by their timestamps. I check where the quakes take place, at what depth and their size, then hook that up to a synthesizer that I programmed myself and it plays the values."

The low notes represent the deep quakes, while the high notes represent quakes closer to the surface. the result is an original and amusing piece that's called "The sounds of the earthquakes in Bárðarbunga."

"All music is just data, in a way," Halldór explains. "You can interpret Beethoven's Fifth Symphony as data, which is just notes of variable pitches at variable times. In that way, earthquakes are no different."

Halldór hasn't decided upon a name for this new form of music, but he's open to suggestions.

"It makes for very good background music," says Halldór. "Personally I'm hoping that some jazz musician uses it as a background for his own music. That would be really nice."

He believes that more music will be forthcoming, as the Bárðarbunga quakes shows no signs of stopping. But what if an eruption will take place?

"Then the music will surely contain more notes. Possibly just noise," he says while laughing. "But most of all it'll be exciting."