Composer turns earthquakes into music

Earthquake tremors can be music to some ears

February 5, 2000
Web posted at: 10:03 p.m. EST (0303 GMT)

From Correspondent Rusty Dornin

SAN FRANCISCO (CNN) -- Earthquakes are music to the ears of Andrew Michael, a researcher for the U.S. Geological Survey, and he's hoping that a musical piece he has written incorporating quake frequencies will make people more prepared for seismic upheavals.

Michael used the sound of a 1992 tremor in California when writing the Earthquake Quartet. "We basically take our seismograms, turn them into a compact disc and then play them out the loudspeakers," he said.

RESOURCES Major quakes in the last 20 years

VIDEO CNN's Rusty Dornin looks at a seismologist who uses the sound of earthquakes to make music. Real 28K 80K Windows Media 28K 80K

"Then we can make the motion go much faster so that we can actually hear it and get up into the pitches our ears can deal with."

Michael uses the quartet -- trombone, vocals, cello and earthquake -- when he lectures.

"When we're doing the sort of smeared notes, it's trying to symbolize the strain building up in the earth, and it's repeatedly interrupted by earthquakes, and earthquakes give off energy from that strain," Michael said.

The music is created using a trombone, vocals, cello and seismographs

He said there are tens of earthquakes daily in California, and he hopes the notes on the sheets of music will make the impact of the earth's notes much clearer.

"There are people going along as the happy culture, not really listening to the earthquakes in the background," he said.

"Maybe they're interested in music and we might be able to sort of hook their interest with the pieces of music and then get them to think about earthquake preparedness."

Turkish earthquake toll tops 360 dead, 1,800 injured
November 13, 1999
Strong earthquake rocks Southwest
October 16, 1999
Massive earthquake rattles southern Mexico; at least 8 dead
September 30, 1999
Rescuers try to free pinned victims after Athens quake
September 8, 1999
Quake engineering: Building for future on lessons from past
August 19, 1999
Scope of Colombian quake 'exceeds all calculations'
January 28, 1999

U.S. Geological Survey Home Page
   • USGS National Earthquake Information Center
Understanding Earthquakes

Note: Pages will open in a new browser window

External sites are not endorsed by CNN Interactive.