Caught word of this site Code Organ from the good folks down at woot.com (although it’s been passed around a lot this past week) which basically turns any website into a song. I’ll let them explain it:
Firstly, the codeorgan scans the page contents and removes all characters not found in the musical scale (A to G), and then analyses the remaining characters to find the most commonly used “note”. If this is an even number, the page is translated into the major pentatonic scale of that particular note. It becomes minor if there is an uneven number.
Secondly, the codeorgan defines which synthesizer to use. This is based upon the total number characters used on the webpage — there are currently 10 synthesizer effects and the one chosen is picked based upon the percentage of content.
Lastly, the codeorgan selects a drum loop based upon the ratio of characters on the page versus the number of characters that are actually musical notes — there are currently 10 different drum loops to pick from.
Seems simple enough. Although code organ’s procedure is pretty much equatable to a random number generator seeded by the amount of A through G characters of a site (something any high school computer science student could put throw together in about an hour), the 8-bit graphical user interface makes for a pretty slick web experience. What’s surprising about these semi-random musical pieces is how listenable the results spit out by the program are. In fact, excluding the distracting random piano line, you could really throw down a Garage Band jam with the supplied synth and drum lines! So if I piqued your interest, head on over to their site and see what your favorite URLs sound like.
Tags: Code Organ