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Exercise 1: Women in the Olympics

The rate of participation of female athletes at the Summer Olympic Games finally reached 50% in 2024. It's taken a full century to climb from <5% to fair proportionate participation.

Goal: Sonify female representation in the Summer Olympic Games since 1900. Add a sonic indicator for how the percentage of female athletes compares to 50%.

Tools: DataSonifyer, Audacity

Method: Parameter Mapping

Part 1: DataSonifyer

  1. Download the data (women-summer-olympics.csv).

  2. Open DataSonifyer.

  3. Upload data (click “Load Data” and select .csv file, enter ‘,’ for delimiter).

  4. Adjust general settings:

    1. Instrument: Triangle

    2. BPM: 80

    3. Loop: Off

  5. In the Frequency module, adjust:

    1. Data: %women_participants_summer

  6. In the Amplitude module, adjust:

    1. Data: %women_participants_summer

  7. Click “Add Sound Module,” select “Effect Control,” and save. Apply reverb if desired.

  8. Continue adjusting parameters. Click the musical note symbol in the upper left corner for helpful tips.

  9. To export audio, click “Record” in the upper right corner. Then click “Play” and DataSonifyer will capture what is played. Clicking “Recording” to stop recording. Scroll down to download the generated WAV file.

  10. Next, do a similar process for a different variable: 50_percent_end.

    1. Frequency module: Set Data: 50_percent_end

    2. Amplitude module: Set Data: 50_percent_end, Min Amp: 0, Max Amp 1. This will make it so that only the final 50% tone is audible.

    3. Record sonification and download WAV file.

Part 2: Audacity

  1. Open Audacity.

    1. To install, go to https://www.audacityteam.org/ and click “Download without Muse Hub.” Follow the installation process.

  2. Import both sonification WAV files (File > Import > Audio...).

  3. Arrange clips: Trim the 50% tone audio track, and make a copy of the clip. Place one clip at the beginning, and one at the end. This can provide sonic context to the listener, i.e. “What does 50 percent sound like?”

  4. Add effects: Click “Effects” on the left side of a track and click “Add Effect.” Explore the effects available and adjust the parameters to your liking.

  5. When ready, export the sonification: File > Export Audio... > Export to computer > Save with preferred file specifications.

Data Source: International Olympic Committee Factsheet, April 2024 and Olympics.com.

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