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"The Lord of San Jose," an adult male Cachalot I met off
the coast of Isla San Jose in Baja California, January 2002
MARK FISCHER
Whalesong: The shape of the Sound
"Bowhead," a picture of a sound made by a Bowhead whale, 2003
Whalesong and Wavelets: A Process Explanation
About 5 years ago I had occasion to revisit an old interest of mine, that being the acoustics of whales and dolphins. Several months of independent study led me to believe that, in spite of simply incredible advances in computing technology, there really had not been a lot of progress in this area- or at least none that was publicly documented. The literature that did exist described their sounds in terms of frequency ranges, and typical visual representations were simple Fourier graphs, or spectrograms.
I began to wonder if perhaps another method could be brought to bear that would be more useful in exploring a world that is, to this day, largely unknown. In pondering this question, I happened across the theory of wavelets, and began to apply this mathematics to their sounds. The results of doing so were intriguing from the very beginning.
The procedure I have developed to pursue this exploration is, to me, a form of photography- with mathematics as the lens and a computer as a camera. What results is something I call 'the shape of the sound'.
"Interlude," a still scene from the soon-to-be-released music video 'the Mountain', with Boston-area composer Lauri des Marais, 2005
Short Bio:
1961 born, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
1979-1983 US Army, stationed in Amberg, Germany
1983-1987 Earned BS in electronics and computer engineering from George Mason University
1988-1998 Software development in defense (Navy SONAR) and telecommunications (cellular phones), strictly Unix/C.
1999-2002 Walkabout, Baja California.
since then - Independent research in cetacean acoustics using wavelets, exploring both the science and the art of the way they use sound.
Website: http://aguasonic.com
Email: mark @ aguasonic.com
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