# Sheet Music for Whales **Year:** 2014 (active development; exhibitions and republication continue) **Role:** Designer, researcher **Client:** Self **Tags:** stories-and-dataviz, music, personal-projects **Case study:** /work/whale-song A graphic notation system for transcribing humpback whale songs to reveal their musical structure. The notation reads a long song as musical phrases — repetition, variation, theme — rather than as a continuous acoustic blur. Made with [David Rothenberg](https://davidrothenberg.wordpress.com/), whale-song researcher — I designed the notation system, prints, and interactive; David supplied the recordings and domain expertise. ### Exhibited - Espacio Fundación Telefónica, Madrid (2025) - Aquarium Tropical, Paris — *Baleinopolis* - Palma Aquarium, Mallorca - Seattle Aquarium - Biomimicry 3.8, Dubai - Oceanology Maui / Whale Center of Hawaii ### Published - [*National Geographic* — "Here Is How Whales Sing"](https://www.nationalgeographic.com/magazine/graphics/here-is-how-whales-sing-from-yaps-to-fin-slaps-feature) - [*The New York Times* — "How to Make Music with a Whale"](http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/10/05/how-to-make-music-with-a-whale/) - [*Smithsonian* — "What Whale Songs Look Like as Sheet Music"](https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/what-whale-songs-look-sheet-music-180956813/) - *Ocean: From the Shore to the Abyss* (Thames & Hudson) - *Whale Music* by David Rothenberg (Penguin Random House) - *The Wire* magazine ### Film & TV - [Netflix's *The Loneliest Whale: The Search for 52*](https://www.netflix.com/title/81446263) - ARD (German public TV, produced by *UFA Show & Factual*) ### Presented at SciViz Conference, Creative Tech Week, the Explorers Club, the *Art & Science of Whales* event at the Icahn School of Medicine. ## A note on the National Geographic feature A later *National Geographic* feature on whale song included a full-spread visualization built from the same notation approach — sampled, averaged glyphs per recurring sound type, layered over a musical staff in the same visual register — as an instance of the approach being adopted by others as a reusable visualization form. David consulted on the science for that piece. I learned the issue existed when he showed me a copy. ## Posters and covers ![Whale-song notation poster — 18×24 print mockup](/legacy/whales/images/whales-141009-poster5-18x24-mockup_1024x1024.jpg) ![Whale-song notation poster — cropped detail](/legacy/whales/images/whales-141009-poster5-18x24-mockup_1024x1024--cropped.jpg) ![Whale Song Explained — cover composition v1](/legacy/whales/images/whales-170809-cover-01.svg) ![Whale Song Explained — cover composition v2](/legacy/whales/images/whales-170831-cover-02.svg) ![Whale Music — CD artwork using the notation system](/legacy/whales/images/whales-cd.jpg) ## Glyph system ![Overview of the whale-song glyph vocabulary — recurring sound types rendered as visual primitives](/legacy/whales/images/project-images-fallback/whales-glyphs.gif) ## Notation design — composition pieces The visual grammar shown in isolation, before composition into the interactive notation. ![Notation composition piece](/legacy/whales/images/yg-whale_song-170805-image_comper-01.svg) ![Notation composition piece](/legacy/whales/images/yg-whale_song-170805-image_comper-04.svg) ![Notation composition piece](/legacy/whales/images/yg-whale_song-170805-image_comper-05.svg) ![Notation composition piece](/legacy/whales/images/yg-whale_song-170805-image_comper-06.svg) ![Notation composition — main panel](/legacy/whales/images/yg-whale_song-170805-image_comper-07--main.svg) ## Interactive notation — sonogram panel The full notation panel shown on the live site. Sounds are rendered as glyphs over a musical staff; hovering a glyph reveals related variants; "rest" frames mark the gaps between phrases. The set below decomposes into the panel's component parts. ![Sonogram notation panel — full composition with staff, glyphs, and phrase rests](/legacy/whales/images/whales-170803-sonogram_edits3f/whales-170803-sonogram_edits3f-1.png) **Composition parts:** - Staff layer: `whales-170803-sonogram_edits3f-staff.png` - Panels 2–9 (glyph state): `whales-170803-sonogram_edits3f-2.png` · `-3.png` · `-4.png` · `-5.png` · `-6.png` · `-7.png` · `-8.png` · `-9.png` - Panels 2–9 (hover state): `whales-170803-sonogram_edits3f-2--hover.png` · `-3--hover.png` · `-4--hover.png` · `-5--hover.png` · `-6--hover.png` · `-7--hover.png` · `-8--hover.png` · `-9--hover.png` - Phrase-rest variants: `whales-170803-sonogram_edits3f-6rest.png` · `-7rest.png` · `-8rest.png` · `-9rest.png` All under `/legacy/whales/images/whales-170803-sonogram_edits3f/`. ## Audio source samples The recordings the notation transcribes. Each glyph type in the panel corresponds to a recurring sound David identified in the source recordings. - Hat calls — `/legacy/whales/audio/hat1.mp3` · `hat2.mp3` · `hat3.mp3` - Theme-1 variants — `/legacy/whales/audio/sound-t1a.mp3` · `sound-t1b.mp3` · `sound-t1c.mp3` · `sound-t1d.mp3` · `sound-t1e.mp3` --- [Overview](/llms.txt) · [All work](/) · [About](/about)