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Heart Rate Sonification: A New Approach to Medical Diagnosis
- Leonardo
- The MIT Press
- Volume 37, Number 1, February 2004
- pp. 41-46
- Article
- Additional Information
Ever since 1819, when Theophile Laennec first put a block of wood to a patient's chest in order to listen to her heartbeat, physicians have used auscultation to help diagnose cardiopulmonary disorders. Here the authors describe a novel diagnostic method based in music technology. Digital musicsynthesis software is used to transform the sequence of time intervals between consecutive heartbeats into an electroacoustic soundtrack. The results show promise as a diagnostic tool and also provide the basis of an interesting musical soundscape. Amplitude (mV)