The U.S. Open is upon us, and some of you are on the edge of your seats keeping up with the man, woman and pairs that are going to take home the top prize come the tournament's finale on Sept. 8. For those of you less interested in tennis but who really like cool things, here's a reason why you too can keep up with the competition.
James Murphy, the frontman of the disbanded LCD Soundsystem, has teamed up with the U.S. Open for a pretty funky project. With help from IBM, Murphy is using raw data to make music out of the sounds of the U.S. Open in what is known as the U.S. Open Sessions. About 400 hours of music is expected to come out of the project.
As Murphy explains in a promo video for the project, he's not going to be strumming on a guitar, banging on the drums and fiddling around with a synthesizer for hours on end. He's using an algorithm that converts tennis data into music data.
While the project was originally based in code, it was turned into a concept that Murphy is more familiar with: instruments. Certain tennis moves, such as a point, volley and ace, have been converted into their own sounds for the project.
If you go over to the U.S. Open's official website, you can check out the product of the algorithm as it streams live in real time on the IBM Cloud. For instance, you can check out Venus Williams' match against Sara Errani from Aug. 28. The bouncing of the ball creates a nice backbeat to the track. You'll also notice that the song changes when something major happens during the match, such as someone scoring a point or winning the game. It actually sounds more like the soundtrack to a tennis video game than something you would be likely to hear up in the club.
This isn't the first time Murphy has tried to make music out of unconventional sounds. Earlier this year, Murphy told The Wall Street Journal that he wanted to improve the sounds of subway stations by giving each one a unique set of noises.
