Sounds of HIV (Azica Records) is an album of classical music based on the DNA of the HIV virus (RNA, to be more exact). The composer, Alexandra Pajak, who is a graduate student at the University of Georgia, USA, has transcribed the nucleotides and amino acids into musical pitches, and the resulting sounds are surprisingly musical. So she has organized them and put them into an album named “Sounds of HIV” which consists of 17 tracks. The album has been featured in the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal.You can listen to this album and purchase it from here.
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Sounds of HIV (Azica Records)
Liner Notes:
Sounds of HIV is a musical translation of the genetic code of HIV, the Human Immunodeficiency Virus. Every segment of the virus is assigned music pitches that correspond to the segment’s scientific properties. In this way, the sounds reflect the true nature of the virus. When listening from beginning to end, the listener hears the entire genome of HIV.
DNA DNA is made of nucleotides. There are four types of nucleotides: adenine, cytosine, thymine, and guanine. Scientists abbreviate the nucleotides with the letters A, C, T, and G. Three nucleotides line up as a chain. Three nucleotides next to each other form amino acids. For example, if three Cytosines are in a line (c-c-c), they will form a different amino acid than if two cytosines and one adenine are in a line next to one another (c-c-a). There are 20 amino acids, which each have many physical properties. The music in “Sounds of HIV” is based on the DNA of the virus upon entry into the human body.
DNA Music:
DNA-based music is music in which the natural chemical properties of DNA is translated into music. In English, the nucleotides adenine, cytosine, thymine, and guanine are abbreviated with the letters a, c, t, and g, respectively. Since A, C, and G are also musical pitches in the Western melodic scale, these pitches were assigned to the matching nucleotides. To form two perfect fifths (C-G and D-A), “D” was arbitrarily assigned to musically represent thymine. The notes of the A minor scale have been assigned to the amino acids based on their level of attraction to water.
On “Sounds of HIV,” depending on the track, nucleotides and/or amino acids “play” as music. Tracks 1 and 10 are based on the first and last nucleotides of the DNA chain. Tracks 2-9 “play” the proteins and sometimes the nucleotides on top of the proteins.
HIVThe DNA genome of HIV is composed of 9,181 nucleotides. The 4 nucleotides line up in a string that is 9,181 long, and combine to form 9 different proteins. The entire HIV genome can be found online at http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/nuccore/AF033819
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