Below is a short excerpt from the Ottawa Citizen article about Cristina Wood‘s research as part of her MA in Public History here at Carleton University. The full article by Tom Spears, “The Ottawa River’s history re-told in musical notes,” can be found online.
To tell the history of the Ottawa River, Cristina Wood translated her research data into the 88 musical notes of a piano keyboard.
Wood calls the approach “sonification,” or expressing information through sound, and Carleton University is giving her a medal for the best research by any master’s student in any department this year.
Now you can hear and read her work online at her project’s website, songsoftheottawa.ca. Do not expect a traditional history essay.
Wood grew up in Rothwell Heights, close to the river, and will graduate Friday with a master’s degree in public history, with a specialization in digital humanities.
It took her some eight months to choose sources and gather the data for this, the major project for her master’s degree. Much of this time she was an intern at the Canada Science and Technology Museum and the Canada Agriculture and Food Museum. The museums gave her some research funding and access to artifacts.