This is a short text describing the new sonification technique use to generate the background harmonic material used in the rendering of the audio files for the piece “Untitled Lagoon Ecologies” which is one of the many soundwalks that were realized using the http://echoes.xyz application as part of the ICMC 2025 in Boston this June. The concept of the piece was to make a series of 12 repeating loops with no perceivable break that reflect ed various aspects of the bioacoustics that can be found around the Boston Common Lagoon. Working with Dr. Sharath Chandra Ramakrishna of the Univ. of Illinois at Champaign Urbana, we collected sound files of the sounds made by all the animals that could possibly be heard in and around the lagoon. This included many species of birds and their calls, rabbits, squirrels, coyotes and using pitch shifting down several octaves bats.

Once these sounds had been collected a Python program was written using the Sardine Live Coding library. Sardine is a versatile and user-friendly Python library designed for musical improvisation, algorithmic composition. The resulting sound files were intriguing but lacked cohesion. A strategy was devised to use AI techniques to create various backing files in a way that was influenced by the set and setting of the trees surrounding the section of the lagoon where the walk was taking place.

The “Meet the Trees” provided a detailed description of each tree along the pathway. A pleasing chord progression, including voice leading was provided and the Lyria AI library from Google was asked to make various ensemble reactions to the text description of each tree along the path, using the descriptions of each tree from the website.

The resulting sound files were ambient and unobtrusive and provided a cohesive backdrop for the collection of bioacoustics that had been generated using the various sound files generated in a live coding session using the interactive nuance of the Sardine Live Coding library.

If you find yourself in Boston and have the time, here is a pointer to the realization of the piece. To hear it requires downloading the ECHOES application which can be found at this LINK . If you just want to hear the resulting mixdown in a remix “simulation” of the walk, ignore the attempts to donate to audio.com and listen to a 1 hour remix at https://audio.com/scot-gresham-lancaster/audio/untitledlagoonecologies-1hourremix