Modulating Personal Audio to Convey Information

A long lasting problem in the design of auditory displays is how to design audio feedback that is aesthetically appealing and comfortable to listen to. Many systems focus solely on function and do not consider these other factors. This can lead to annoyance for users, or more extremely, abandonment of the system entirely. Instead of communicating information through sound which is built in to the system, an alternative method is to modulate acoustic parameters of a user's own music to encode information. This method - music modulation - has successfully been used in systems for conveying navigational data while walking and listening to music. This paper discusses the potential of applying this method to other contexts and types of data. We present a number of acoustic parameters of music that could be used to encode information and discuss a number of factors affecting the design of sonification systems employing them, with the goal of inciting discussion and further research into this potentially effective method of conveying information through sound.