Description

This vibrant abstraction bursts with warm oranges and sunlit yellows, braided with amber and rust. Fluid, organic shapes twist and undulate like rolling surf or molten currents, creating a sense of constant motion. As you look longer, eye- and mask-like forms surface from the swirls—enigmatic glances that deepen the mystery and pull you into the layered textures.

The piece is inspired by whale sound waves and their spectrograms. A spectrogram is a visual portrait of sound: time runs left to right, frequency rises from low to high, and intensity appears as color or brightness. Humpback phrases, for example, trace ladders, ribbons, and pulses across that map; clicks and moans become streaks, arches, and glowing bands. I translate those patterns into paint—stretching tones into curves, letting crescendos flare into bright fields, and allowing silence to settle as deep shadow.

Here, the colors blend and collide to generate depth, as if the viewer is being drawn into a chamber of living sound. The result is a harmonized field of energy and movement—an abstract echo of the ocean’s choir—inviting you to read the image the way whales read the sea: by feeling the rhythm, following the lines, and discovering the hidden eyes that listen back.

What is a spectrogram?

A spectrogram is a visual representation of how a sound’s energy is distributed across frequencies over time.

• Axes: time (x-axis) vs. frequency in hertz (y-axis); color/brightness shows amplitude or power (often in dB).

• How it’s made: the audio signal is split into short, overlapping time windows and a short-time Fourier transform (STFT) (or similar method) is applied to each window to estimate its spectrum. Stacking those spectra side-by-side makes the image.

• Trade-off: Short windows give better time resolution but poorer frequency resolution; longer windows do the opposite. Choice of window type, length, and overlap sets what details you can see.

Why use spectrograms for whale sounds?

Spectrograms turn underwater audio into measurable, comparable patterns, which helps scientists and artists alike.

• Identify species & call types: Different whales occupy distinct bands and shapes (e.g., humpback songs with sweeping harmonics; blue/fin infrasonics at 10–40 Hz; toothed-whale clicks as vertical, broadband pulses).

• Study behavior: Track song structure, sequences, and rhythm, locate feeding/communication calls, and measure inter-click intervals in echolocating species.

• Monitor populations: Long-term “acoustic presence” (who is there and when) can be estimated from automatic detection of spectrogram patterns.

• Map movements & habitat use: Relate calling activity to season, location, prey and environmental conditions.

• Quantify noise impacts: Measure masking from ships or seismic sources by comparing whale-call energy against background noise in the same frequency bands.

• Automated detection/AI: Spectrograms are image-like, so machine-learning models can be trained to spot calls across huge datasets.

Common whale sound types

Baleen whales (mysticetes)

• Moans / Tones (infrasonic–low): Long, steady notes that carry far for contact and display.

  • Blue & Fin: ~10–40 Hz (can propagate basin-wide).

  • Right whales (upcall): ~50–100 Hz, short upsweep used for contact.

• FM Sweeps / Phrases: Rising/falling “notes” that form sequences.

  • Humpback song: ~20 Hz–5 kHz; patterned themes that repeat for minutes to hours (breeding displays).

• Pulses / Grunts / Groans: Shorter, low-frequency bursts used in social contexts or agitation; tens to a few hundred Hz.

• Percussive sounds: Tail/pectoral slaps and breaches—impulsive, broadband signatures used for communication or display; appear as bright vertical spikes on spectrograms.

Toothed whales (odontocetes)

• Echolocation clicks: Very short, broadband pulses for sensing prey and navigating in the dark.

  • Sperm whales: ~2–25 kHz (extremely loud); patterned codas (rhythmic click sequences) used for identity/culture.

  • Dolphins: ~20–150 kHz; rapid buzzes/creaks (very fast click trains) during prey capture.

  • Beaked whales: NBHF (narrow-band, high-frequency) clicks typically ~30–90 kHz—helps avoid detection and focus beams.

• Whistles: Tonal, frequency-modulated calls (often 5–40 kHz) used for social contact, especially in dolphins.

• Burst-pulse calls: Rapid, pulsed sounds (kHz to tens of kHz) in social/agonistic contexts.

How they look on a spectrogram

• Horizontal bands/lines: sustained tones (moans, song notes).

• Diagonal arcs: FM sweeps (humpback phrases).

• Vertical spikes: impulsive events (clicks, percussive slaps).

• Dense “smears” or ladders: fast click trains (buzzes) or complex song harmonics.

• Brighter/warmer color = louder (higher amplitude).

Why spectrograms are ideal for whale acoustics

They turn long recordings into searchable pictures, letting researchers (and artists) identify species, behaviors, seasonal presence, and noise interference at a glance, and enabling automated detection/AI across huge datasets.

Resources: Spectrograms & STFT (how we “see” sound)

• Short-time Fourier transform (STFT). Clear definition of STFT and how stacked short spectra form a spectrogram. Wikipedia

• STFT spectrogram (NI docs). Concise engineering definition: spectrogram = normalized, squared magnitude of STFT over time. NI

• Ishmael user’s guide / detection methods. NOAA guide with references to spectrogram correlation for low-frequency whale calls. NOAA Institutional Repository

Frequency ranges & example calls

• NOAA PMEL marine-mammal spectrogram gallery. Side-by-side spectrograms (blue, fin, etc.) with typical frequency bands. PMEL

• Atlantic blue whale call description. Narrow-band ~19 Hz moans (classic low-frequency example). PMEL

• Blue & fin infrasonics (10–40 Hz) example. NOAA Ocean Exploration page showing harmonics/energy at 10–40 Hz. NOAA Ocean Exploration

• Humpback songs (range & structure). Foundational paper and summaries on song units/phrases; ranges commonly reported from ~20 Hz up to several kHz. PubMed+1

• North Atlantic right whale acoustics review. Tonal sounds generally ~50–600 Hz; good overview of call types (e.g., upcalls). ScienceDirect

Toothed whales (clicks, whistles, codas)

• Sperm whale clicks (levels/frequency). Classic work on powerful, broadband clicks used for echolocation and codas. marinebioacoustics.wordpress.com+1

• Beaked whales foraging clicks. Tagging study documenting deep, ultrasonic click trains and prey echoes. PubMed

• Dolphin whistles overview (ecotypes). Open-access review with whistle fundamentals (kHz bands) and social function. PMC

• NOAA blog: click frequencies vs. our hearing. Quick plain-language reference on ultrasonic clicks and why humans don’t hear them. NOAA Fisheries