Mapping a love story

For now, I’m focusing on the story of Patricia and Bud. I figured, rather than spending time trying to find more stories for now, I would be wiser spending my time actually trying to see if this whole idea works in the first place. In order to generate the data I need to input on musicalgorithms, I first have to choose the geographical places to include on the map.

Patricia and Bud’s story starts in Whitney, ON, just outside of Algonquin Park. Then, throughout the article, a few other locations are highlighted:

• a row house on Somerset Street West
• Queensway Carleton Hospital
• St. Luke’s Anglican Church
• Cozy’s diner (now closed down, found the address here) and the laundromat next door
• Bayshore-area apartment
• Tim Hortons around the city
• Pinecrest cemetery

Once I have the locations, I can start finding their coordinates. I do this on Google maps: basically, you enter your location and right click on the pin. There will be a menu that pops up and one of the options is “What’s here?”. When you click on that, the latitude and longitude points come up at the bottom of the screen.

• Whitney, ON (45°29’37.6”N 78°14’15.6”W)
• a row house on Somerset Street West (45°24’46.2”N 75°42’10.6”W)
• Queensway Carleton Hospital (45°20’07.2”N 75°48’28.0”W)
• St. Luke’s Anglican Church (45°24’37.5”N 75°42’30.3”W)
• Cozy’s diner and the laundromat next door (45°24’18.2”N 75°43’24.0”W)
• Bayshore-area apartment (45°21’18.1”N 75°48’24.0”W)
• Tim Hortons (45°20’54.1”N 75°48’16.9”W)
• Pinecrest cemetery (45°20’33.6”N 75°47’04.4”W)

I then separate these coordinates into the data I will input on musicalgorithms. Each coordinate will have its own midi file, which I will then work with on Audacity to create a sound clip. I input the numbers as they’re divided in the latitude and longitude points. For example: 45°29’37.6”N 78°14’15.6”W becomes 45,29,37,6,78,14,15,6.

On musicalgorithms, you can choose how to scale your data (major key, minor key, blues, etc). This, I think, will depend on the place or story that each location is telling.