Sheridan Dauster Speeth

Sheridan Dauster Speeth was born in 1937 in Cleveland, Ohio. A psychologist and acoustics researcher, his work at Bell Telephone Laboratories in the late 1950s and early 1960s helped establish the field now known as sonification. He studied psychology at Harvard University under B. F. Skinner and later completed a PhD in experimental psychology at Columbia University. At Bell Labs in Murray Hill, New Jersey, he joined the Visual and Acoustics Research Laboratory, where he studied psychoacoustics and signal detection. Between 1958 and 1963 Speeth developed auditory methods for seismological analysis, transposing seismograms into the audible range so that trained listeners could distinguish underground nuclear tests from natural earthquakes. His 1961 paper Seismometer Sounds described these experiments, which relied on time-compressed seismic recordings analyzed by musicians, particularly cellists, selected for their precision in judging auditory patterns.

Building on his acoustic research, Speeth turned his attention to how machines might compose and organize sound. In January 1962 he wrote the Bell Telephone Laboratories memorandum Melody Generating Machines, a study of stochastic melody that reflected his growing interest in the mathematical and statistical foundations of music. Later that year he produced Theme and Variations for the Decca LP Music from Mathematics with Bell Labs engineers Max Mathews and Newman Guttman. Created with the lab’s digital synthesis system, the piece is among the earliest computer-generated compositions and is said to end with a seismic recording turned into sound from Speeth research. In the years that followed Speeth turned toward creativity and design, applying his research in perception to the development of educational and imaginative objects such as modular toys, learning aids, and experimental sound devices. Speeth passed away in 1995.