I have wondered whether listening to the frequency of prices may somehow provide signals in trading the market. Some scientific evidence indicates that approximately 90% of a person's sensory input comes from seeing. Most people rely more strongly on visual, as opposed to auditory or other types of sensory stimuli. However, there are some people, such as musicians or the blind, who may rely on auditory stimuli much more than visual stimuli. Certain music has rhythms and patterns which some people are more attuned to than others. Listening to music is quite a different experience, and generally more enjoyable than reading the sheet music. Could the same be said for a trader trying to hear the patterns of sound rather than see them?

All of the published research in market patterns has been on the visual level. But is it possible that certain people might better understand the market patterns by listening to them? Is it possible that certain patterns are more easily identified in an audible, rather than a visual way?

The work to set market prices to sound began as a practical attempt to allow a blind cousin, interested in trading, to hear the markets. This idea might allow him to study past market data by listening to it. A computer program was written to set each different price level to a specific sound frequency. For example, the German mark at the 0.5000 level would be set to a frequency of 1000 hertz, and the next tick up, or 0.5001, would be set to the 1001 hertz level. For those who disbelieve, keep in mind the same thing is done for visual market data, but the frequencies are at the visual level versus the auditory level.

The results are still being reviewed, but some of the work holds promise. The problem with this kind of work is that I do not know how to offer any kind of observable results. We are still in the testing stage and have not done any real time trading with the patterns. Any rhythm or pattern discerned by one person would, of course, be highly subjective and therefore learning the pattern may not necessarily be duplicated by another individual. We did not hear anything approaching the music of Bach, Beethoven, or Copland, but wonder if some of the more modem composers may have derived some of their inspiration from listening to the sounds of the market.