from an article about dorkbot in the NYTimes: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/17/science/17dork.html
"
Also at the dorkbot meeting were Alyce Santoro, an artist who weaves funky textiles out of a "sonic fabric" of audiotape and cotton, and Luke DuBois, a composer and "computational artist," who discussed a process he developed called "time-lapse phonography."
Mr. DuBois used his application, essentially time-lapse photography for sound, to create a new piece of music out of the 857 songs that have appeared at the top of the Billboard charts since 1958. The result, called "Billboard," is a 37-minute-long drone: each hit song is reduced to its average timbre and key by an algorithm that speeds up the original work without giving it a chipmunk chirpiness.
"It's a great way to get a gestalt of a piece of music," Mr. DuBois explained.
"