What do molecules sound like?

Each sound below is generated from the molecule's real chemistry — its atoms, elements, and rings. Same molecule, same sound, every time.

How the sound is made

This is an encoding, not a recording — molecules don't emit sound. We map real chemistry to sound with one fixed rule:

• Each atom plays a tone; its element sets the pitch (carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, phosphorus, sulfur each have their own note).

• You hear the atoms in sequence (the molecule's "spelling"), then sounded together as a chord (its "harmony").

• Ring atoms get a richer, fuller tone; heavier molecules play a little longer. So two molecules differ in sound only because they differ in chemistry.

Guanine (G) — DNA
C5H5N5O
spectrogram
11 atoms 2 rings 151.1 g/mol
Cytosine (C) — DNA/RNA
C4H5N3O
spectrogram
8 atoms 1 rings 111.1 g/mol
Adenine (A) — DNA/RNA
C5H5N5
spectrogram
10 atoms 2 rings 135.1 g/mol
Thymine (T) — DNA
C5H6N2O2
spectrogram
9 atoms 1 rings 126.1 g/mol
Uracil (U) — RNA
C4H4N2O2
spectrogram
8 atoms 1 rings 112.1 g/mol
Nucleotide (dAMP)
C10H14N5O6P
spectrogram
22 atoms 3 rings 331.2 g/mol
Glycine (Gly) — aa
C2H5NO2
spectrogram
5 atoms 0 rings 75.1 g/mol
Alanine (Ala) — aa
C3H7NO2
spectrogram
6 atoms 0 rings 89.1 g/mol
Phenylalanine (Phe) — aa
C9H11NO2
spectrogram
12 atoms 1 rings 165.2 g/mol
Tryptophan (Trp) — aa
C11H12N2O2
spectrogram
15 atoms 2 rings 204.2 g/mol
Cysteine (Cys) — aa
C3H7NO2S
spectrogram
7 atoms 0 rings 121.2 g/mol
Arginine (Arg) — aa
C6H14N4O2
spectrogram
12 atoms 0 rings 174.2 g/mol