The authors explore ways to enhance users' comprehension of complex applications using music and sound effects to present application-program events that are difficult to detect visually. A prototype system, Infosound, allows developers to create and store musical sequences and sound effects with application events, and have real-time, continuous auditory control of sounds during application execution. InfoSound has been used to create auditory interfaces for two applications: a telephone network service simulation and a parallel computation simulation. The auditory interfaces in these applications helped users detect rapid, multiple-event sequences that were difficult to visually detect using text and graphical interfaces. The authors describe the architecture of InfoSound, the use of the system, and the lessons learned.