You’ve probably been to a forest or maybe a natural history museum and seen the rings on a tree stump, one ring for every year. You’ve seen them, felt them, and possibly even smelled them. Well, now you can hear them too. Using a modified turntable, a computer, and some other basic supplies, German artist/engineer Bartholomäus Traubeck has devised a system to use tree rings to make music. He calls it Years. Take a listen.
On his website, Traubeck explains the process:
A tree’s year rings are analysed for their strength, thickness and rate of growth. This data serves as basis for a generative process that outputs piano music based on the year ring data. Those are analyzed for their thickness and growth rate and are then mapped to a scale which is again defined by the overall appeareance [sic] of the wood (ranging from dark to light and from strong texture to light texture). The foundation for the music is certainly found in the defined ruleset of programming and hardware setup, but the data acquired from every tree interprets this ruleset very differently.
In a video comment, the artist goes on to say that this video actually features two different types of trees. (The change happens at 1:07.) “The first one is a more minimalistic fir tree, the second an ash tree with a rather complex texture. … If you put other woods on it the change in sound is even more dramatic, for example with dark walnut wood.”
Traubeck plans to upload some MP3s of different trees to his website soon.
I just don’t know what to say. That’s awesome to listen to. At the same time someone has too much free time and an over active imagination.
That’s the definition of an artist, I think.