“The earth has music for those who listen.”
― George Santayana
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For anyone who has walked through the woods, the idea of nature providing ‘music’ wouldn’t seem so foreign. We rely on nature to intrigue and inspire—a cacophony of creatures, weather and plant life that can relieve us of the burdens of urban living.
Visually, many aspects of nature mirror man-made instruments. Certain flowers, with their horn-like appearances; reeds, resembling flute-like instruments; and perhaps most notably, a segment of a tree trunk, with its annual rings, is reminiscent to a vinyl record.
Sound engineer Bartholomäus Traubeck took notice of this fact and created a turntable that could withstand the physical demands of a wooden ‘record.’ With his invention, the appearance (including thickness and color) of each ring is translated as music.
From Bartholomäus Traubeck‘s site:
A tree’s year rings are analysed [sic] for their strength, thickness and rate of growth. This data serves as basis for a generative process that outputs piano music. It is mapped to a scale which is again defined by the overall appearance 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.
The result? A track called “Years.” Dark. Haunting. Beautiful too.