A Nice Walk To Work

This is not my usual route, but one morning I had to go a bit off my usual path to take care of something, and had a really nice surprise. I got to watch the sun rise over the river in my city, and it was breathtaking. Yes, it was early and it was cold, but it was worth it just to catch a glimpse of this sight. Not too shabby for a walk to work, I would say!

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The Sound Of Trees

While browsing the internet, I came across a page which kind of surprised me. Artist Bartholomaus Traubeck has created a vinyl record which plays what tree rings would sound like as music. Yes, you read correctly, tree rings as music. He made a music player which plays slices of trees. By using a turntable, a PlayStation Eye Camera, a a stepper motor to control the arm, and computer running Albeton Live, he was able to interpret the rings of a tree into what they would sound like as music on a vinyl record. He explains on his site, http://traubeck.com, how the rings are interpreted:

“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. 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.”

What ends up being the sound of a tree is a kind of spooky, ominous sounding tune. Not what you would expect from one of the wonders of nature. It’s actually very cool, who knew trees were so spooky deep down?  Here is a link to what one tree sounds like:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZYLaPVi_I2U

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