A DJ or Disc Jockey makes his or her living with vinyl records, turntables, speakers and a creative playlist. But here’s what happens when the DJ is a media artist and the LP is a disc made of wood:
http://www.cpr.org/classical/blog/turntable-plays-tree-rings-instead-vinyl-grooves-how-did-he-do
One of the skills you should be learning in school is how to see old things in new ways. That’s what Bartholomaus Traubeck did when he saw the potential for music in the “year rings” of a tree trunk. Of course, if you matched up a needle and some speakers with rotating slice of circular wood, the needle would cut it’s own groove in the cellulose and not pick up any sound at all. Forget the needle. Traubeck used a camera to measure the spaces between the rings, their thickness and other textural considerations, then the data was analyzed and translated into notes to be played on a piano.
Of course, this involves the power of algorithm, scale…and imagination.
Traubeck found that different types of trees “play” different modalities of sound. Fir trees are fast growers; they have large gaps between their rings. The music they ‘produce’ sounds very spare and modern…in Traubeck’s chosen key of C minor. Trees with close-together rings, such as the Ash, play much more complex sounds.
Unlike the consistency you’d hear if you played Jethro Tull’s 1977 album titled “Songs From The Wood” over and over, each tree ring sings to the beat of its own drummer. That’s because each time he plays a tree, Traubeck has to decide where on the slab of wood to begin the ‘song.’
Be curious! What do you think the Blue Palo Verde or Ponderosa Pine might sound like?
