\t\t\t\tThis is just amazing …<\/p>\n
My jaw dropped in awe of the ingenuity and utter beauty, but I also felt an immediate rush. Something like,<\/p>\n
OF COURSE.<\/p>\n
Why had no one imagined this before? …<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
… Well, there are probably people who have\u2014no doubt children with minds as fresh as dew\u2014but one clever man was able to bring a most dreamy notion to life in the form of …<\/p>\n
Tree music.<\/p>\n
It’s true. German artist Bartholom\u00e4us Traubeck has coaxed magic from a machine of his own making. It’s a revolutionary turntable (remember those?) that can play \u201crecords\u201d made of tree slices.<\/p>\n
Seriously.<\/p>\n
Somehow, Traubeck’s player reads the rings in a sliver of tree trunk and translates them into piano notes. And I’m not just talking about bing-bang<\/em>, cling-clang<\/em>. I mean MUSIC.<\/p>\n The piece I listened to, called \u201cYears,\u201d is moving. It is a combination of tracks from different trees (a \u201cminimalistic\u201d fir, an ash tree with a \u201crather complex texture,\u201d and so on). The composition is filled with a classical sense of age and time, longing and wisdom. Within the notes, I sensed the passage of a tree’s lifetime in all of its lush joy and ache. Naturally, those rings record more than just the growth of a grand yet silent organism. They reflect the world throughout periods of feast and famine. They reveal seasons. They bear witness to history.<\/p>\n It made me wonder, if I were a tree, what my life’s song might sound like.<\/p>\n You can read an interview with Bartholom\u00e4us Traubeck on the Living on Earth website: Turning Tree Rings Into Music<\/a>. But, before you go, listen to\u00a0…<\/p>\n <\/p>\n