If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, what does it sound like?
Artist Bartholomäus Traubeck has custom-built a record player that is able to play slices of wood. And the result is eerie!
The result is his artpiece called Years: An audio recording of tree rings being read by a computer and turned into music, much like a record player’s needle reads the grooves on an LP.
The tree rings are actually being translated into the language of music, rather than sounding musical in and of themselves. The custom record player takes in data using a PlayStation Eye Camera and a stepper motor attached to its control arm, and relays the data to a computer. A program called Ableton Live then uses it to generate an eerie piano track.
Though the record player interprets rather than actually plays the tree trunk, the song still varies with each new piece of wood placed on the turntable. WOW!
