The Sound of Time: Tree Rings Making Music
Hearing the Past
Tree rings tell us about our past. They indicate how old a tree is, what the seasons were like during each year, and how the climate changed over time. Dendrochronology is the study of tree ring growth. Tree rings are analyzed in a variety of ways, but what if we could actually hear their stories with our own ears?
Bartholomäus Traumeck created a technique to interpret tree rings on a turntable. He used a digital laser turntable and created an algorithm to assign notes to different depths of the wood. As the record plays it is fed back through a computer in real time. (Don’t try this at home unless your turntable has a digital reader. If you have a needle, it will break.)
Scratching on the Turntable
The Album
This album includes spruce, ash, oak, maple, alder, walnut, and beech wood.
Years by Bartholomäus Traubeck
Into the Grit
The actual sound of a tree ring on a record player may not be very pleasing to listen to.
WARNING: Turn your speakers down as the sound may be startling!
Steemians! What do you think of this sound?
More Information
To learn more about what tree rings tell us about the past and present check out: http://www.environmentalscience.org/dendrochronology-tree-rings-tell-us/
I love the inquisitive nature of humans. It ends up giving us little gems like this. When this person started this project I bet all of his friends told him it wooden work. :)
.... Well he certainly proved his doubters wrong.
Thanks for sharing. Sorry about the bad pun.
@animate
I love the wooden pun! Thanks for the kind words. @animate
The last one broke my ears.
Mine too! :D But interesting huh? @joshtristram
That's really cool. Clever idea. The way that the tree rings layer is so similar to the record. So you'd be listening to the life of the tree from old age to young right?
Yes @design-guy! From old to young, and every season. It can tell a lot about what the tree went through in its life too. 🌲🌳🌴
Fantastic. My mother always talked about doing this and now someone has!
That is so cool @jetblake. A wise idea! Sounds scary before the music processing huh? 🎶🎶
I am a research scientist. We are discovering things that the world would never comprehend. We are finding that light (from our sun)contains coded information. Humans plants and animals have DNA surface receptors that decode the light data. The sound of the tree rings reminds me of what my research is finding out. If the world knew what we know they would freak out. In short, we know that we are not alone and that there is extreme intelligence out there designing and programming our universe
Well I think that's exciting to hear. @jetblake :)
I was considering buying a record player for the @sndbox office and I think this is just one more huge reason to do so. Awesome post!
That would be awesome, but I'd be careful putting anything that's not a record on it still! @sndbox. Maybe I should do an article on the sound of vinyl?
Well, that answer is something I can check off my question list!
@icmultitudes It's one of those things that once you see you have to hear! I'm glad you stopped by to check it out. 🎶🎶
Loved it!
OMG.
Pretty sure I've heard this before - as well as some other similar. Breathtaking.
🎶 Pretty cool huh? @rok-sivante 🎶
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STOPAwesome @steemitboard thanks!
Super cool!
Thank you, more to come if you are interested in peeking back later on my new posts!
This is such an interesting device, and something that has so many possibilities. It reminds me of the Voyager Golden Records that were launched into space in 1977 aboard the 2 Voyager space crafts. Humans sent a floating culture and history container out into the unknown in case an alien race found it and interpreted it. Brilliant post @playitforward